Conservatives in Space

By Juliana Paceli

June 4, 2020

As many of you may have heard, SpaceX, is the private company that launched a rocket into the space on May 30, 2020, made history at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is the very first venture into space with humans on board from U.S. soil since the end of the space shuttle program 10 years ago. SpaceX is led by the controversial, yet genius, entrepreneur Elon Musk. Yes, the Tesla guy. Musk had originally created this company to alleviate the costs for the U.S. Government in order to travel in and out of space while simultaneously opening the door for private citizens to leave Earth.

However, Musk has a much deeper goal than simply “traveling into space”, he is looking to colonize Mars. SpaceX is the first privately funded launch program to exist and is seeking to produce new technologies that may be used by NASA and other government agencies similar to commercial airlines. As of right now, the predominant source of income for SpaceX is government contracts through their use of small, low Earth orbit satellites transporting in-bulk merchandise to and from the International Space Station.

SpaceX was founded in 2002 and has been practicing these flight tests since. While Musk is predominantly known for his success in the automobile industry at his other company Tesla, his genius artistry skills have been helping lead the United States in spacecraft transportation and development for two decades. This begs the question, is SpaceX for public transport or solely for government contracts.

SpaceX made a majority of their breakthroughs from 2008-2020. Their first successful private, liquid-propelled rocket to reach Earth’s orbit was launched in 2008 and was safely brought back to earth. Since 2008, they have made several successful missions sending multiple spacecrafts into space and successfully bringing them back to Earth. In 2018 to showcase Falcon Heavy, their payload rocket, Musk and SpaceX launched a red Tesla Roadster convertible into space, complete with a mannequin donning SpaceX’s space suit and blasting David Bowie’s “Starman”.

Moreover, SpaceX’s unique technological advancement is the ability to safely bring back and reuse the main engine. SpaceX’s rockets, Falcon-9 and Falcon Heavy, once separated from their payload, fall back to Earth while correcting their fall to carefully land on a pinpoint standing straight up, autonomously.

As conservatives, I believe a privatized space exploration company will have our better interests at heart. SpaceX is not alone in the private space exploration market either, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Virgin Mobile and Boeing are also making great strides. The scientific progress of colonizing and exploring space will no longer be politicized by majority parties and it could lead to the further creation of other space technology corporations in seeking new technological advancements and innovation.