鈥淟IKE the smell of a brand-new car.鈥� So said US astronaut Don Pettit as he entered the Dragon space freighter after it docked with the International Space Station last week (see 鈥淪pectacular images show moment SpaceX Dragon docked鈥�).
Pettit鈥檚 words speak to the slickness of the SpaceX craft 鈥� which was, after all, created by a man who has form in making cars. Elon Musk鈥檚 Tesla Motors has done much to make electric cars desirable: its head-turning Roadster revolutionised ideas about what an emissions-free vehicle might achieve.
But SpaceX cannot just build the Roadsters of the space business. Reliable workhorses are what鈥檚 needed, not ritzy performance vehicles. The vast majority of the $60-million cost of a SpaceX launch comes from its Falcon rocket. This currently burns up on re-entry, but the company aims to make it fully reusable. The shuttle fell short of this goal, but SpaceX thinks it can succeed where NASA failed.
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Can it? Tesla Motors is now building on the Roadster鈥檚 technology to roll out a family sedan and an SUV. If SpaceX proves similarly adroit, astronauts can look forward to more new car smells to come.
