BarcelonaOf all his millionaire projects and businesses, none expresses Elon Musk‘s megalomania better than SpaceX, the company with which he wants to colonize Mars and “turn humans into an interplanetary species.” Musk recently announced that he will send the first astronauts to set foot on the Red Planet in four years, six at the most, a deadline that all aerospace engineering experts consider crazy. “We want anyone who wants to be a space traveler to be able to go to Mars! That means you or your family or friends, anyone who dreams of a great adventure. Eventually there will be thousands of Starships traveling to Mars and it will be a glorious spectacle must see!” said Musk himself a few days ago to X, who took the opportunity to make electoralism and warn that his plans could be torpedoed by the bureaucracy if Kamala Harris becomes president of the United States.
The Starship is the largest rocket in existence, built by SpaceX, and which just this past Sunday achieved a new technical feat. In its fifth launch test, the rocket returned to Earth and was caught in the air by giant mechanical arms. A technology that no one but Elon Musk has right now and that goes one step further in the differentiating fact that the Space X rockets already had: they are reusable. Also the other two rockets of SpaceX, the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy (which are named after the Millennium Falcon from the Galaxy War) have a reusable part – which re-enters the atmosphere and lands – which makes launch costs much cheaper. But the feat of mechanical arms achieved last week has left the entire industry speechless.
The Starship is, in fact, the rocket that NASA wants to send to the Moon as a landing module for the first astronauts who will set foot on our satellite more than half a century later. And that’s why the US agency has a $2.9 billion contract with SpaceX. This is NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which is scheduled for 2026 but could be delayed.
And after the Moon, the target for Musk is Mars. An article from New York Times he explained a few days ago, citing anonymous sources within the company, that SpaceX workers are already working on the construction of Martian cities covered with domes and that Musk himself had considered donating his sperm for a future colony on Mars. The billionaire denied both one thing and the other in his X account, and assured that before starting to design future cities it was necessary to get there. And it’s taking steps to do so, as evidenced by the success of the Polaris mission, which just this month tested new extravehicular spacesuits and various technologies that will be used for future space missions.
“Whether you like him or not, that Elon Musk is a visionary who has revolutionized space technology, that’s for sure,” explains the engineer specializing in the space race Rafael Clemente, who has just published the book Beyond Earth. Just over ten years ago, the entry of several American private companies into the space race seemed to start a long race in the background, and within this battle, SpaceX’s struggle to stand out from giants like Boeing was presented as the of David against Goliath. A decade later, the little guy has not only surpassed the giant but has become one.
“For its manned flights in low Earth orbit, NASA is now totally dependent on SpaceX,” explains Clemente. Since 2020, SpaceX has been carrying astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Meanwhile, the first crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner this summer left two astronauts stranded on the ISS for 8 months (they were there for 8 days) because leaks in the spacecraft made it inadvisable to re-board. NASA has already announced that they will return to Earth in February in a SpaceX spacecraft.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and in 2012 it was already worth 12 billion. From 2022, however, with a value of around 140 billion, SpaceX is already the second start-up most valuable in the world, only behind the Chinese ByteDance, creator of TikTok. From the 160 workers it had in 2005, it has grown to around 13,000 today. Musk’s rockets have already flown more than 220 missions to put government and corporate technology into orbit, and are the main launch provider for both NASA and the Pentagon.
Starlink control
“But SpaceX’s real business is not launching rockets but launching satellites: Starlink,” warns Clemente. Musk’s constellation of satellites wants to achieve global internet coverage, reaching the most isolated and remote areas of the planet. SpaceX has already launched more than 4,000 Starlink satellites, a network that has the potential to become the leading provider of connectivity around the world.
“Elon Musk’s control of Starlink gives him unchecked power over elected governments,” says an analysis published by the think tank American Center for a New American Security (CNAS). For example, Musk has put his satellites at the disposal of Ukrainian soldiers, but according to some sources, he has withdrawn them promptly on at least one occasion to prevent an attack by Kyiv on the Russian fleet. Last year the US Department of Defense reached an agreement with SpaceX regarding Starlink, a pact whose content has not been made public but which would allow the US government to participate in such decisions. But as the owner of the network, it’s clear that the billionaire (who doesn’t hide his far-right political ideology) has the final say.
