NASA, once the sole company in America able to send rockets and astronauts into space, has been dwarfed by the indomitable rise of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Aided by a shrinking budget, the North American Space Agency has suffered many high-profile losses in recent years, as support for space exploration has dwindled. Although the American economy has grown since the golden era of space exploration (by roughly $16.000 trillion in Real GDP) only 0.48% of the Federal government’s budget is committed to NASA, a far cry from the 0.98% which was once invested. Moreover, with the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects on priorities, it seems unlikely that President Joe Biden’s plan for large government will extend to the Space Agency in the same way as in the 1960s. NASA has now changed roles: it is now only a partner in the rejuvenated race to conquer space.
SpaceX won a contract with NASA worth $2.89 billion to send the next humans to the Moon with the agency’s new Artemis programme, named after the Greek Goddess of the wilderness and the hunt. NASA hopes to establish a permanent base with Artemis, which marks a new phase in space exploration, however funding issues are already causing concerns. Only $850 million of the requested $3.3 billion to build a lunar rover has been authorised by congress. NASA’s initial plan was to award two companies with lunar contracts, but budget restrictions prevented them from doing so. Bezos’ Blue Moon design was rejected by the agency, however the Amazon founder shows little signs of ending his pursuit of the stars. After a successful launch with the crew of ‘New Shepard’, including himself, Bezos has now offered to pay NASA $2 billion to cover the costs of his own space flights.
Founded in 2002, SpaceX has become the dominant company in the battle to go to space and win NASA’s approval, primarily aided by their low running costs. This allowed them to outshine the competition of Blue Origin and Dynetics, who were all awarded preliminary contracts for lunar lander designs. But if history has taught us anything, it is that space exploration can be unpredictable, as shown by America’s triumphant landing on the moon on the 20th of July 1969, after being beaten by the USSR in numerous tests, such as Yuri Gagarin’s first space flight in 1961.
The two commercial giants are vying for dominance in space, with other, less threatening entries from Sir Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic underlying the possibility that space can, and will, turn into a business opportunity. International competitors are not so advanced as these new companies, although China’s new programme, with its 6,634 space travel patents filed in the last five years, will raise eyebrows in America as it emerges as the United States’ strongest economic rival.
The prospect of two of the world’s richest men spending their funds to challenge the boundaries of space has already angered some who feel that their money would be better served if it was used to solve the problems on earth; Jeff Bezos’ space flight cost $5.5 billion despite that the crew were only in space for 5 minutes. Not that that money is considerable for a businessman worth 211.4 billion dollars, but the Amazon founder’s poor record of paying taxes has added fuel to the argument’s fire. For those who are excited at the chance to see unprecedented progress in an area which has gone dormant since the shutting down of the Space Shuttle programme in 2011 though, the next decades look bright, and the competition between the two companies will only serve to quicken the pace of that progress.
