We got to see what the future of space travel looks like when our friend Drew Hess took us on a private tour of the SpaceX hanger in L.A. Staying in L.A. at our friend Drew's place was a precursor to the rest of our journey. Traveling is something I've always enjoyed, especially when getting to experience new places, people, and things. Drew is one of those people I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know and was the first of many people I'd meet along my way. Interestingly enough, I didn't actually meet Drew until the morning after my first night at his place.
You see, Drew is an engineer for SpaceX. If you haven't heard of SpaceX, you may have heard of another brilliant company, Tesla Motors - both run by Elon Musk. SpaceX is an amazing company, leading the way in space exploration. Many late nights have been spent trying to achieve the high goal of creating rockets that can land themselves and be reused over and over again.
This simple enough idea has the ability to save millions, possibly billions, of dollars in cost building new rockets every time someone wants to get to space. They're currently getting certified by the U.S. Air Force and will hopefully open the door for additional military contracts and funding.
Drew took us on a tour of the facilities giving us a brief history of SpaceX. I'm a huge fan of science fiction and getting to see the real thing was like going to Disney World! Needless to say I had an amazing time hearing about the things SpaceX has done and is trying to accomplish.
Let the new space age begin!