SpaceX Launches a Rocket, But Can It Fly Without Elon Musk's Many Millions?
Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal published a compelling story about SpaceX, the space exploration company that hyperentrepreneur Elon Musk is running concurrently with Tesla Motors and that successfully launched a rocket -- called the Falcon 9 -- into a 155-mile orbit last Friday. The piece provides a detailed overview of SpaceX's past woes as evidence that privatizing space travel is a risky proposition, but it doesn’t ask a key question: whether SpaceX can continue competing for the U.S. government's business in light of Musk’s stretched personal finances. It was just a couple of weeks ago that Musk confirmed to VentureBeat that he has been living off the fast-dwindling personal loans of friends. The admission came after Musk revealed -- in a February court filing relating to his divorce from science fiction novelist Justine Musk -- that he ran out of his own money last November.
