"I Didn't Start Out Wanting To Do Rockets," Says Elon Musk On SpaceX Origin

Billionaire Elon Musk said on Friday that he thought the chance of success for his two companies- Tesla Inc TSLA and SpaceX– was maybe 10%. The SpaceX CEO was speaking at Viva Tech conference in France.

What Happened: Talking about the advent of SpaceX, Musk said that he didn’t start out wanting to do rockets.

Instead, Musk wanted to do a philanthropic mission to mars called Mars Oasis intended to inspire the public. The Space CEO said that he also went to Russia a few times to try to buy some of their nuclear missiles minus the nuclear in 2001. However, he realized that the fundamental issue was cost of access to space and not a question of trying to increase the public’s desire for space and exploration as it is already very high.

“But there needs to be a means, there needs to be a way. There needs to be a radical Improvement in the cost of access to orbit. So I was like I will try starting a rocket company and see if its successful,” Musk said.

After the onset of SpaceX, it was tough going for a while as its first three launches failed, said Musk. “If the fourth one had not succeeded, SpaceX would not exist. It was a very close call.”

Why It Matters: SpaceX attempted its first launch in 2006 which failed. The first successful launch came in the second half of 2008 after two more failed attempts. However, as of today, SpaceX has completed 240 launches in total.

On Sunday, SpaceX launched PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara‘s Satria mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Florida. PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantar is Indonesia's first private satellite telecommunications company.

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