SpaceX – An American Success Story Heading to Mars?
Robert Menard
Certified Purchasing Professional,
Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant, Certified Green Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Manager
In September, after a multi-year competition, NASA has selected SpaceX and Boeing for contracts to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station again from the U.S. by 2017. One goal is to minimize reliance on Russia for servicing the orbiting space station, the only option since 2011. The round trip price tag for the Russian space taxi service now exceeds $70 million per seat! SpaceX and Boeing are splitting NASA’s $6.8 billion Commercial Crew Transportation Capability award, or CCTCap, the latest in a series of contracts set up in 2010 to encourage the development of private American manned spaceships. SpaceX will get $2.6 billion and Boeing will receive $4.2 billion.
In Brownsville, TX, abutting the Mexico border, entrepreneur Elon Musk, the South African born, Canadian/American co-founder of PayPal, Tesla principal and CFO/CTO of SpaceX announced that commercial rocket launches could begin by 2016 and could lead to humans traveling to Mars. Ambitious, no doubt, but serial entrepreneur Musk has already earned billions starting PayPal, Tesla, and now SpaceX.
Musk plans to invest $100 million in the world’s first commercial orbital spaceport during the next three to four years. “The long-term goal is to create technology necessary to take humanity beyond Earth,” Musk said. “To take humanity to Mars and establish a base on Mars. So it could very well be that the first person that departs for another planet will depart from this location.”
Musk said he expects the spaceport to handle at least 12 rocket launches per year beginning 3Q2016. TX Gov. Rick Perry has announced a $4.4 million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to the University of Texas at Brownsville. The Texas Enterprise Fund will provide $2.3 million toward the spaceport and an additional $13 million from the Spaceport Trust Fund.
SpaceX is expected to create 300 jobs at the site and other companies to settle there to supply and support SpaceX in its resupply missions for the International Space Station with its unmanned Dragon capsule.
Why does this matter?
If nothing else, it proves that Americans do not need to government involved, be it subsidy, regulation, or other meddling. Neither Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at Apple , nor Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Microsoft needled anything from the U.S. government to fundamentally change the world. Elon Musk and all the rest of us do not need it either. Get out of the way and let free American markets lead the world once again.