The reduced prices that the launch industry can offer has led to a record amount of active satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO), increasing accessibility to space for smaller providers, students, and enthusiasts, alongside permitting for developments to occur at a previously unthinkable rate.
For SpaceX, the increased demand and lower price has led to the company becoming the most valuable launch contractor in the world, in no small thanks to the reusability of their Falcon 9 rocket. This status has permitted the company to pour billions into the development of Starship, a fully reusable super-heavy launch vehicle; a rocket capable of lifting more than 50 metric tons to LEO. Following the success of Starhopper’s landing test back in 2019, work began on the full scale vehicle and booster.
Standing just over 121 meters tall when fully stacked, the completed ship has flown fully integrated four times, with the fifth flight awaiting FAA approval. In comparison, the government-funded Artemis program has had a singular launch in the same time frame, using the financially bloated Space Launch System (SLS) to send Artemis I on an Earth-Moon flyby. That’s of course not to dig at NASA.
The world of government-backed spaceflight and private enterprise are two separate beasts, and cost overruns are nothing new for a federal program. NASA prefers using cost-plus contracts, which pay whatever the contracted company asks, even in the face of delays or any issues in the manufacturing process. This means companies can sit on contracts for months longer than they need to, swelling the bill for NASA.
This is where firms like SpaceX become so appealing. SpaceX offers fixed-price contracts, which means that whoever pays for a ride aboard one of their rockets pays one fee, and that’s it. If the launch is delayed, or the rocket isn’t ready, SpaceX can’t charge any extra, instead having to bite the fees itself. This permits them to charge unthinkably low amounts for the launch industry. For example, though officially advertised at a price tag of $69.75 million per launch, speculators believe that the cost of a Falcon 9 could in reality be far lower, even under $28 million, which would be considered dirt cheap for LEO access.
This approach to contracting has led to SpaceX becoming a favorite of NASA’s, even going as far as allowing them to handle most crew launch responsibilities as of 2024, done aboard a Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule mounted atop it. That’s not to say SpaceX has a total monopoly on crewed access. The problematic Starliner system, which returned from the International Space Station on September 6th, is also amongst the winners of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Developed by legacy firm Boeing, also known for their work on the Saturn V, the capsule has had a rocky reputation thus far, especially following its international infamy. Especially when it led to the claims that Sunni Williams and Butch Wilmore were stranded, a fallacy given the fact they’re both aboard the ISS, the closest thing to the Ritz in LEO.
Their situation is best compared to a delay at an airport due to a maintenance issue. In this case, rather than replacing a plane, NASA is sending them home on a Crew Dragon instead of the originally intended Starliner. This highlights another benefit of having multiple contractors for a single mission purpose: If one system goes down, there’s always another to step in.
In that regard, the still in-development Dream Chaser, a reusable space plane similar to the Space Shuttle, further compounds the point. Selected as the third option for the CCP, Dream Chaser has two major variants, one for crew and one for cargo. iIn a similar way to there’s both a crew and cargo variant of Dragon. By having three different options, NASA avoids the risk of one rocket being grounded for investigative purposes crippling access to space.
All of this to say that, at the end of the day, it’s better to have more options via private enterprise than trying to figure it all out via a slow, turgid bureaucracy. Perhaps the finest example of this in recent spaceflight would be the successful extra-vehicular activity (EVA) carried out during the Polaris-Dawn mission. The mission, featuring a crew of four private citizens, took humanity the farthest away it’s been from the Earth since 1972.
Regrettably, it mostly drew attention due to the individual who carried out the first of two EVA’s during the mission: Jared Issacman. Issacman serves as the CEO of Shift4, a payment processing company similar in vein to PayPal. This led to some news agencies reporting on the mission as something of a joyride, or instead lamenting it as a sign that space is the restricted domain of the super-rich. These observations ignore the work being done, including the testing of Dragon’s ability to communicate with Starlink while in orbit, the maneuverability of the new SpaceX EVA suit, and the fundraising being done on behalf of St. Jude’s Children Hospital.
Space may not yet be as cheap as an airline ticket. People can’t visit the moon like they’re flying to Miami. However, the price reductions and advancement brought through private enterprise may be the best hope humanity has for actually realizing those aspirations. For some, it may not be the most palatable option, but, at the end of the day, it’s the most viable.
Who knows, maybe even Mars will have a getaway spa one of these days. It’s impossible to say now, but, with the aid of commercial space partners, humanity may figure out an answer to that.
