NASA Apollo 11 'Not Efficient,' Elon Musk's SpaceX 'A More Effective Model'

Despite completing its mission, a space expert called Apollo 11 wasteful and inefficient. The expert noted that Elon Musk and his company SpaceX can do a better job than NASA in sending spacecraft to the Moon.

Apollo 11 was NASA’s first mission that landed astronauts on the Moon. Officially launched on July 20, 1969, the mission was crewed by the astronauts Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

After spending about eight days in space, the astronauts successfully returned to Earth.

Although the historic event was lauded worldwide as a huge step for the scientific community, former British politician Lembit Opik said that the Apollo 11 mission was generally inefficient and relied on wasteful technology that can only be used once.

Opik is currently the chairman of parliament of the Asgardia, a micro space nation that was founded by a group of people who have launched a satellite into orbit.

“Apollo was virtually done on a total loss system,” Opik told Express. “From everything that was built for Apollo, all we’ve got left is the Lunar Lander on the surface of the Moon, the wreck of the Lunar Excursion Module which crashed back into the Moon and the Apollo 11 capsule in the Smithsonian in America.”

“You have 6,500 tons of fuel and rocket and you send it up with a couple of tons of wreckage in a museum exhibit,” he added. “These are not good economics.”

Based on his assessment, Opik believes that the future lunar and space missions should be more efficient than the Apollo program. For him, this can be achieved through the reusable rocket components developed by SpaceX.

Musk’s aerospace company has been making headlines lately after displaying its ability to successfully and safely retrieve parts of its rockets as they fall back to Earth. According to Opik, this is the type of innovative technology that will carry return missions to the Moon.

“Elon Musk’s Big Falcon Rocket is the second most powerful rocket in history and that’s built on private enterprise, with support from NASA it has to be said,” Opik said.

“But it seems to be an effective model and the reason is that it’s developing probably human-safe, more economical, re-launchable vehicles,” he added.