currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the massachusetts institute of technology and dr huffman it's so great to talk to you thank you very much for your time. pleasure to be here now the world is still massmart eyes by space-x. recent falcon have a launch it was certainly very spectacular after that some people compare it to the launch of sputnik or the landing on the moon i want it all as an engineer do you think that was really such a major technological breakthrough a major milestone in the history of space exploration. no i mean it is evolutionary but what space x. as a whole is trying to accomplish i do think is revolutionary. the idea of strapping together three first stages to make a more powerful rocket is not new the the u.s. has the delta heavy rocket which has been flying for many years now. so that technology is not revolutionary however what space x. has accomplished is to make it a lot more affordable. the rough cost of a delta heavy. it's hard to know exactly but it's in the order of two hundred fifty million dollars the falcon nine the falcon heavy can carry. tw