While governments do help the advancement of technology, it is primarily dependent on technology entrepreneurs, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Friday in a conversation with science fiction writer Devon Eriksen.
What Happened: Eriksen is the author of the science fiction novel ‘Theft of Fire: Orbital Space #1.’ In the book, the author included Musk’s SpaceX, in addition to NASA, allegedly reaping complaints of it being “too topical.”
Eriksen, however, believes that the criticism is unfair and “statist” given that readers did not mind a mention of the federal agency NASA.
“…if I had credited the bureaucrats at NASA, instead of the entrepreneurs at SpaceX, with conquering the solar system, you would have swallowed that preposterous notion hook, line, and sinker,” he wrote. “No matter how bloated, wasteful, and inefficient NASA is, and continues to be, no matter how many astronauts they kill, statists will continue to believe in them because government.”
Eriksen is convinced that space travel will be enabled by private players, with Starship’s recent successful flight test being an example. The successful flight took place merely 13 months after the first test flight and for a total program cost lower than NASA’s annual budget, Eriksen said.
While SpaceX might not be the player to enable space travel it will nonetheless be a private company, Eriksen said, while adding that governments tend to be far less effective than private players at tech work.
Musk’s Take: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is seemingly in agreement.
“Government helps, but technology advances primarily via technology entrepreneurs,” the CEO replied to Eriksen.
Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday successfully completed the fourth flight test of its Starship launch vehicle, checking all its test flight goals.
The vehicle lifted off at 7:50 a.m. CT from Starbase in Texas on Thursday. The two stages of the vehicle – the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster- separated and the booster subsequently had a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft ignited its engines and went into space, made a controlled re-entry to Earth, and had a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The entire flight lasted one hour and six minutes from launch.
Starship is still in its development phase and will require further testing before it takes humans back to the surface of the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis program. The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
In March, Musk said that the company will “hopefully” have at least six flights of the Starship this year.
NASA also contracted private players, including SpaceX, to enable the transport of astronauts to and from the International Space Station after retiring the Space Shuttle in 2011.
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Image generated using MidJourney and Official SpaceX Photos on Flickr
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