Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?  Well, technically, no.  However, we are making good progress.  What am I talking about?  The future.  Both here on Earth and in space. 

The Apollo Era certainly made a splash, but unfortunately it ended up being a rather short victory lap.  The Space Shuttle program seemed quite promising at first, but it too ended with unfulfilled potential and worse left the US without a manned space capability for almost a decade.  After all that, progress to restore human spaceflight to America seemed almost glacial.  We waited for Space Launch System (SLS) and the Commercial Crew Program and received setback after disappointing setback.  The premise behind Commercial Crew was rather clever if only it would yield results.  Two companies were chosen, Boeing and SpaceX, to design and build their own spacecraft to return human spaceflight to American soil.  The idea was that even if one company should experience some kind of technical setback, NASA would be able to fall back to the other company so that a planned mission wouldn’t have to be scrubbed entirely.  It took some time, but recently SpaceX finally achieved readiness and launched a Dragon 2 Capsule (named Endeavour by its passengers) which flew into history on its way to the International Space Station carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken.  This was the Dragon’s first manned test flight, which will be followed up by NASA’s first official mission using the spacecraft.  Unfortunately for Boeing’s Starliner their initial unmanned flight test wasn’t so positive and is again delayed until numerous issues can be worked out.

As wonderful as it is to finally have manned spaceflight into Low Earth Orbit from American soil, that’s hardly “the future”.  Right?  Well as it turns out, Elon Musk and his company SpaceX are hard at work solving that engineering feat too.  Where once a small oceanside village resided in Boca Chica, TX there is now a busy and expanding Starship manufacturing and testing site.  They’ve been steadily refining their manufacturing and design methods and will soon be making a short “hop” or test flight with a new test vehicle.  This isn’t the first time, as just last year they made two short hops with a more crude prototype.  This time it will be with a larger and more complete version of Starship, the rocket design that SpaceX is pinning all their hope on.  When completed, Starship will consist of two fully reusable vehicles that will be attached together as one vehicle during launch.  Upon reaching orbit, the second stage called Starship will continue to orbit while the first stage called Super Heavy will return and land at the launch pad.  Once refueled in orbit Starship will be able to deliver upwards of 100 tons to the Moon, Mars, or almost anywhere else in the Solar System.

The rocketship will also be able to carry potentially up to 100 passengers at a time.  It will be able to do so at a much cheaper price tag than any rocket before thanks to its full reusability.  On a given launch the primary expense will be the fuel since the rocket itself doesn’t have to be scrapped after each flight.  SpaceX isn’t just building all that capability for its own sake though.  No, they have big plans.  Ultimately, nothing short of a fully colonized city on Mars is their goal, with lesser accomplishments along the way.  To that end SpaceX isn’t just planning to build a few Starships, they’re planning to build many of them, as many as a thousand.

That’s… a lot.  It’s also going to require an insane amount of funding to accomplish all of that.  While SpaceX’s launch business is quite good compared to everyone else at the moment, it’s not enough to pay for those lofty goals.  Enter, Starlink.  SpaceX has already launched hundreds of Starlink satellites into orbit with thousands more to follow.  They will soon begin beta testing of the network and begin providing internet service in North America.  It’s aimed at rural areas that either don’t have internet or low quality service.  Starlink is boasting higher speed and better quality than traditional satellite internet service providers.  Some are projecting that Starlink may earn as much as $40 Billion a year (almost twice NASA’s annual budget), and with that profitability SpaceX hopes to achieve its goals.  Before they are done Starlink may have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit providing global internet coverage.

In addition, the US military has signaled interest in both using Starlink and Starship for their own purposes.  The new US Space Force or perhaps some other branch may want to get a Starship to be able to deploy troops almost anywhere in the world within an hour.  This is paralleled by SpaceX’s own aspirations to use Starship on Earth as a high speed passenger service around the world.  Of course, it may take some time for Starship to earn that level of trust with such precious cargo.  On the other hand, high speed cargo of the non-human variety is another possibility.  With full reusability and capability to launch again and again, cargo transport might be an easier goal to achieve in the short term while keeping profitable.  NASA too has expressed interest in Starship as a Moon lander and has even given SpaceX a decent sum to look into the idea.

In short, Starship will be capable of many uses on Earth, the Moon, Mars, and around the Solar System.  If SpaceX can make it work as envisioned “the future” in many ways really will have arrived.  It will make many projects that were unfeasible, suddenly possible.  The sheer amount of lift capacity at relatively low cost will attract many investors that were previously unconvinced.  As was said in the movie Field of Dreams, build it and they will come.  Baseball has been called the American pass time, but trailblazing new frontiers is also an American tradition in more ways than one.  If the US doesn’t press the opportunity to spearhead the final frontier, there are others less friendly that aspire to take the lead. 

(Knowing Bill Whittle’s affinity for the Space Program, maybe what I’ve talked about here is already well known.  Either way, I hope it doesn’t bore anyone and I look forward to any constructive feedback and discussion.  This is my first blog here and hopefully it wasn’t too far into the outfield.)