AUSTIN -- Elon Musk says if mankind doesn't make it to Mars by the time he dies, it'll be the biggest disappointment of his life.I saw the video in the article, it was pretty cool. I used to laugh at those old sci-fi movies of the '50's, showing people landing and taking off in rockets. In my time, rockets have always been disposable. The idea of landing and taking off again in the same rocket seemed unrealistic. But now it seems, it might really have been a vision of the future after all.
Speaking to a packed crowd of several thousand attendees at South by Southwest on Saturday, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX said he might even consider making the journey himself.
"I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact," he said.
For now, he's been focusing his attention on something a bit closer to home. Musk revealed to the crowd that SpaceX is one step closer to developing a reusable rocket, saying the company recently launched a 10-story rocket that burst into the sky, rose 262.8 feet, hovered and landed safely on the pad 34 seconds later using thrust vector and throttle control. To cushion its fall back to the launch pad, the Grasshopper has steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, plus a steel support structure.
Video of the test, which took place at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas, was shown to an enraptured South by Southwest crowd. Musk said it was the first time anyone aside from the video editor and himself had seen the footage, which you can check out below.
"It can land on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter," he said. [...]
Once more, everything old is new again.
Hopefully we will be seeing many more wonderful things from SpaceX.
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