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SpaceX lobbies NASA to foster competitive deep space exploration
Tim Hughes, the senior VP of SpaceX’s global business and government affairs, testified earlier this morning before the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Technology and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology. He put forth a strong argument that it would be in the best interests of both NASA and the United States to encourage commercial competition in pursuit of the exploration of deep space, and that this could be done with concrete goals like improved interplanetary communications, vertically landing spacecraft on the Moon, and sending substantial amounts of cargo to Mars.
Before joining SpaceX, Hughes was the central actor responsible for drafting and supporting the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, which effectively paved the way for NASA’s first programs of commercial competition just two years later. He joined the company in 2005, and has defined SpaceX’s approach to legal and government affairs in the many years since.
Leveraging data related to the major successes and efficiency of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transport Services (COTS) initiative, which began in earnest in 2006, Hughes demonstrated that by awarding SpaceX with funds from COTS, NASA ultimately found themselves with a highly-capable orbital launch vehicle after a relatively miniscule investment of $396 million into the venture. A study later conducted by NASA estimated that developing the same vehicle with a traditional NASA or commercial approach would have cost approximately $4 billion or $1.7 billion respectively, implying that the COTS approach was as much as ten times more efficient than NASA’s own traditional strategies of launch vehicle procurement.
SpaceX’s CRS-11 mission just over a month ago was the company’s 10th successful transport of cargo to the ISS. (SpaceX)
Of course, SpaceX themselves invested over $500 million initially following NASA’s COTS award, but NASA’s bode of confidence in the company likely made it possible in the first place for it to raise that level of funding. The point of this presented data, of course, is to segue into the argument that the introduction of commercial competition into the field of deep space exploration could also benefit NASA in the sense that it might be drastically more cost effective than current approaches. Hughes did not explicitly call out any current programs during his testimony, but the clear figureheads are the Space Launch System and Orion. Such a request from private industry also acts as a bit of a gentle suggestion to those in NASA, related Congressional and Senatorial committees. Subcommittees that past and current traditional strategies of hardware procurement for space exploration may be showing signs of age and obsolescence in the face of more efficient commercial ventures.
In fact, NASA’s Chief of Spaceflight, Bill Gerstenmaier, admitted earlier today in a very rare streak of candor that he “[couldn’t] put a date on humans on Mars” and that that was a result of a severe lack of budget to design and build the myriad technologies, hardware, and vehicles necessary to actually take advantage of a heavy launch vehicle like the Space Launch System. NASA is admittedly beginning to pursue and request industry information for what they are calling a Deep Space Gateway or NEXTSTEP, intended to be a small orbital base or space station located closer to the Moon than to Earth. A successfully-developed DSG would indeed become one completed facet of the architecture needed to bring humans to Mars, and can be compared in concept to SpaceX’s Big Falcon Spaceship in a limited fashion.
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- Boeing (pictured here), SNC, and five other companies all produced concepts that are now being evaluated by NASA for the NEXTSTEP program. (Boeing)
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- Sierra Nevada’s NEXTSTEP cislunar station concept. (SNC)
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- SpaceX’s conceptual Interplanetary Transport System from 2016 was considerably larger and more structurally complex than 2017’s BFR. (SpaceX)
Given Gestenmaier’s frank admittance that NASA’s budget is not presently able to support even a fraction of what is necessary for their “Journey to Mars”, exploring alternative methods of more efficiently exploiting the money NASA could realistically make available for further deep space exploration is almost certainly a major priority, or it at least ought to be. Gertsenmaier’s unspoken need for more efficient methods of exploring Mars and deep space would perfectly mesh with the requested program SpaceX’s Tim Hughes also presented earlier today, and the potential benefits SpaceX might also reap from such an arrangement make it worth serious consideration.
The political and corporate mire that NASA is almost innately intertwined with is the primary and most obvious barrier to the existence of a deep space COTS-esque program, but it is possible that some amount of calculated politicking on behalf of SpaceX could result in the right Senators or Representatives getting behind SpaceX’s mission of cost-effective space exploration.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
The Boring Company signs Abu Dhabi tunnel agreement while adding more Prufrock machines in Nashville.
The Boring Company has signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi to study underground transport and utility tunnels across the emirate, adding a second UAE city to its pipeline as it prepares to also scale up tunneling back home in Nashville.
The deal was signed Thursday at the Liveability and Investment Exhibition (LIVEX 2026) by Boring Company President Steve Davis and Maysarah Mahmoud Salim Eid, director general of the Abu Dhabi Projects and Infrastructure Centre (ADPIC), according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office. Mohamed Ali Al Shorafa, chairman of the emirate’s Department of Municipalities and Transport, attended the signing.
Under the agreement, the two sides will assess feasibility, delivery and operating models for tunnels that could carry passengers or utilities. They will also look at Abu Dhabi’s potential as a regional hub for tunneling work. The current phase is exploratory, and no construction commitment or project budget has been announced.
“Abu Dhabi provides an ideal environment to explore the next generation of underground infrastructure solutions, supported by its ambitious growth vision and strong commitment to advanced technologies,”
Davis said. He added that the company wants to assess how tunnels can “expand urban capacity more efficiently, and enable better use of available space.”
The timing lines up with the money, considering last month, The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D led by the UAE and affiliated investors, valuing the company at $23 billion, as Teslarati reported. That round came with a commitment to build more than 150 kilometers of tunnel across the UAE, separate from the Dubai Loop pilot already under contract with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority. That pilot covers 6.4 kilometers and four stations linking DIFC and Dubai Mall at a cost of about $154 million.
Back home, The Boring Company projects in Nashville are also scaling up, with the company telling local NewsChannel 5 that a third Prufrock machine could start digging the Music City Loop in late October. A fourth is also targeted before the end of the year. Two machines are already mining Nashville limestone at the same time, and work is underway on a new launch site for the third.
The company said it has made more than 300 design and performance upgrades to its original Nashville machine. It is also working with property owners on more than 40 planned stations, with approvals in place for a future Nashville International Airport connection, a downtown station near the Music City Center, and stops at residential towers and the JW Marriott.
Construction on the Music City Loop began the same evening Tennessee and federal regulators approved the project’s lease in February, and the company targeted its first operational segment for late 2026. Back in Las Vegas, The Boring Company has said it plans to double its Vegas Loop station count by year’s end.
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SpaceX brings four astronauts home after 8 months in space, and the return was flawless
SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom returned four Crew-12 astronauts home after 237 days aboard the station.
Four Crew-12 members are back on Earth after 237 days at the International Space Station. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles west of Los Angeles at 11:34 a.m. ET on Thursday.
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev landed one day after undocking from the station’s Harmony module at 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday. NASA confirmed the splashdown minutes later. SpaceX had flagged the 27.5 hour trip home on X while Dragon was still firing its departure burns away from the station.
The descent ran on schedule when Freedom started a nine minute deorbit burn at 10:46 a.m. ET, then hit the thicker atmosphere about 36 minutes later at nearly five miles per second. Chutes deployed at around 18,000 feet, and four main parachutes brought the capsule down to roughly 15 mph at splashdown.
SpaceX fast boats secured Dragon before the recovery ship Shannon hoisted it onto the deck with the crew still inside. Flight surgeons on board ran initial medical checks. All four crew members will be flown ashore by helicopter and then head to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for rehabilitation.
Splashdown of Dragon confirmed! https://t.co/P2o7A3Gytf
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 8, 2026
Crew-12 launched on February 13 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, a flight that also marked the first Falcon 9 booster landing at SpaceX’s new LZ-40 pad. Over the mission, the crew completed 3,792 orbits, covered nearly 101 million miles, and carried out four spacewalks to maintain and upgrade the station.
Meir now has 440 cumulative days in space, which places her in NASA’s top 10. This was the first spaceflight for Hathaway and for Adenot, a French Air Force colonel and former helicopter pilot. Fedyaev, who spent 186 days in orbit on Crew-6 in 2023, has now flown two long duration Dragon missions.
The return closes out a busy stretch of Dragon traffic. Crew-13 arrived on October 1 aboard Crew Dragon Grace, which docked just 7 hours and 55 minutes after liftoff, the fastest launch to docking of any U.S. spacecraft in ISS history. Commander Jessica Watkins, pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov remain aboard alongside the three person Soyuz MS-29 crew.
With Crew-12 gone, the port is clear for CRS-35, a cargo Dragon carrying the final pair of ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays. NASA is holding a post-splashdown teleconference at 1:15 p.m. ET covering both the crew’s return and the upcoming cargo launch.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab
Musk says Tesla and SpaceX will build and run Terafab, with TSMC limited to renting.
Elon Musk has drawn a firm line around who will be in charge of Terafab, the giant chip factory Tesla and SpaceX are planning in Texas.
Musk replied to a post on X arguing that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would most likely end up owning and operating the plant. “No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that,” Musk wrote. “Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.”
In plain terms, a sublease means TSMC could rent a section of the complex to make chips, similar to a tenant renting one floor of an office tower. The building, the equipment decisions and the daily operation would stay with Tesla and SpaceX.
@herbertong @thejefflutz No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that.
Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2026
The comment shuts down speculation that started last week. On October 2, tech journalist Tim Culpan reported that TSMC was exploring ways to help run Terafab’s factories. Musk responded the next day that it was “just discussions, but something may come of it,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That left room for a scenario where the world’s largest contract chipmaker took the wheel. Musk’s latest post closes that door.
Some background helps explain why this matters. Tesla designs its own AI chips today but pays outside companies like TSMC and Samsung to manufacture them. Musk unveiled Terafab in March as a joint project between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, arguing that existing suppliers cannot expand fast enough to meet his companies’ future demand. The goal is to produce enough chips each year to supply one terawatt of computing power, roughly 50 times what the entire global AI chip industry produces now.
Those chips are meant for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, the Cybercab and Full Self-Driving computers, along with chips for SpaceX’s planned data centers in orbit. Owning the factory means Musk’s companies would not have to compete with every other chip customer for time on someone else’s production lines.
Intel is still part of the picture. The company signed on in April to help design, build and package chips for the project, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg this week that Intel will keep working on Terafab despite the TSMC chatter.
The project moved from concept to construction planning over the summer. In August, SpaceX confirmed the Grimes County site about an hour from Houston, sent the county a $10 million payment under its tax abatement deal and said civil work would begin shortly. The first phase carries a $16.8 billion price tag, and total spending across all phases could reach as much as $119 billion.
TSMC chairman C.C. Wei has said a new fab typically takes two to three years to build and another one to two years to reach full output. Tesla and SpaceX have never run one, which is why TSMC’s expertise drew so much attention. Musk’s answer suggests he would rather learn that process in house than hand control of a project this central to Tesla’s robotics and autonomy plans to an outside company.
Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far.
And it will be stunningly beautiful. https://t.co/4NweOqTL7y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
SpaceX brings four astronauts home after 8 months in space, and the return was flawless
Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab
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