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Have you been looking at a news outlet recently and seen the word SpaceX pop up time and time again? Did you hear about Elon Musk buying Twitter and wonder who this guy is and where he came from?
In the last 5 years particularly, there has been a lot of hype around SpaceX and Elon Musk, even though the company made its first real move back in 2008 when it put a payload into the Earth’s orbit. However, unless you are something of an engineering, physics, or rocket fan, you may not know what to say the next time Mr Musk or SpaceX comes up in conversation at a dinner party.
So, to save you hours of research, here are 5 cool things that everyone needs to know about SpaceX.
It’s a Private Company
Most people have heard of NASA or Russia’s Roscosmos before,and yes, while both groups have put payloads into space, SpaceX was the first privately owned company to match the same feat. So, when it comes to understanding SpaceX, the first thing to look at is how much money has been invested in this company. It’s also worth noting for the sake of competition that Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, has tried to compete with SpaceX in sending rockets up but has not been as successful.
They Are Not in Competition with NASA
It would be easy to deduce from the previous paragraph that perhaps SpaceX competes with NASA,but the two organizations frequently work together. In fact, in 2019, NASA revealed that it was set to pay SpaceX $69 million to smash a Falcon 9 Rocket into an asteroid as part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART.
SpaceX has also worked with NASA consistently to remove faulty satellites from the earth’s orbit, so you can thank SpaceX the next time your satellite TV works without glitching.
Colonization Was the Original Goal
Back to that infamous chap Elon Musk for a second. He founded SpaceX in 2002 with two goals. One of them was to reduce space transportation costs, which he seems to be succeeding with relating to how often the company is hired by NASA. The second goal was the colonization of Mars. However, this has proven to be a much larger task, but it is estimated by SpaceX that they will get humans to Mars by 2029. So, it is worth keeping your fingers crossed that they will reach that deadline.
Reusable Rockets
There is a lot to know about the launch of a rocket. There is the boost stage, the faring stage, and the landing.
However, rockets are divided into two parts that separate, and during successful tests, they are aimed to touch down in the ocean or on an ocean platform. In the future, these parts are going to be made to be reusable, pointing to a more generalized rocket design.
They Have a Great Track Record
If you are a fan of Star Trek, you will probably know how successful SpaceX has been with its launches, etc. However, for the average person, it breaks down like this; they have had 144 successful launches of rockets, 106 successful landings, and 83 flight-proven launches. So, in short, the colonization of Mars looks to be a real possibility at the hands of this company.
