On Feb. 22, the lunar rover Odysseus made history as the first commercial space vehicle to accomplish a soft landing on the moon. The achievement is also a hallmark of the increasing privatization of space exploration and future space travel, with private companies like SpaceX and Intuitive Machines playing key roles alongside federal governments.
Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich welcomes these developments and says that they herald an exciting new age of space travel and exploration. Gingrich indicates that private companies might even dream of putting a man on Mars in the years ahead.
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 is 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.
