Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Why Elon Musk should fly me to the moon

[iStock] 
issue 13 March 2021

I have just applied to fly around the moon. My chances of being selected are slim, but is it impossible? Hopefully the explosion of Elon Musk’s test rocket shortly after landing in Texas last week may have winnowed down the competition for a place on Yusaku Maezawa’s flight to the moon and back, scheduled for 2023.

That Texas landing was in fact a success, proving it’s possible for a rocket of this size to launch and return intact: third time lucky, the first two rockets tested having exploded on impact. This one blew up too, but after safely landing, and what the report described as a ‘rapid, unscheduled disassembly’ was a glitch unrelated to the landing technology: so I’m confident Musk can sort out these teething problems in the two years left before my hoped-for journey.

I should explain. Before that billionaire, engineer, Tesla CEO and dreamer, Elon Musk, rockets had historically been single-use disposable items.

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