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[b]SpaceX plans first fully reusable launch vehicle[/b] SpaceX CEO and CTO Elon Musk [URL=http://www.spacex.com/npc-luncheon-elon-musk.php]revealed[/URL] Thursday his company's plans to try to build a fully reusable launch vehicle with the objective to exponentially lower the cost to orbit. [i]It's just a very tough engineering problem. I've come to the conclusion that it can be solved. And SpaceX is going to try to do it.[/i] As previewed in a new video animation released by SpaceX today, the company's Falcon rocket first and second stages, along with their Dragon crew and cargo capsule, would use thrusters and engines to deorbit, reenter the atmosphere and each land vertically on land. [i]Now, we could fail. I'm not saying we are certain of success here, but we are going to try to do it. We have a design that on paper, doing the calculations, doing the simulations, it does work. Now we need to make sure those simulations and reality agree because generally, when they don't, reality wins.[/i] Musk, who made the announcement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, said that if they are successful, SpaceX's reusable rocket design would allow for "about a hundred-fold reduction in launch costs." [i]We will see if this works. But it is going to be certainly an exciting journey. And if it does work, it'll be pretty huge. If you look at the cost of a Falcon 9... it's about $50 to $60 million. But the cost of the fuel and oxygen and so forth is only about $200,000. So obviously, if we can reuse the rocket, say, a thousand times, then that would make the capital cost of the rocket for launch only about $50,000.[/i]
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