[geek] 30-second science blogging - One of these days, Alice...

"...to the Moon!" It seems that Elon Musk and his company SpaceX have been up to more than they've been willing to let on - Musk has been using his PayPal fortune to build a reusable space capsule:

"It took SpaceX just over three years to build both a company and a rocket from scratch, including engines, structure, avionics, two launch sites [and to get through the] regulatory crud," [Musk] said. "If we hadn't been forced to go to Kwaj[alein] (sic), we would very likely have launched by now. As it is, total time from zero to launch will be just over three and a half years."

Well, maybe this doesn't move us that much closer to fulfilling Ralph Kramden's immortal words, "Straight to the moon, Alice!". But it seems clearer to me that we are so getting off this rock... [via /.]