GoKawiilSpaceX launched its IPO on the same day the U.S. sent astronauts to the moon for the first time in 54 years. And the timing is appropriate: This is likely the last time NASA will try to send people to deep space without major assistance from a company that emerged from the venture-backed tech scene.
The origins of NASA’s current lunar campaign trace a complicated path back to the second Bush administration, which began developing an enormous rocket and a spacecraft called Orion to return to the moon. By 2010, the project had grown over budget and was pared back — and paired with a new program to back private companies building new orbital rockets.
That decision led to a company-saving contract for SpaceX and a rush of venture capital into extraterrestrial technology, and to the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that is now carrying four Americans and one Canadian around the moon and back.
The SLS is the most powerful operational rocket in the world today. It has flown just once before, when it launched an empty Orion spacecraft on a test flight around the moon in preparation for this week’s historic mission, which will set a record for the furthest humans have gone into the solar system.
Next time around, however, the pressure will be on SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. The two companies are competing to see who will put boots on the lunar regolith.
SLS and Orion were built by NASA’s legacy contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, with a boost from Europe’s Airbus Defense and Space. They were also costly, delayed, and over budget, while SpaceX was flying a fleet of cheap reusable rockets and kicking off a massive cycle of investment into private space.
When NASA decided to head for the moon again in 2019, the agency felt it had to stick with the SLS and Orion.
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