Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket could slash space travel costs by 200% and open new frontier for private investors, says Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield

A successful launch of a rocket with legs by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. may slash the costs of reaching space and give a boost to private space flight, former astronaut Chris Hadfield said.

SpaceX’s launch of the Falcon 9 rocket with its four landing legs, set for March 30, “is hugely important because we’ve thrown away just about every rocket we’ve launched,” Hadfield, 54, a Canadian who has logged about 100 million kilometres (62 million miles) in space, said during an interview in Bloomberg’s Toronto bureau.