Investor’s Business Daily has an interview with SpaceX’s Elon Musk. The PayPal founder reports that his space company is profitable despite having failed to place anything into orbit thus far.
“We have been cash flow positive for the last six quarters,” Musk boasts. “We were profitable last year. Revenue was over $100 million. I won’t say how profitable we were, but it was a pretty healthy number.”
SpaceX failed in its two previous attempts to launch its Falcon 1 rocket. The first exploded shortly after takeoff; the second reached space but failed to obtain orbit. Musk and his team will try again in June. SpaceX hopes to significantly undercut its competitors.
“Our nearest competitor there is the Pegasus by Orbital Sciences, although the Falcon 1 has greater capability to orbit than Pegasus. The Pegasus has a NASA list price of $35 million, though I hear you can get it for $30 million commercially. Ours is $8 million,” Musk said.
SpaceX is also developing the larger Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft under NASA’s COTS program. Dragon is being designed to carry cargo and crew to the International Space Station after the space shuttle retires in 2010.
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