Page 7 - Demo

Doubters of this idea say that the operating cost of such a mission would be far more than SpaceX can afford. But while NASA projects a Mars landing sometime in the 2030s, Musk says that the Mars Colonial Transport could be ready in less than a decade.
There’s no market for it.
The relationship between NASA and SpaceX
is not competitive. Each entity helps the other in projects essential to their operations. NASA contracts with SpaceX to launch satellites that resupply the International Space Station. NASA has been SpaceX’s most important customer for a long time.
However, there are some bounds around what
SpaceX is capable of, and those bounds are
determined by what investors are ready to support.
Because nobody will invest in something that can’t be
marketed, SpaceX’s projects have to have the potential
to turn a profit. But the marketing opportunities of
space exploration are few. “SpaceX could not do Take the Hubble telescope, for
example. Investors have no reason to invest in something that is purely scientific, such as the Hubble, because there is no opportunity to make money from such an investment.
this without NASA. Can’t express enough appreciation.”
NASA is a long way from being obsolete. The agency is still looking towards the future- and its mission is to gather knowledge about space. That is why the mission to Mars is so valued- NASA wants to learn more about it, and it has been working to advance its path to
The only way for a project
such as the Hubble to be profitable, or able to be done by SpaceX, would be if the data gathered from the telescope were valued at certain costs and sold to researchers- which would result in a loss for the scientific community as a whole. Because NASA is a governmental agency, the data of the Hubble is public domain. Anybody could access those images and use them to conduct research.
The American public is willing to pay $1.60 a year to keep the Hubble in space not because they think that profit can be made from it, but because the collection of information is the goal in itself. Knowledge is not something that can be commercialized or privatized.
the planet.
According to NASA’s website, “NASA’s future
will continue to be a story of human exploration, technology, and science.”
SpaceX and NASA are both entities that have a strong claim to the future. They exist in different capacities- SpaceX covers commercial flight and satellite launches, while NASA’s mission is to study and derive knowledge from space exploration. America’s path to space is not the story of one company triumphing over another- our path is defined by the work that will be done by private and public sectors to further our knowledge and our future in space.
“SpaceX could not do this without NASA. Can’t express enough appreciation,” Elon Musk tweeted in February of 2017.
The space industry is a public-private partnership, not a struggle for dominance.
Gwynne Shotwell is president and chief operating officer at SpaceX. She has controlled the day-to-day operations of SpaceX since its founding in 2002.
The WHO’S
WHO? of the commercial space
industry
David W. Thompson is President and CEO of Orbital ATK, the aviation division of parent company Northrop Gruman. ATK designs systems associated with space and aviation.
Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin, which has recently expanded its horizons from sub-orbital to orbital flight. Blue Origin specialized in private human access to space.
Dennis Muilenberg is the president and chief execu- tive officer at Boeing. While Boeing is best known for the manufacture of aviation systems, it is also one of the largest suppliers of satellites globally.
6