Breaching the final frontier

Space exploration, via crewed ships or robotic probes, has always been limited by the simplest truth of all: escaping the pull of Earth’s gravity is very, very hard. It requires powerful rockets that have, until recently, been usable only once.

Enter Elon Musk, the eccentric billionaire behind Tesla and, of course, SpaceX. Musk has spent years and much of his personal fortune (and taxpayers’, too) exploiting advancements in technology to build the Falcon 9, a rocket that can deliver cargo to low Earth orbit and then return automatically to land at its launch pad.

On Tuesday, SpaceX test flew its newest rocket, the Falcon Heavy, which is essentially three Falcon 9s joined together into a single vehicle. It performed well, lofting its cargo into space (a Tesla sports car playing David Bowie tunes and carr ying a space- suited mannequin). Two of the three Falcon 9s that made up the Falcon Heavy were recovered; the third was destroyed in a failed landing. Still, for a first launch of an incredibly complicated system, this is a massive success.

The Falcon Heavy’s reusability should dramatically bring down the cost of space launches. Relatively affordable, rapid access to space will make true exploration of the solar system possible. It will also permit, for the first time, realistic projects to both colonize other celestial bodies and the development of true private industry in space.

Musk, famous at Tesla for knowing how to extract billions in public subsidies, has built SpaceX around government contracts, so we grant that he hasn’t done this entirely via the free market. But he has introduced competition to what had long been a stagnant industry and has introduced badly needed technological innovations. Mankind’s future does not lie entirely on this Earth, and this week, we took one step closer to making the economic case for a multi- planet society much more workable.