Tek-Bull

Round Trip to Mars for $500K

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX has announced that it should be ready to take people on trips to Mars and back for as little as $500,000. Extreme Tech reported him saying that the price was so that even average people could take flight. He did also mention during the interview with BBC that the average person “after they’ve made some savings.” It is still an extremely cool development in the world of space flight.

SpaceX, which has already been awarded a contract to make supply runs to the International Space Station, has a goal in mind to make all of their space shuttles reusable. This is how they plan to cut down on the cost of making space shuttles and space flight.

Another way that Musk is proposing to make the shuttle cheaper to create is by refueling it on Mars. This will eliminate the need for carrying fuel, and be able to create a much lighter shuttle. Although, as of yet Musk has not released information on how he proposes to do such a thing.

There are many critics of SpaceX. Some believe private space flight should not be allowed. Others point out that the company has only made seven launches so far, which the first three were failures. They have also yet to actually go to the International Space Station; however, that would actually have more to do with NASA than SpaceX.

The Dragon spacecraft that SpaceX has created is actually quite small, and anyone that would be traveling to Mars would have to spend 214 days inside the shuttle. Also, hopefully there would be screening in place to weed out anyone who has medical problems or who suffers from claustrophobia, and this will not just be whoever has the money can go.