Elon Musk Launches New Era of Space Travel with Reusable Rocket

After 15 years of failed attempts and $1 billion of investment, the moment finally came at 6.30PM PST yesterday when Elon Musk and his company Space X launched the first successful launch of a reusable rocket named Falcon 9.

In this turning point for space travel, Elon Musk has proven the point he has been hoping to make for some time, that you don’t have to discard rockets after they have been used, which was standard practice previously. Now after this successful trial, Musk will look to dramatically reduce the costs of space travel by up to 30%. He joked that he took two boxes of Xanax before Thursday’s launch and felt “calmer than I should have been.”

Reusable rockets form an integral part of Musk’s larger plan to colonise Mars. But he’s not the only one with grand ambitions – Jeff Bezos, now the second richest man in the world, has his own company Blue Origin, also competing to be the first to use a reusable rocket. When Musk was asked about Blue Origin’s plans, he cheekily noted, “What’s that saying about the best form of flattery?”

Alan Stern, a former NASA executive and chairman of the board of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation said, “They are transforming the future of space exploration.”

Check out the launch below: