SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: ‘I Always Thought We Would Fail’

Despite his bravado and confidence, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk actually thought that his private space agency would eventually fail, so now he refers to the company’s recent success as “all upside.”

Fresh from the launch of the Crew Dragon, the capsule that’s now set to become the first privately-owned shuttle to bring NASA astronauts to space, the billionaire visionary said that his 17-year-old space agency has already surpassed all his expectations.

"I always thought we would fail. I thought maybe we had a 10 percent chance of reaching orbit starting out," Musk said during a press conference after the Crew Dragon launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Musk shared that even those around him believed that he would fail and he would often agree.

“When we started SpaceX, they said, 'Oh, you are going to fail.' And I said, 'Well, I agree. I think we probably will fail. They said I would … lose all the money from PayPal, I was, like, 'Well, you are probably right,'" he said.

Despite the obstacles, however, Musk believed that the gamble was all worth it. Aside from being the first private company to successfully navigate its way to the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX is now closer to bringing private individuals to space.

Musk’s bigger vision is to get people to travel around the Moon and build the first Moon base. Once he succeeds that, he aims to travel even further, specifically to Mars and this he hopes to accomplish by 2024.

"I really believe in the future of space. I think it is important that we become a space-faring civilization and be out there among the stars ... We want the things that are in science fiction novels and movies not be science fiction forever. We want them to be real one day," Musk, who was visibly emotional during the presscon, said.

On March 2, SpaceX succeeded in launching the Crew Dragon via its rocket, Falcon 9. It orbited the Earth before proceeding to dock at the ISS without any hitch where it stayed for a few days.

Crew Dragon is currently on its way back to Earth, the final stage before planning the crucial second part of the SpaceX mission — bringing NASA astronauts Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken onboard for the second demo of the mission. The second part will test the capsule’s “in-flight abort” scenario.