Wired’s Chris Anderson interviewed Mega-Entrepreneur Elon Musk about his many projects, including SpaceX and Tesla Motors. Throughout their fairly technical and detailed conversation, Elon when into detail about the rigors of launching rockets and dealing with bad press about cars.
Part of the reason he is here in Texas is to meet with Texas legislature to talk about launch facilities. Elon detailed that SpaceX really needs a third launch site besides Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg; they need a commercial launch facility and they need to be able to launch Eastward and near the equator. As a state, Texas is the leading candidate, but other states are being considered. They have some things to work through like making sure beaches can be closed. If everything works out though, in the best case, SpaceX could be start starting construction next year on a facility in Texas. Launches could happen within two to three years.
In the end, the bulk of the conversation really came down to Elon’s opinion that “the US is a country of explorers and people need to believe that [space travel] is not going to bankrupt them.”