

SpaceX
Dreams of Mars in the age of commercial spaceflight
If you had asked me five years ago what my ultimate goal in life was, I would have undoubtedly stated with confidence that it was to take part in the human exploration of Mars. Uplifted, brimming with optimism, and nostalgic for futures yet to pass after reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s unprecedented Mars Trilogy for the second time, I was dead set upon this singular goal. Amidst the throes of life and labor, my longing to live on Mars and personally experience our Solar system in general has remained steadfast and has continued to be fueled by a broad range of science fiction and space opera, among other things.
Now, it has been no easy task to keep those goals intact, and I cannot begin to count the number of times I have communicated those goals to others and experienced something akin to what someone in 1960 maintaining serious goals of visiting space and the Moon might have experienced — usually disdain, sometimes mild interest, and mostly polite dismissal and change of subject. I cannot blame people for this response, for all significant leaps made by humankind have been figuratively laughed out of the room at one time or another, and often just before they succeeded. Spaceflight is one of the best examples, with science fiction initially probing the willingness of the public’s imagination, central scientific and scholarly figures dismissing the possibility outright, and ups and downs of initial experimentation demonstrating both its futility and potential. Ultimately, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Soviet space programs invalidated a great deal of criticism and doubt while simultaneously demonstrating space exploration’s ability to capture the attention of a great many people, albeit under the iron curtain of the Cold War. Even if these programs and their subsequent accomplishments occurred not out of the desire to explore and discover but rather as a means to demonstrate the superiority of a political and economic ideology, it was nevertheless an awe-inspiring period for human exploration, technological development, and scientific inquiry.
Jump approximately half a century forward after Apollo 17 and one will find that the state of astronautics and space exploration are truly difficult to believe, in a sense of both intense disappointment and esteem. The impact of the United States Congress’ complete and utter failure to properly take advantage of the technology developed over the course of the Apollo Program is ever so painfully evident to this day, having led to a series of connected missteps over the course of NASA’s existence. The premature cancellation of the Apollo Program and complete dismissal of the Saturn family of rockets resulted in a five-year period wherein the U.S. was incapable of launching its own astronauts. This event marked the beginning of an apparent trend that saw itself repeated following the shuttering of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011 — the development of which led to the premature retirement of the Saturn family of rockets — in order to free up NASA’s budget to inexplicably allow for the development of another series of rockets as part of President Bush Jr.’s Constellation Program, which later found itself cancelled (for good reason) and again largely revived with the present Space Launch System.
Upon further examination of the Apollo, Space Shuttle, Constellation, and SLS programs, some rather disturbing realities set in. Following the cancellation of Apollo, Congress, the President, the Air Force, and the Department of Defense in general all had significant interest in the pursuance of much more affordable and rapid access to space by way of reusability, something that they all viewed was best achieved by way of a space plane. Each party had their own explicit and varied concepts for what that space plane might look like, and the Air Force, Department of Defense, and NASA were all engaged in scaled studies of demonstrators. To simplify a complex series of events, Congress and President Nixon ultimately decided that there should only be one spaceplane developed, and that that singular vehicle would be required to satisfy the goals of all parties to the greatest extent possible in order to allow its development to tap into the Department of Defense’s budgetary surplus. Furthermore, in order to satisfy the Senators and Congresspeople central to the development of the Apollo Program hardware, NASA was required to make use of all presently existing facilities, hardware, and expertise in their efforts to design and develop what would eventually become the Space Shuttle. As a consequence of this, the Space Shuttle was in no way an optimal design, as it first and foremost was the innate result of political and bureaucratic compromise on a vast scale. In fact, at least one of the two complete failures of the Shuttle (making it the deadliest spacecraft to have ever flown) can in large part be linked directly to one of those compromises, namely the general requirement that the Shuttle be completely reusable, resulting in the use of an exceptionally fragile (it could be broken by falling foam from the Shuttle’s external fuel tank) and complex thermal protection system being flown.
The Constellation Program, enacted by President Bush Jr. and pursued from 2005 to 2009, was even worse off. More or less the political pet project of a Presidential administration in their final term, Constellation was intended to take humans back to the Moon and eventually to Mars, and entailed the development of a super heavy launch vehicle and smaller launch vehicle for crews. Both of these were required to make use of Shuttle hardware and research, thus paving the road for the Space Launch System (SLS) that was to follow after Constellation was cancelled, largely due to massive budget overruns, gross safety concerns, and a NASA budget that was many times too small to support such ventures on a reasonable timescale. Arising from the grave of Constellation, the Obama administration’s Space Launch System and #JourneyToMars campaign began in earnest. Examined now, it is clear that all SLS learned from the failure of the Constellation Program was a strategy of legal obfuscation and legislated requirements of non-transparency, thus making the SLS Program extraordinarily difficult to characterize or cancel. Of course, the hints of commercial lobbyist fingers pulling strings can be easily observed, given that both Constellation and SLS heavily rely upon Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital-ATK, and Aerojet-Rocketdyne; as well as the fact that the districts of the legislative members of space-related committees featured in Congress and the Senate tend to host large manufacturing and testing facilities developed by NASA and the commercial entities listed above. A mere coincidence this is not.
Nevertheless, the subject of commercial involvement in NASA and aerospace endeavors in general brings me to a more positive topic: the modern renaissance being experienced throughout the aerospace industry. While incredible things are being done with satellite miniaturization among other things, my main focus lies upon Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, more commonly known as SpaceX. Founded by the same individual who co-founded Tesla Motors, popularized a vacuum train concept known as the Hyperloop, and created Paypal, SpaceX has from the outset operated towards a single goal of colonizing Mars in order to better ensure the survival of humanity, while also inherently disrupting the aerospace industry (which was at the time ruled by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, later to become the United Launch Alliance monopoly). One could argue that they have thoroughly accomplished the latter goal, as SpaceX currently offers the most affordable launch prices (by a factor of two or more in the U.S.) and is also relentlessly pursuing a strategy of reusability in order to make their launch pricing magnitudes more affordable. Furthermore, SpaceX developed their second launch vehicle and orbital capsule, Falcon and Dragon, so fast and so efficiently that an optimistic NASA-produced estimate of development cost was more than 10 times higher than the reality. Nevertheless, there have been missteps along the way. SpaceX’s recent on-pad failure, captured in a dramatic and highly popularized video, has not been easy and simply demonstrates the inherent difficulties and risks that must be faced when attempting to push the margins with something as sensitive as spaceflight. This is thankfully accepted by the industries who rely upon access to space, and thus SpaceX’s many customers have responded pragmatically, and SpaceX has been treating this failure as another method of examining their vehicle in detail in order to better understand potential routes of failure and consequently ensure that they have the safest possible vehicle to conduct their initial upcoming manned launches.
Most importantly, this mishap has clearly failed to dampen SpaceX’s goal of creating a colony on Mars. In late September 2016, after more than a year and a half of anticipation in the aerospace community, Elon Musk took to the main stage of the International Aeronautical Conference and revealed the spacecraft and launch vehicle that SpaceX intends to use to construct a vast, self-sustaining colony on Mars. Deemed the Interplanetary Transport System, it hopes to exploit complete reusability and the benefits of mass production already demonstrated with the Falcon 9 in order to decrease the cost of trip to Mars by five million percent, thus optimistically opening the figurative gates to Mars by offering a ticket price equivalent to a modern luxury car or averagely priced house ($100,000 to $500,000). The shock value alone is enough to sow doubt in many. The combined spaceship and booster will stand 10 meters taller and 2 meters wider than Saturn V, the currently largest rocket to have ever flown successfully. Used in an expendable configuration, it would be capable of lofting more than four times the payload of Saturn V (550 metric tons), and up to 300 metric tons of payload to low Earth orbit while operating as a fully reusable system. The entire system will have a liftoff mass of 10,500 metric tons and produce 13,000 metric tons of thrust, both nearly four times as much as Saturn V. Framed in a fittingly staggering manner, the ITS booster at launch would momentarily produce as much power as the entire grid of the United States produces on average, 500 gigawatts.
A render of the complete ITS with booster and ship mated.
Seated in the audience of the Guadalajara Expo events room, I will admit that even I was quite skeptical. If successful, SpaceX would be leaping ahead of all competition and truly opening space to the masses, while also completely upsetting current accepted norms of what can be done in space. For perspective, the downright vast International Space Station, constructed over the course of more than a decade with more than 100 launches required at a cost of possibly $100 billion or more, masses in at about 430 metric tons. A single ITS ship could theoretically loft that mass and then some in a single launch, and at a cost of approximately $250 million. While of course that is an unfair comparison, it is still fair to judge the cost of the ISS almost entirely as a reflection of the launch costs, given that the 36 Shuttle launches it required cost NASA at least $50 billion, with the reasonable assumption that each STS launch was around $1.5 billion. Continuing on, SpaceX’s timescale noted that the ITS structure and propulsion systems are expected to be completed by the end of 2018, with complete ITS ship and booster test articles entering test phases in mid-2018 and early 2019 respectively. In this theoretical (and admittedly optimistic) schedule, cargo flights to Mars would begin in 2022, and the first ITS with passengers would depart for Mars in late 2024 (approximately 8 years from today) for a landing in early 2025. The next likeliest “competitor”, NASA, has no public schedule or plan whatsoever for their “#JourneyToMars” and have at best hinted at manned missions beginning in the late 2030s or early 2040s, although such an accomplishment would require massive budget increases for the agency. SpaceX’s claims are truly extraordinary in their audaciousness. Their ultimate goal in creating this rocket and vehicle are to eventually allow for the creation of a self-sustaining colony of hundreds of thousands of people on Mars, an outpost that would optimistically act as a fail-safe for humanity in the event of a global catastrophe on Earth. They hope to make this possible by lowering the ticket price per individual to something under $200,000, or much lower than the average price of a single family home in the United States.
Yet still, two major features of the presentation allayed the majority of my skepticism: not only has the company completed an ITS engine test article and begun to test fire it, they have also completed a full scale carbon composite propellant tank for the spaceship and successfully put it through an initial series of tests. Examined as a technological system, these two aspects are arguably the biggest hurdles for the ITS to solve, as neither technology has ever flown successfully. These successful hardware demonstrations act as a massive source of optimism for SpaceX’s bold goals and timeline, as the breadth of their present-day accomplishments nearly match the sheer boldness of their ambitions. Furthermore, Elon Musk’s incredible desire to make this happen encourages even more optimism when regarding the financing of the development of the ITS, as he has a track record of putting every last penny of his liquid assets into his projects, up to the last day he expects to be able to fund them (evidenced by Tesla and SpaceX). He is now worth upwards of $10 billion and could undoubtedly fund the development of the ITS himself, in the unlikelihood of interested third-party investors.
This is a test-article carbon composite tank SpaceX manufactured to thoroughly vet the technology. Initial tests in Northern Washington have been successful. The first firing of a scaled test article of SpaceX’s Raptor engine, designed to power both the ITS booster and spaceship.
I was lucky enough to experience this extraordinary keynote in person, and even luckier to have had my group recognized by SpaceX and the congress organizers and been given reserved seating near the front row, alongside heads of state, agencies, and commercial aerospace behemoths, not to mention astronautical celebrities like Buzz Aldrin. I was also able to attend dozens of other technical talks, many focused on current robotic exploration of Mars, as well as research into closed habitats intended to allow humans to live comfortably away from Earth while also producing a large percentage of the food they would need. The researcher presenting on habitats also revealed that SpaceX had already approached his group and another.
All told, the 2016 International Astronautical Congress offered a cautiously optimistic view of the future of spaceflight. Elon Musk ended his keynote on the ITS by emphasizing that SpaceX wanted to encourage other companies to begin developing the systems necessary for humans to comfortably journey to and thrive on Mars. SpaceX has no interest in creating a monopoly, the company’s singular desire is to more effectively ensure the survival of humanity, and as Musk said himself, to encourage people to do things that make them excited to get out of bed in the morning. More than ever before, I am nearly certain that I will find my way to Mars well within my lifetime, and I have never been more thrilled to be alive.
Addendum – A New Year
Written a handful of months after the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) was revealed last year, and a similar number of months after the trying loss of Amos-6, the new year has been undoubtedly kind to SpaceX. The company has returned to flight with a vengeance, and is now nearing a steady two week launch cadence. With SES-10, SpaceX successfully reused a recovered Falcon 9 first stage, and then recovered that stage yet again. With the launch of CRS-11 yesterday and its successful docking just minutes ago, SpaceX appears to have successfully reused a Cargo Dragon capsule. Amidst the 7 launches undertaken thus far, SpaceX’s first mission to Mars has been delayed to 2020 as expected, the ITS composite tank as pictured above was tested to destruction in northern Washington-state, and Elon keeps tweeting about a second update to the ITS planned for later this year. Particularly exciting, the center core and one of the booster cores for the inaugural Falcon Heavy launch have already been put through full static fires at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas facilities, with tentative guesses for a launch date ranging from October through December of this year. SpaceX also made a surprise announcement that two wealthy customers had approached the company in a bid to undertake a voyage around the Moon, as early as late next year. Business as usual, in other words!
In the meantime, SpaceX has a myriad of launches scheduled for the final six months of 2017. For those of you who enjoy watching SpaceX’s exceptional live coverage of their launches, you will have no shortage of excitement. With a rapidly improving cadence and first stage recovery already beginning to feel routine, things are looking very bright for SpaceX and it will be truly exciting to see how plans for the ITS have evolved since they were first released. Keep your eyes peeled for Teslarati’s coverage!
Sources
“Constellation Program Lessons Learned.” 2016. Accessed August 29. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015803.pdf.
Heimann, C. F. Larry. 1997. Acceptable Risks: Politics, Policy, and Risky Technologies. University of Michigan Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.14948.
Logsdon, John M. 1986. “The Space Shuttle Program: A Policy Failure?” Science 232 (4754): 1099–1105.
Madsen, Peter M., and Vinit Desai. 2010. “Failing to Learn? The Effects of Failure and Success On Organizational Learning In The Global Orbital Launch Vehicle Industry.” The Academy Of Management Journal 53 (3): 451–76.
McDougall, Walter A. 1997. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Musk, Elon. 2016. “The Interplanetary Transport System and Mars — SpaceX.” Guadalajara Expo Center, September 27.
Simberg, Rand. 2016. “Ending Apolloism.” Accessed September 5. http://transterrestrial.com/papers/EndingApolloism.pdf.
SpaceX
SpaceX’s Starbase nears city status with voter support
With 90% voter support expected, Starbase City could soon become reality. The space-age town will support SpaceX’s mission to Mars.

Starbase is on the cusp of becoming the nation’s newest municipality. Local voters are casting ballots and deciding whether to incorporate the Starbase community. The voting process, which runs until May 3, 2025, could transform the unincorporated area into a space-age city.
Starbase is located in Cameron County’s Rio Grande Valley, 25 miles east of Brownsville, Texas. It is home to SpaceX’s Starship facility and houses fewer than 300 residents, including 120 children.
Elon Musk relocated SpaceX’s headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase in 2024, envisioning a futuristic town for his workforce. Musk pitched the concept of a space-age city four years ago and has repeatedly talked about it over the years.
The proposed Starbase city would span 1.5 square miles—roughly the size of New York’s Central Park. It would potentially house 3,500 SpaceX employees. A petition filed earlier this year triggered the vote to establish Starbase as a Type C municipality. SpaceX believes Starbase needs to be incorporated to support its mission to travel to Mars.
The vote is expected to pass, with 90% of the 279 eligible voters expected to favor establishing a Starbase city. Voters will also select a mayor and two commissioners for the new city. Bobby Peden is currently the only candidate for Mayor of Starbase. Meanwhile, Jordan Buss and Jenna Petrzelka are running for commissioner.
Starbase’s incorporation would mark a bold step in Musk’s vision, creating a hub tailored to SpaceX’s Mars ambitions. As voting continues, the outcome could redefine the Rio Grande Valley, establishing a unique, company-driven municipality centered on space exploration.
SpaceX
Ukraine seeks Starlink alternatives from the EU

Ukraine is exploring EU satellite alternatives to Starlink, driven by concerns over Elon Musk’s unpredictability. Starlink remains vital for Ukraine’s battlefield connectivity and cannot be easily replaced. While the European Union has started developing Starlink alternatives, they have not quite reached SpaceX’s capacity to provide internet connection.
Starlink’s Critical Role and Vulnerabilities
Starlink’s 7,000+ satellite network provides essential connectivity for Ukraine’s military. However, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s influence has raised strategic concerns.
“Elon Musk is, in fact, the guardian of Ukraine’s connectivity on the battlefield. And that’s a strategic vulnerability,” warns Arthur De Liedekerke, Senior Director of European Affairs for Rasmussen Global.
Opinions of Musk have started to influence dealings with any of his companies, including SpaceX and Tesla. Starlink has not escaped criticism due to its relationship with Musk, resulting in a few governments seeking alternatives to SpaceX’s internet services.
For instance, the German military has announced plans to develop a Starlink alternative. Kyiv and the EU are also seeking options to reduce reliance on Starlink.
EU’s Govsatcom as a Near-Term Option
Member of the EU Parliament (MEP) Christophe Grudler pitched the European Union’s Govsatcom system as a viable alternative to Starlink for Ukraine.
“It is clear that if Starlink decides to cut the signal today, we have options, in particular with Govsatcom, which is the European network that we have brought into service and which, from June, will make it possible to supplement Starlink’s missing signal in Ukraine, if necessary,” he said.
Grudler affirmed: “The European Union is very committed to helping Ukraine, so there would certainly be agreement from all the Member States to come to Ukraine’s aid if it no longer had a Starlink signal in the future.”
However, De Liedekerke pointed out that GovSatcom was made for government use. He noted that “GoveSatcom is a governmental secure satellite communications and it’s essentially to provide reliable, secure, strategically autonomous networks for communication services between governments in the EU. It couldn’t replace the kind of battlefield connectivity that we’re discussing for Ukraine. So it’s not a silver bullet at the moment.”
Eutelsat’s Competitive Edge
Eutelsat, a Franco-British operator, offers a low-Earth orbit network with 630 satellites and 35 geostationary ones, though it trails Starlink’s scale. It has 2,000 terminals deployed in Ukraine and 14,000 more planned to deploy. Starlink has 40,000 terminals in Ukraine, used by the military and civilians.
Price is another factor to consider when seeking a Starlink alternative. Eutelsat’s €9,000 terminals are pricier than Starlink’s €500 units.
“Eutelsat is our European champion, one that has convincing functioning solutions. And one that we need to be able to support through funding and political will,” De Liedekerke said, noting its political independence from the U.S.
Iris2 as a Future Solution
The EU’s Iris2 project is another Starlink alternative Ukraine might consider. The Iris2 project is a 290-satellite constellation, promising secure, low-latency connectivity by 2030, with partial operations by 2028.
“From 2028, we will have an operational Iris2 constellation that will be able to provide telecommunications services to all the Member States that so wish. I would add that this will be the first time we have had a constellation secured with post-quantum cryptography, so cyber-attacks will not be possible on this constellation. It will be a world first with an ultra-secure signal, which is not the case with the Starlink signal either,” Grudler said. ‘
Led by the SpaceRISE consortium, Iris2 offers a long-term alternative, though its timeline limits immediate impact.
Strategic Diversification
De Liedekerke has stressed the need for options aside from Starlink.
“It’s about having options. It’s about not having a single point of failure. It’s being able to say no to one and still be online. And today, we’re not in a situation where we can do that. We’ve let Ukraine’s war zone connectivity be in the hands of one man…that’s a strategic vulnerability.
By having options, by having alternatives, by diversifying our partnerships, we avoid that single point of failure.”
Ukraine’s pursuit of EU solutions aims to ensure battlefield resilience. However, the EU has some way to go before it can match Starlink’s reach.
SpaceX
SpaceX pitches subscription model for Trump’s Golden Dome
SpaceX pitched a subscription model for Trump’s Golden Dome. Faster deployment, but at the cost of gov control & steady bills.

SpaceX pitched a subscription model for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome for America.
SpaceX is a frontrunner to build key components of President Trump’s Golden Dome–formerly known as the Iron Dome. In January, President Trump signed an Executive Order to build an Iron Dome missile defense shield to protect America.
The ambitious project has drawn intense interest from defense startups, including Epirus, Ursa Major, and Armada. Companies with long-standing contracts with the U.S. government are also vying to build Trump’s Golden Dome, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
According to six Reuters sources, SpaceX is partnering with Palantir and Anduril on a Golden Dome proposal for the U.S. government.
The trio is pitching a plan to deploy 400 to 1,000+ satellites for missile detection and tracking, with a separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers to neutralize threats. SpaceX will mainly focus on the sensing satellites, not weaponization.
SpaceX reportedly proposed a subscription service model for Trump’s Golden Dome, where the government pays for access rather than owning the system outright. This approach could bypass some Pentagon procurement protocols, enabling faster deployment. However, it risks locking the government into ongoing costs and reduced control over development and pricing.
A few Pentagon officials are concerned about SpaceX’s subscription model for the Golden Dome because it is a rare approach for major defense programs. U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein is exploring whether SpaceX should own and operate its segment or if the U.S. should retain ownership with contractors managing operations.
The Golden Dome’s innovative scope and SpaceX’s subscription model signal a new era for defense contracting. However, Trump’s Golden Dome program is in its early stages, giving the Pentagon time to consider SpaceX’s subscription model proposal. As the Pentagon weighs options, SpaceX’s technical prowess and unconventional approach position it as a key player in Trump’s vision for a robust missile shield.
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