Photo: Air Force Academy Public Affairs (via KOAA News 5)
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado on Thursday, according to KOAA News 5.
Musk was visiting as the distinguished speaker for the Ira C. Eaker Lecture series on National Defense Policy, speaking on topics such as space travel, colonization and the connection between military and commercial space interests.
In addition, Musk spoke about the need for “rapid and complete reusability” of spacecraft, as is evident in SpaceX’s development of the Starship reusable spacecraft.
In the lecture, Musk said, “If we’re not blowing up engines, we’re not trying hard enough.”
After the lecture, Musk took questions from the audience, one of which sparked a conversation about space debris.
#ICYMI – Elon Musk was at #youracademy yesterday.
The tech giant had a Q & A session with Lt. Gen. Clark and cadets and met with a small group of cadets to discuss their research projects and innovations.
More photos at https://t.co/VSS0uJ4snz pic.twitter.com/lekQWLBxlh— U.S. Air Force Academy (@AF_Academy) April 8, 2022
Following the Q&A, Musk met more closely with academy cadets who had presented research about artificial intelligence for drones, rocket cargo research, autonomous mobility, colonization policy and other related areas of study.
You can see the boisterous and enthusiastic welcome of Musk after from the Academy below:
Now that’s an academy welcome! pic.twitter.com/IbgkCshvEH
— U.S. Air Force Academy (@AF_Academy) April 7, 2022
Musk was at the U.S. Air Force Academy just hours before he had to be at Giga Texas for the Cyber Rodeo event.
SpaceX increased the price of its Falcon 9 launches to $67 million last month, citing “excessive levels of inflation” as the cause.
Musk and SpaceX have been increasing the number of military and pentagon contracts it launches over the past few years.
SpaceX is soon set to deploy its reusable Starship spacecraft instead of the Falcon 9 booster and Dragon spacecraft, though initial launches have been delayed multiple times over the past few months.
