Elon Musk Wants You To Go To Space

For those who did not know – which included myself only an hour ago – Elon Musk is the man behind the online payment service PayPal, as well as lead developer of the very first production electric car at Tesla Motors.  Back in 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), a company that specializes in designing and manufacturing space launch vehicles.  Musk is currently the Chief Executive Officer as well as the Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX.

I actually did not know about this until I researched who this guy is but apparently his launch vehicle – the Falcon 1 – was the very first privately funded vehicle to put a satellite into Earth’s orbit, which the company did in September 2009.  With the NASA’s official nod, SpaceX is part of a group of companies that will transport goods to the International Space Station.  SpaceX’s ultimate goals are to make spaceflight much cheaper than it is now and improving reliability.  Another set of goals Elon Musk has in the future is to send astronauts to the International Space Station as well as Mars.  Talk about some lofty goals!

Though this is a bit too soon from booking a spaceflight to the Alpha Quadrant but it is still an exciting prospect nonetheless.