During the last weekend activity of Elon musk on Twitter really was strong. Engineer, billionaire, philanthropist and a genius answered questions from his followers and discussed the direction he wishes to move on his company SpaceX.
Musk also answered a number of questions about the modernization undergone by the Falcon 9 rocket. It first went on the lattice rudders of the first stage, used during landing. Aluminum wheels were replaced with titanium. They do not make the missile much harder, but at the same time able much longer to withstand the high temperatures at the landing stage, which makes them more durable.
After the second successful launch and landing (on the weekend had two starts and two landings) Musk said that the new lattice rudders worked even better than expected and can be used “almost an infinite number of times and without the need of service”. This, in turn, will contribute to a significant reduction in time spent on the preparation of re-runs. Musk said that the company’s goal is to achieve the level of training rockets to re-launch in less than 24 hours.
The head of SpaceX has said that it understands that one of the most significant aspects in the implementation of the plan for the colonization of Mars will be the cost of sending people there. Recently in an interview mediastan New Space Elon said that identified key factors of pricing policy on “resettlement” to Mars.
“You will not be able to create a stable and fully self-sufficient civilization, if the cost of the ticket per person will be $ 10 billion,” commented Elon.
According to Mask, the ticket price should not exceed $ 200,000 per person, which is approximately equal to the average price of a simple house in the United States.
Modernization of missiles and increasing their durability will also increase their economic efficiency. In this case, you will spend less time on the training of media between runs, and the team that will service the exhaust of rockets, you can do less. The more rockets, SpaceX will be able to return back to Earth, the cheaper will become the launches and the tickets for them.
It’s hard to say how many of the ideas of modernization that reduce the costs of operating launch vehicles, SpaceX have in store in the bins, but now it is clear that the company creates a real revolution in policy and methods of conducting space launches and travel and no doubt will continue to do so in the future.
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Nikolai Khizhnyak