In 1962, John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation and the world about the imperative to be a leader in the 20th century’s space race, pursuing the exploration of the final frontier before the Soviet Union could catch up.
This speech — given during a halcyon time when the Democratic Party nominated competent presidential candidates — resonates strongly today, when we find ourselves again engaged in a contest with Russia for control not only of the world around us, but the stars above us as well.
NASA’s budget has steadily shrunk since 1991 (at its peak in 1967, it was ten times bigger than today), leading to a rush of private industry to fill the gaps. Unlike the lofty scientific and exploratory goals of our national space program, private companies like SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and XCOR seek profit first and foremost.
Despite the fact that space is, by definition, empty and desolate, there’s ample profit to be had. Perhaps the most valuable economic endeavor in space lies in spatial imaging, mapping, and data collection.
The California-based space company Planet owns 149 satellites in orbit about 20,000 miles above our heads, each one providing mapping about one million square miles per day. The biggest customer for satellite imaging is, and might always be, intelligence agencies, yet other industries are branching into the field, including finance and energy.
Being able to receive real-time images of the entire Earth, updated each day has tremendous implications for analysis of goods, people, and processes. Yet that may not be the richest plum of renewed space investment.
Does it sound silly to say that we ought to use the moon to make money? It might, not in the least, due to the fact that it cost $350 billion in 1969 to put two men on the moon for a duration of 21 hours. Yet for President Trump, everything in the world, and indeed everything outside the world, represents an opportunity for profit.
His appointment of Charles Miller, a businessman with lengthy experience working with private space companies, to the NASA team signals this resolve. Miller’s most famous contribution to the space exploration industry was to release research in 2015 that concluded NASA could cut operating costs by as much as 90% by establishing a permanent manned base on the moon.
This crew of astronauts could analyze the moon for mineral properties as well as ice deposits (in addition to human requirements, water on the moon could be split into hydrogen and oxygen, creating fuel for outbound missions). Despite Newt Gingrich’s long legacy of cutting government spending, one of his platforms in his 2012 presidential campaign was to establish permanent residency on the moon; his position as a Trump advisor could only accelerate that mission.
If American dreams of moon colonies seem too esoteric, understand that the 21st century space race has returned a key component of the 20th: the antagonism of Russia. Vladimir Putin champions the cause of Russia in all arenas: the Middle East, global oil outflow, and now space as well.
Russia will launch a space probe next year, the Luna-25 mission (a continuation of the Soviet Luna program, which last launched a probe in 1974) intended to land on the moon and take surveys of the lunar surface. The $3 billion project has lofty ambitions, including capturing fragments from comet tails that are currently unknown to science, but is a mining expedition first and foremost.
Russia’s great interest in the moon is rare earths, as the country produces less than 1% of the global supply and is desperately seeking independence from their supply lines in China and Australia. Russia’s Department of Lunar and Planetary Research believes that it could potentially be cheaper to build a supply line from the moon than from China, especially if global supply dwindles and prices rise.
The future of space is profoundly hard to divine, yet there’s no question that intense competition is producing new endeavors, new technology, and new policies. With much greater issues of foreign and domestic policy on his plate, President Trump likely will not give space exploration much more than perfunctory attention through his administration. It will likely be up to private space companies to keep pace with foreign exploration and face the challenges Kennedy described over half a century ago.
Regards,
Ethan Warrick
Editor
Wealth Authority
