News
Does Elon Musk hold the moral high ground in the commercial space race? Jeff Bezos might disagree.
In the minds of technology-aware people around the globe, Elon Musk holds unique positions in the world of commercial spaceflight:
- Launching and landing rockets.
- Launching and landing reused rockets.
- Launching and landing private rockets funded by the paying customers of a spaceflight company founded with totally private capital.
None of that is to be taken lightly, especially considering Musk’s stated goal of colonizing Mars (and beyond?). All of that combined with the fact that SpaceX’s closest competitors are either centered on rich tourists (Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin) or almost entirely government (contract) funded (Boeing, ULA), and Elon Musk looks to have a type of moral “high ground” over other industry players with a humanity-first approach.
That might not be an entirely fair assessment, though. It’s helpful to first have the full(er) history of commercial spaceflight on hand, and second to have the long-term goals of other players in mind in order to consider where SpaceX really fits in.
A SHORT HISTORY OF COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT
The commercial space industry started shortly after the first satellite was launched in 1957 when the privately-owned Telstar I satellite was put into orbit using a commercially-sponsored rocket in 1962. Congress provided the regulatory framework for such missions shortly after, and hundreds of private satellites were launched in the years following. SpaceX’s earliest predecessor, Space Services, Inc. of America (SSIA), was the first to put a privately owned and operated rocket into space, albeit not into orbit.
- Fun Fact: SSIA is now a star-naming company which has previously contracted cargo space with SpaceX.
After the government provided a better regulatory environment for commercial spaceflight in 1984, SSIA also became the first private company to acquire and use a launch license. In case you’re curious, the rocket didn’t make it to space.
Who was the first private company to make it to orbit on a privately developed rocket, then? That honor would go to Orbital Sciences Corporation (now Orbital ATK, another SpaceX contractor) in 1990, although the rocket was air launched from an airplane. That achievement was followed up by Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne in 2004, another air launched vehicle, although it was a rocket-powered aircraft rather than just a rocket. It still holds the title as the first and only privately-funded manned craft to reach space. Virgin Galactic has taken over its successor, SpaceShipTwo, which is still under development with the primary goal of shuttling rich tourists on suborbital thrill rides.
- Fun Fact: United Launch Alliance (ULA), SpaceX’s only bidding competitor for Air Force contracts, was actually formed only to serve government rocket launch needs after legislation was passed requiring NASA to use private spaceflight companies for non-Space Shuttle essential missions. Boeing and Lockheed Martin, traditional government space and defense contractors, came together to form the ULA venture to serve this need, and the rest is mostly guaranteed-NASA-contract-friendly history. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are also the primary contractors developing NASA’s new Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule. For these reasons, I don’t really consider ULA to be a true part of the “new space race”.
SpaceX entered the history records in 2008 when Falcon 1 reached orbit as the first privately developed liquid fueled rocket. Their record list entries have grown ever since:
- 2010, the Dragon capsule was successfully launched into orbit and recovered, making it the first private capsule to do so.
- 2012, the Dragon capsule made a successful trip to the International Space Station (ISS) as the first private spacecraft to do so.
- 2015, Falcon 9 successfully landed after returning from orbit, the first orbital rocket to do so.
- 2017, a reused Falcon 9 core was successfully launched and landed after returning from orbit, making it the first privately owned rocket to do so.
Right before SpaceX’s 2015 landing, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos finally revealed what his secretive space company, Blue Origin, had been up to. Beating SpaceX’s landing by a month, Bezos revealed footage of Blue Origins’ tourist-industry rocket, New Shepard, successfully launching into space and landing itself. The differences between the two companies’ landing achievements are notable; however, Blue Origin still walked away with first prize.
Even so, in commercial spaceflight history, SpaceX’s reputation as an innovator driving the privatization of the space industry is well deserved. But does Elon Musk get to claim a moral “high ground” given SpaceX’s autonomous origins and humanity-centric goals?
JEFF BEZOS IS A DREAMER, TOO
Blue Origin might call that designation into question. How so, especially when Blue Origin’s rocket is a tourist attraction (with no restroom or regurgitation facilities I might add)?
Well, first of all, according to Bezos it doesn’t have to just be a tourist vehicle. In a recent talk given at the 33rd annual Space Symposium, Bezos suggested that the New Shepard could be used as the first stage of another multi-stage rocket rather than just the single stage for his “Astronaut Experience” tourist adventure. That could (potentially) put New Shepard in line with Falcon 9’s customer base.
Most importantly, though, New Shepard is just the beginning of Blue Origin’s long-term goals for space travel. The engine (BE-4) for their expandable heavy launch vehicle, New Glenn, is under development and will be a prime competitor with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy once in operation.
Back to the “high ground” question, the founder of Amazon had dreams of being a space entrepreneur way before that concept truly existed, and Bezos went into computer science knowing he needed plenty of money to reach that goal. Musk didn’t consider space technology exclusively, but rather went in as a way to be part of pushing humanity’s development forward. Purity of intent? Points for both.
Bezos himself has acknowledged that there are similarities in the goals of both SpaceX and Blue Origin, citing the two companies’ pursuit of vertical landings and quick reusability as the primary ones. For a time, SpaceX was unique in the “new space” arena by not using space tourism as a funding mechanism, but now that they’ve announced their contract to take some very rich customers on a trip around the Moon, they’ve lost that designation. What’s more, Blue Origin has also announced their own Moon program, but it will be to assist with cargo needs for development of a permanent Moon base.
Plus one for Blue Origin.
Both SpaceX and Blue Origin were founded with private funds, and the funding for their developments to date come from a mix of both government and private sources. Technically, Blue Origin is almost entirely privately funded, but they received two rounds of funding from NASA as part of their Commercial Crew Development program that can’t be ignored. Also, their contract with ULA to develop the BE-4 engine (to be used on both Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket series and ULA’s upcoming Vulcan rocket) makes the designation murky. ULA only launches rockets for government cargo, so whether the money Blue Origin receives from them is truly “private” is a matter of money-trail opinion. On a further note, Bezos has pledged to invest an annual billion dollars of his own funds into Blue Origin.
Plus one for Blue Origin, but plus two for SpaceX for already running a viable, profitable space launch company with plenty of private customers.
What about Mars? Well, Elon Musk has made it no secret that Mars is the primary goal of SpaceX’s technology achievements, and he really, really wants to settle humans there to save the species from potential future disaster. Bezos, on the other hand, has likened the purpose of going to Mars as “because it’s cool”. However, Bezos also wants to do all the “heavy lifting” in building the infrastructure necessary for space commercialization to take off. He used the existing Internet and shipping systems to build Amazon, so now he wants to build the Internet and shipping system equivalents in space with Blue Origin’s technology.
Plus one for both, and I think that means the two are even.
MORAL HIGH GROUND?
The answer to the question of moral standing is then, of course, entirely based on one’s opinion of the future of human spaceflight and the roles we should pursue outside of our home planet. Also as an honorable mention for consideration is one’s economic persuasion in the form of a “chicken or the egg” scenario.
Government has taken us to space and enabled a booming satellite communications market, but we haven’t even returned to the Moon since 1972. Would a privatized space industry have us on Mars already? We can further consider that NASA gave us memory foam, Tang, and underwater pens; however, would better, cheaper versions been developed on their own in the commercial sector as the need for such products for Earth-based activities developed independent of government projects?
Once again returning to the question of a greater-purpose-driven space program, does space tourism lead to trickle-down space exploration, i.e., eventual space travel for the average citizen? Or will it take an “infrastructure first” approach to really make that sort of space travel be a reality?
If a space company claims that its long-term goal is to benefit the future of human kind, the use of space tourism certainly looks to be economically justified as a funding mechanism. But does that then mean that the future of humanity in space is being bred on the “bread” (sorry) of the super-rich?
While it wouldn’t be the first time an industry grew in such a way, there exists a population of folks that prefer a little more “purity” in their spaceflight. Yours truly happens to be such a crab, but I also acknowledge that such sentiments come from growing up only knowing space as taught by a science-centric NASA. Space has always been cool because it gives us a broader perspective of our place in the universe. I never fantasized about opening the first deep space McDonald’s (or Rudy Tyler’s Burger Shack if you understand a bad Space Camp movie reference).
Elon Musk was a game changer in the commercial space world by pursuing rockets as a means of bettering humanity. That gave him a “one-up” over Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin for the purist crowd. Now that SpaceX has added millionaire Moon tourism to its manifest, however, and Blue Origin is moving along into non-tourist space developments to build infrastructure, the field is evening out. It’s also prudent to mention that there are many other rocket companies out there developing private vehicles that we’ll be hearing from eventually.
COMING UP
So what’s up next for SpaceX? The Hawthorne-based rocket company will be back to its regularly scheduled history-making programming this summer with the launch of Falcon Heavy, and later this year Crew Dragon is set to launch, making SpaceX one step closer to launching American astronauts on American soil.
First up, however, Falcon 9 will launch on April 30th, carrying NROL-76 into a secretive orbit from SpaceX’s refurbished Apollo pad, Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Not many other details are available about payload, though. It’s for the National Reconnaissance Office, so publicly available information is slim. We should see the first stage make a ground landing as consolation – fingers crossed the video doesn’t cut out!
We can also add this launch to the history books again for SpaceX. This is the first payload SpaceX will have ever launched for the U.S. Department of Defense, having beaten ULA for the contract after threatening to sue the Air Force for the right to bid. Watch out, traditional government launch contractors. SpaceX is moving in to your turf. When Blue Origin is ready to start the bidding war, it will be interesting to see how they work out that ULA relationship.
Stay tuned!
Tesla’s launch of the “Emergency Drive Away” function a few months back offered owners a safe option to evacuate an area if they were in reasonable danger. The function finally got its first use in the real world, but it appears it was by mistake.
A video shared by u/Joshalander in the r/TeslaLounge subreddit recorded the instance from his vehicle and said the incident took place in Austin this past weekend during the city’s F1 Race.
“Was charging around 6 AM this past Sunday in Austin before heading to the F1 race and heard a pop. Looked over and saw the new emergency drive-away feature in action. Genuinely felt bad for the dude when he got out and realized what happened, since he looked exhausted and only seemed to half-read the prompts.”
🚨 Here’s the first look at Tesla’s Emergency Drive Away function in action:
Apparently this driver accidentally enabled it and drove forward; you can see the Supercharger pull with the car.
Tesla said previously this would cost up to $25k if not used properly. https://t.co/B4qQRrsO6B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
Emergency Drive Away unlatches the Supercharger connector from the vehicle, but still causes damage to both the car and the Supercharger. Tesla has said that it will cost up to $25,000 in repairs to have everything fixed back to normal.
Additionally, the company said that if it were not used in an emergency situation, the driver of the vehicle who activated the Emergency Drive Away feature would be responsible for all repair costs.
Tesla constitutes the following situations as reasonable justifications for activating the feature:
- You face an immediate threat to your life or personal safety.
- You must leave the area immediately.
- Exiting the vehicle is unsafe.
- Unplugging the charge connector would unreasonably delay your departure or expose you to a risk to your personal safety.
After using the feature, Tesla requires the driver to schedule Service so the car can be inspected.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab battery design could make robotaxis even cheaper
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with spare room for a future switch to LFP.
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with empty space inside it on purpose, and the reason points to a cheaper robotaxi down the road.
Robert Sumpf, Tesla’s director of mechanical design engineering for battery modules and packs, said the extra room beside and beneath the Cybercab’s modules was left there so the company can move to lithium iron phosphate cells later. “So, we protected this pack to go to an even lower energy dense chemistry as we scale and need to bring LFP into the platform,” Sumpf said in a Cybercab deep dive with Munro Live.
The Cybercab runs on Tesla’s own 4680 cells with a nickel chemistry today. LFP cells store less energy for their size, so a straight swap would cut range. The reserved space lets Tesla add more LFP cells to make up the difference. In return, Tesla would get cells that cost less, run cooler and survive more charge cycles. LFP became the most used EV battery chemistry in the world last year.
Not all of that room was planned for a chemistry change. Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, said part of it exists because “we didn’t need as many batteries as we thought we did.” Tesla told Sandy Munro in early 2025 that it was targeting a Cybercab pack under 50 kWh with close to 300 miles of range.
The pack also breaks from the structural design Tesla used in some Model Y and Cybertruck builds. Instead of potting hundreds of cells into one block, the Cybercab uses four separate, individually sealed modules, so a bad module can be replaced without scrapping the whole pack. Sumpf was blunt about the older approach, giving the Model Y structural battery “a grade D” because it was hard to build and nearly impossible to repair. He estimated a fully structural pack gains about 10% more cell volume, but said “the issue is the service cost.”
That cost matters more for a car that rarely sits parked. Cybercab chief engineer Eric Earley said replacing an entire pack “before half a million miles is a killer on cost,” which is why remanufacturing and serviceability were built into the design from the start.
The same Munro Live tour produced Moravy’s admission that the Cybercab line at Giga Texas is now outpacing Robotaxi deployments, along with a look at the robotaxi’s unorthodox paint process. Tesla is aiming to deliver the first Cybercabs to outside customers by the end of 2026, though Elon Musk has said the vast majority will stay owned by Tesla and run as a transport service.
Sumpf did not give a date for an LFP version, name a cell supplier or say how a chemistry change would affect range. For now, the 4680 cars keep piling up: Texas DMV records from Tuesday list 544 Cybercabs authorized for Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet, more than the 507 Model Ys on the same roster for the first time.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet is its leading competitive advantage in the U.S. airline industry. However, in recent comments, while he described the service as “the biggest competitive advantage” the carrier currently holds, he also acknowledged that the edge is temporary.
“…everybody eventually is going to have high-speed low earth orbit internet connectivity. It’s going to be a must-have. We are going to have a few years of being the only airline that has it at scale, and that’s our mission,” Kirby said. Until everyone has it, United aims to capitalize on its head start by converting trial users into long-term loyal customers.
🚨 United CEO Scott Kirby calls Starlink “the biggest competitive advantage,” but says it’s temporary.
“I think it’s the biggest competitive advantage. And it’s temporary. Like it’s not, everybody eventually is going to have high speed low earth orbit internet connectivity. It’s going to be a must-have. But we are going to have a few years of being the only airline that has it at scale, and that’s our mission.”
“I think we’re going to convince customers that United is the best airline and we’re going to get customers to switch their loyalty, to get our credit card, switch their loyalty to United. Not because of Starlink. They’re going to try us for Starlink and they’re going to stay with all the other technology, and everything else is better, and the technology in particular is so much better than technology other, and it’s accelerating because we’ve got the right tech stack, and because we’re like, our gap is getting wider and wider with our technology every day.”
Next: LAX becomes United’s first 100% Starlink hub in the first half of next year, and the United app will show your Starlink odds for each flight. https://t.co/hToyFWaWj7
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 27, 2026
United has moved faster than its rivals on Starlink installations. As of mid-to-late October 2026, the system was on roughly 43 percent of its fleet, with plans to reach 61 percent by year-end, 87 percent by June 2027, and full fleet coverage by the end of next year.
The airline already operates more Starlink-equipped flights than the rest of the U.S. industry combined. Los Angeles International Airport is scheduled to become United’s first 100 percent Starlink hub in the first half of 2027, and the carrier’s app will display the likelihood that any given flight has the service.
Kirby has pointed to early evidence that the offering influences booking decisions. Some passengers loyal to other airlines are already switching flights for Starlink connectivity, something the airline, along with American Airlines, has tried to leverage against competing airlines. Both companies used status-match programs, and some of those customers are pursuing company-specific credit cards, which signals an intent to stay.
Once onboard, these customers encounter the airline’s broader investments in aircraft, larger seat-back screens, oversized bins, connection tools, and a mobile app that Kirby says outperforms competitors. Wi-Fi satisfaction scores on Starlink-equipped planes have been reported to be nearly double those on aircraft with other systems.
Competitors are moving slowly to do the same. Southwest Airlines began installations in 2025 and expects to complete them soon. Delta is pursuing Amazon’s Leo system, while American expects to start Starlink work in early 2027 and has not yet detailed regional-fleet plans. This timeline gap gives United a multi-year window in which it remains the only major U.S. carrier offering Starlink at scale.
Kirby has framed the strategy as pressing that advantage while simultaneously widening gaps in other technology areas so that customers who try United for the Wi-Fi remain for the overall experience.
The approach reflects a calculated bet that superior in-flight connectivity can accelerate share gains and support longer-term financial targets, including a 10 percent pre-tax margin goal.
High-speed internet is particularly valued by premium and business travelers who can work or stream reliably. As low-Earth-orbit service becomes ubiquitous, the temporary nature of the pure connectivity edge means United’s retention will depend on whether its other product and operational improvements keep pace.
Tesla’s ‘Emergency Drive Away’ function gets its first use in the real world
Tesla’s Cybercab battery design could make robotaxis even cheaper
