Will you remember where you were on May 30th, 2020? On the day that a private company, not NASA, launched astronauts into space for the very first time. Chances are you will. For there were really only two places that you could have been. Either at home quarantining from the coronavirus pandemic or out in the streets, risking contracting COVID-19, to protest the death of George Floyd and the systemic racial injustice that fueled it.
It’s a tumultuous time in American history to say the least. A dark and unnerving time. And it makes celebrating (what should be considered a historic moment) all the more difficult. In fact, it makes it feel almost anti-climatic. At a moment in time when we should be looking inward, reflecting on all the pain going around the country, reflecting on the difficult reality that minorities have to deal with, is it really the right time to be looking up towards the stars, looking out towards the future?
The answer may be hard to pin down. For some, today’s events may be a welcomed distraction. For others, a mere footnote to the greater narrative unfolding before our eyes. But either way, it’s a moment in time that is worth noting, if for no other reason than what it portends. For what it really means. And what it really means is that a whole new era of human space flight is underway.
With a successful launch behind them SpaceX and NASA can now move forward with their rest of their plans, with the rest of their efforts to build an entirely self-sufficient private space industry. One that will ferry NASA’s astronauts to the International Space Station and lead, ultimately, to space tourism, lunar habitats, manned missions to Mars, asteroid mining, and further exploration of the solar system and beyond.
If we left all that up to NASA, to government oversight and budget constraints, it would likely never get done. As witnessed by the fact that we’ve never even gone back to the Moon in the last fifty years since Neil Armstrong first took one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
But now that private industry is involved all that changes. With multiple out-sized personalities like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sir Richard Branson leading the way we could be on the verge of a Cold War style arms race, one that sees the pace of innovation “skyrocket” as companies compete to be in the first in space. Race to plant their flag so to speak on the true final frontier. So make no mistake about it. Today was absolutely a historic day and one worth marking. Even if we do so solemnly.
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