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Ready to buy a ticket from SpaceX to Mars?

By Han Shasha (People's Daily Online)    18:13, December 22, 2015
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San Francisco, Dec.21 (People’s Daily Online) SpaceX cheered the world up on Monday by guiding a recycled rocket back at a designated area while still deposited the second stage rocket into orbit.

After three failed attempts, it marks a breakthrough not only for SpaceX but also for Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

(Photo: spacex.com)

In January and April, the company tried twice but all their efforts thwarted for the failed system and engine malfunction. What’s worse, the rocket ended in an explosion during the company’s third attempt.

That’s why when the rocket landed, Elon Musk tweeted that “11 satellites deployed to target orbit and Falcon has landed back at Cape Canaveral. Headed to LZ-1. Welcome back, baby!”

Even NASA and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, sent their congratulations.

Everyone is told that the success signifies an upcoming cheaper era for space travel. Traditionally, rockets are discarded after they detach from the space shuttle. Now, a private company makes them reusable.

And that’s not the first time that a rocket was guided to land safely on the earth. Blue Origin, another private company headed by Jeff Bezos made a safe rocket landing on November 24 this year after it travelled 62 miles above Earth.

These successful experiments, although from different companies, may bring more significant changes than people can ever imagine. And it will definitely encourage other private companies to try more and encourage more companies to join the club to explore the outer space.

Well, the club now has already had some front- runners: Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, who established his own space tourism company —— Virgin Galactic, a spaceline for Earth with the goal of democratizing access to space for the benefit of life on earth; Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who designed SpaceShipOne, the first experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with suborbital flight capability that uses a hybrid rocket motor; and Google Lunar X Prize incentivizes space entrepreneurs to land a privately funded robot on the moon.

Life is not about ongoing trivial, but about poem and travel. Maybe only when people really care about remote things, could they change where they live.

Elon Musk’s goal is to “colonize” Mars by creating two “suns” over the Mars to warm up the red planet and turn any frozen carbon dioxide into gas. He even mentioned that SpaceX is currently working on plans for their Mars transit vehicle during an interview this year.

Now the Mars is not a totem for those explorers. It could be a new habitat for human beings. Imagine in 20 years, When SpaceX build a home on Mars, are you willing to sell everything and buy a one-way ticket from Elon Musk to be the first habitants there? 

(Photo: spacex.com)

(For the latest China news, Please follow People's Daily on Twitter and Facebook)(Editor:Bianji,Wu Chengliang)

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