One of the most impressive and proven geniuses of our time after having been a part of some of the world's biggest and most impressive companies in the world like Paypal and Tesla Motors, now it's Elon Musk's SpaceX making headlines once again.
Often called the real-life version of the current logic behind Marvel character Iron Man (played by Robert Downey Jr.), Musk has shown he's one of the top inventors of our time and has the bank accounts to prove it (he's worth $13.3 billion, according to Forbes' last count) - and now Elon Musk's SpaceX has the clearance for military launches, in a move not too different from what Tony Stark would attempt.
Elon Musk's SpaceX, a privately owned space rocket manufacturer that already provides space transport services to NASA, is already one of the top companies in this arena after being founded in 2002; they've created Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft - all of which are designed to be reusable.
Now, according to The Register, Elon Musk's SpaceX has stepped into another frontier: breaking the US space military missions monopoly held by a joint enterprise between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which had basically allowed the two companies to be the only venture allowed to launch military and spy satellites.
BBC reports that the new Elon Musk SpaceX landmark happened after the United States military closely reviewed the company for two years through the US Air Force, checking whether the company complied to the security standards needed for such important launches.
"SpaceX's emergence as a viable commercial launch provider provides the opportunity to compete launch services for the first time in almost a decade," said Deborah Lee James, US Air Force Secretary, according to The Washington Post. "Ultimately, leveraging of the commercial space market drives down cost to the American taxpayer and improves our military's resiliency."
This new Elon Musk SpaceX landmark is a major breakthrough in the so-called democratization of space travel, after the monopoly of this venture had been held by one company since 2006 - and the company's first opportunity to compete with Lockheed Martin-Boeing will be next June.
