The biggest setback with space travel is that it’s super costly. This is not good news for people like Stephen Hawking, a physicist who believes that humans should set up colonies on the moon and Mars. If this is the case, then space travel needs to get a lot cheaper.
During the announcement of his personal dream to create a colony of humans on Mars, business magnate Elon Musk, stated that the cost of space travel (in his case traveling to mars) need to come down by 5 million percent. He went on to state that “this is not easy.”
It might not be easy but Elon Musk is taking baby steps towards realizing his dream of cheaper spaceflight with reusable rockets.
On June 23, 2017, at around 2 PM Eastern Time, Musk’s American Aerospace Manufacturer and Space Transport Services Company, SpaceX will attempt to liftoff a Bulgarian TV satellite into space and the remarkable part of this entire event is that the Falcon 9 rocket that is going to be used for this launch, has been used before. This fourteen story rocket had a successful landing in the Pacific Ocean.
This is not the first time that SpaceX is launching using an already used Falcon 9 rocket and will be another step in the right direction in showing that spaceflight can be more affordable.
You will have to part with $60 million to use the Falcon 9s but this will not be the case in the near future as you will get a 30 percent discount.
We are still far away from cheaper space flights but thanks to SpaceX, the future is promising. The space shuttle program was intended for reuse by NASA but this hasn’t saved money and the refurbishing costs for the used rockets are still high. But don’t get ahead of yourself, for now, just live stream a rocket blasting into space and enjoy the show, it’s pretty awesome.
