SpaceX, Intuitive Machines herald a new space age

In late February, a historic event occurred on the moon. An American vehicle, for the first time in 51 years, landed on the moon. Not since Apollo 17 have the Americans been back on the moon. Equally amazing, this new vehicle, a moon lander, was in fact at the South Pole. No American vehicle had ever gone to the South Pole. And that’s important, because you see a different part of space and the moon in the South Pole, area is different, has a lot more water, and has a lot of other interesting factors that we’ve been fascinated by, but haven’t been able to get to.

In many ways, the Odysseus lunar lander is a tribute to President Donald J. Trump, who decided when he came into office that we needed to reestablish the dynamic entrepreneurial spirit, the sense of adventure and excitement that President John F. Kennedy had created at Rice University in 1962, when he announced that we would put a man on the moon inside the decade. And we did that. [His] speech [was] in 1962. Seven years later, we had landed a man on the moon.

And we’re off and running now, with private sector entrepreneurs, like Elon Musk, and Cam [sic]  for seeing a whole new level of energy, a new level of drive, and, frankly, a lot more money, because they bring their resources to match up with the government’s resources, and Intuitive Machines, which is the company that built the lunar lander, is part of a series including axiom space, which are working to develop a whole series of private sector opportunities, including the first commercial space station.

Why does this all matter? Because with Musk’s contribution in developing something which Congressman Bob Walker and I had worked on years ago, and that is a reusable rocket, one that could come back down, be used over and over again, [the] feeling now is that some of SpaceX’s rockets may get used 10 to 20 times before they have to be replaced. The drop in cost has been phenomenal. We now do about 10% of the price that we had before Elon Musk came along. And when his starship has developed, which will have 36 rocket engines, it’s going to be the most powerful rocket ever built, and it’s being designed to be reusable. So again, you’re gonna get into constant motion, much lower cost, much greater lifting capacity. And we’re at the beginning of a new era. And that’s why it was exciting to see us go back to the moon, and to know that people are going to follow.

The current plan is by 2025 or 2026, we’ll have the first team landing on the moon again. And this time, we’re going to be on the moon to stay, not just to visit briefly, not just to explore, but to actually begin building a capacity, starting with the kind of station we have in Antarctica, self-contained, available for scientists, gradually expanding, and then becoming ultimately a launching point for learning how we can go to Mars. I think this is an exciting time, and I hope you find it as interesting as I do.