Is privatization the next big leap into space? Is it the one that takes us to lunar mining colonies and solar panel farms in orbit and cruises to Mars and Saturn? It might be.
Industry drives development as much as military or scientific research, and it brings it straight into popular culture in a way the others don’t. That’s when technologies really take off. (Look at the Internet if nothing else and how it’s transformed society, the way we get information and communicate.)
Speaking of which…a California-based company launched a privately built rocket and capsule into space just this past December.
The company—SpaceX—plans to enter headlong into the space race by transporting payloads and even astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). In fact, the company has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to provide a dozen transport rockets of at least 20-ton capacity, according to the BBC. The dozen rockets will carry payloads to the ISS through 2016.
And here’s the thing, really. Is it so surprising that private companies are starting to join the space race? (If we’d asked that question 50 years ago, definitely. Today, not really.)
But SpaceX’s contract with NASA is part of the U.S. government’s effort to move some of the burden of space exploration into the private sector.
So here we go. All those sci-fi movies about space mining stations (and creatures running around terrorizing everyone)—they all start here.
