Now that the Falcon 9 has flown, the Falcon 9 Heavy is looking a lot closer.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the success of SpaceX is that they have designed and orbited multiple clean-sheet design engines; the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles; and a test article for a cargo/manned space capsule for about $500M. That’s comparable to the fully burdened (Not the incremental) cost of one shuttle flight. I believe it is less than the escape system development cost on the dead-on-arrival Ares I project.
But how soon before I could buy a ticket to the moon? (I want to harvest all that cheese!) And how much would it cost me?
Damn
It does seem to be happening! And fairly fast! As Obama has shown he doesn’t much care for space (a good thing! – and hence he is letting private companies run the show), I guess we aren’t as worried about regulatory uncertainty as say, in health care or financial markets?