Elon Musk loves NASA, and he has the old password to prove it
SpaceX founder Elon Musk really loves NASA, and with good reason.
Without NASA's advances in spaceflight, commercial rocketeers like Musk would have a limited understanding of how to safely fly to orbit.
In fact, a former password used by Musk reveals his love for the American space agency.
"NASA has been an amazing partner for us," Musk said during a call with reporters about an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket set to fly this week.
"I love NASA so much that literally my password was ‘ILoveNASA’." (Musk actually loves talking about this password, having mentioned it a few times in the past few years.)
In the past decade, NASA has helped SpaceX along as it refined its rockets and spacecraft to meet safety and reliability expectations for launching expensive satellites and other payloads to orbit. Today, those kinds of SpaceX missions are now pretty routine.
That said, it's not as if everything has always been easy peasy with SpaceX and the agency.
"Just like a friend that really cares, they can be a pain in the ass, but I love NASA so much," he said.
NASA has a vested interest in SpaceX's success. The space agency is planning to pay the company to launch astronauts to the International Space Station in the coming years as part of its commercial crew program. Right now, NASA pays nearly $75 million per seat aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
NASA believes SpaceX, and other commercial suppliers, can provide this service at a substantially lower cost. But first, SpaceX must spend the next two years or so meeting NASA's stringent safety standards for crewed flights.
"There are thousands, and thousands, and thousands of requirements," said Musk.
The upgraded Falcon 9 rocket launching this week that will one day launch astronauts into space, called "block 5," has a number of refinements that Musk believes will cement its status as the premier rocket on Earth -- until SpaceX's future rocket, the Big Falcon Rocket, comes into play, anyway.
The new version of the Falcon 9 "is designed to be the most reliable rocket ever built," said Musk.
The Falcon 9 block 5 has more powerful engines, improved heat protection, and sturdier grid fins (which help guide the rocket back down to Earth).
The greater goal for this rocket booster is that after the rocket lands, it won't need any expensive refurbishing before being ready for its next launch. This cuts costs and generally would make the SpaceX rocket-launching program vastly more efficient.
Musk said the block 5 should be able to fly into space 10 times without any planned rehabilitation.
According to Musk, SpaceX plans to land a Falcon 9 rocket, and then relaunch that very rocket back into space within 24 hours in 2019.
Mark was the science editor at Mashable. After working as a ranger with the National Park Service, he started a reporting career after seeing the extraordinary value in educating people about the happenings on Earth, and beyond.
He's descended 2,500 feet into the ocean depths in search of the sixgill shark, ventured into the halls of top R&D laboratories, and interviewed some of the most fascinating scientists in the world.
