The Cosmic Cheerleaders
Despite the profound hazards of human deep-space travel, it has been relentlessly promoted and advanced by a cadre of cosmic cheerleaders.
To attend any meeting of these advocates for deep-space travel is to encounter a mild version of a cult. There are NASA conferences of its funded scientists, where the researchers detail their studies of the effects of deep space. There are space enthusiasts’ meetings that feature rosy visions of daring human space missions and spacious Mars colonies. And, there are corporate and professional society conferences, where aerospace companies advertise their products and technologies with elaborate displays and seminars.
These groups ignore the profound political, economic, technological, and medical obstacles to human deep-space exploration in favor of relentless optimism and self-interest. That self-interest includes seeking funding, political advantage, and/or corporate profits; or enthusiasm for the romance of space travel.
NASA Promoting Its Self-Interest
NASA is among the most prominent cosmic cheerleaders because it recognizes that major portions of its budget are, in essence, elective. Human space exploration, space telescopes, and robotic space probes in themselves are not necessary for the practical welfare. NASA is, thus, unlike such agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Agriculture, or the Department of Defense. It cannot justify the space exploration part of its budget as preventing disease, aiding food production, or defending the country.
So, to foster its economic and political survival, it has become a master pitchman to the public—selling the “sizzle” of space travel. Its visitor centers—most notably at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center and Houston’s Johnson Space Center—are major tourist attractions, together attracting millions of visitors a year.
The centers feature dramatic, colorful exhibits, tours, and extensive gift shops.[1] In particular, Kennedy Space Center’s elaborate “Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex” uses ride simulators to take visitors on missions to such destinations as Mars and distant exoplanets.[2] The visitor complex is operated for NASA by Delaware North, a gambling and entertainment management company.
NASA’s videos for public consumption are dramatic and elaborately produced. For example, one touting its Artemis lunar exploration program, which has reached millions of viewers, is basically a glossy advertisement for the program.[3] The Artemis video description declares that:
While Apollo placed the first steps on the Moon, Artemis opens the door for humanity to sustainably work and live on another world for the first time. Using the lunar surface as a proving ground for living on Mars, this next chapter in exploration will forever establish our presence in the stars. We are returning to the Moon—to stay—and this is how we are going!
Such promotional videos include NASA’s Visions of the Future, a science-fiction-tinged dramatization of missions to the moon, Mars, Venus, and even kayaking on Titan.[4] And another promotional video on NASA’s plans is vividly titled To the Moon, Mars, and Beyond.[5]
NASA has even produced a graphic novel, First Woman: NASA's Promise for Humanity, which “tells the story of a fictional astronaut named Callie Rodriguez—the first woman and person of color to land on the lunar surface—and her robot sidekick RT.”[6]
NASA’s websites also feature elaborate videos, graphics, and animations depicting NASA’s missions.[7] For example, the web page for the Artemis program declares hyperbolically “Our success will change the world.”[8]
NASA also courts the media, providing simulations, real-time video feeds, and elaborate press materials to engage the media, and thus the public. While all government agencies have public information offices, as journalist Clyde Haberman declared of NASA’s media relations efforts:
Yes, slipping the bonds of Earth was, of itself, a beguiling goal. But NASA grasped early on that if taxpayers were to accept pouring billions of their dollars into the project, a measure of slick salesmanship would be required. Thus, NASA press kits became almost as important as computer chips.[9]
Missing from NASA’s cheerleading public and media communications are the factual, detailed explanations of the obstacles to human deep-space travel, as covered in this book. NASA knows, or at least should know, that these obstacles are enormous. In part, the ignorance of those obstacles may reflect wish fulfillment. But in part, it may be willful.
So, NASA produces promotional articles such as one titled “Space Radiation Won’t Stop NASA’s Human Exploration.” The article leads with:
While it’s true that space radiation is one of the biggest challenges for a human journey to Mars, it’s also true that NASA is developing technologies and countermeasures to ensure a safe and successful journey to the red planet.[10]
As discussed earlier, nothing could be farther from the truth. NASA’s own reports include radiation hazards as among a raft of unsolved “Red Risks” of human space travel that are far from being solved, or even understood.[11]
To some extent, NASA’s aggressive self-advocacy and dual personality as both federal agency and promoter are understandable. Like any government agency, it seeks to justify and support its budget. And to an extent, NASA is answering the public demand for information on its fascinating and dramatic missions. In fact, Congress would no doubt criticize NASA for not meeting the demand for educational resources, and even profit-making tourist attractions, tours, and souvenirs.
However, NASA’s prioritizing of human spaceflight—to which it devotes almost half its annual budget—reflects a somewhat cynical adage coined decades ago: “No Buck Rogers, no bucks.”[12] [13]
However, one could argue that such a priority robs NASA of the ability to fund science and even to maintain its own infrastructure. Indeed, a report by the National Academies on NASA’s infrastructure, workforce, and technology found deficiencies so severe that “the unique and critical capabilities the agency provides to the United States are eroding and will be inevitably lost if certain trends are not reversed.”[14] The committee found that NASA’s aging facilities are “some of the worst facilities many of its members have ever seen.”[15]
Despite its prominence, human spaceflight is not necessarily a part of NASA’s goals. Certainly, it is not explicitly mentioned in its mission statement: “NASA explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery.”
Scientists Protecting Their Careers
Unlike the other cosmic cheerleaders, scientists have not actively advocated for human deep space travel. However, those funded by NASA have, in essence, committed a sin of omission by not actively and publicly communicating its profound, even lethal, hazards. True, in discussing their own work they have expressed that their findings reveal specific dangers, as shown in the previous chapters on biological and medical effects. But none has emphasized that the sum of such research reveals that human deep space travel is currently untenable.
Of course, one reason for their diffidence is that they don’t want to bite the hand that funds them. Almost certainly, any scientist who spoke out against human deep space travel would not find a welcome funder in NASA.
Another reason for their communication sin of omission is that scientists tend to conservatively downplay conclusions that they judge sensational, such as that human deep space travel is overwhelmingly lethal. This conservatism was termed “Erring on the side of least drama,” by historian Naomi Oreskes and colleagues in a paper on climate scientists’ tendency to temper their predictions of climate change impacts.[16] They wrote that the tendency came from “an internal pressure arising from norms of objectivity, restraint, etc.” And that it “may cause scientists to underpredict or downplay future climate changes.” The very same tendency applies to researchers studying the medical and biological effects of space travel.
Like other scientists, space scientists also seek to preserve their reputation as carefully conservative. In another article about climate scientists, Oreskes and colleagues wrote that they worry about losing credibility if they overestimate a threat; but if they underestimate the threat, they will suffer little, if any, impact on their reputation. So, they protect themselves “by down-playing known risks and denying critics the opportunity to label them as alarmists.”[17] The same conservative tendency also applies to space scientists.
Self-Serving Politicians
Politicians have been major cosmic cheerleaders for the human space program from its earliest days. Such missions are dramatic in a way that politicians find advantageous. Space launches are far more public and thrilling than, say, a new highway or a sewage treatment plant. So, politicians can bask in the reflected glow of space missions for which they have helped gain funding.
Politicians’ space exploration cheerleading reaches to the very top, in the form of the White House’s National Space Council.[18] The Council declares in its priorities statement:
. . . U.S. human and robotic space exploration missions will land the first woman and person of color on the Moon, advance a robust cislunar ecosystem, continue to leverage human presence in low-Earth orbit to enable people to live and work safely in space, and prepare for future missions to Mars and beyond.[19]
No surprise that the Council’s Users’ Advisory Committee is populated mainly by aerospace company representatives, with no medical experts and only one ethicist.
Politicians also benefit from the fact that the space program is job-creating in their district’s NASA centers and NASA-funded companies.
To be cynical, even the disasters such as those that occurred during the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs give politicians golden opportunities to grandstand. They gain visibility as staunch champions of accountability at public hearings and investigations. And they come off as stalwart saviors when they support efforts to recover from disasters.
An utter cynic might even believe that politicians set up such programs for advantageous failure. That is, they squeeze the budgets for such programs so much that dangerous shortcuts might have to be made. And they impose short, and artificial, deadlines that make catastrophe more likely, which they can then investigate. As discussed previously, politics, in fact, were the ultimate causes of the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters.
In their selfish advocacy for such programs as a Mars mission, politicians are certainly not following public sentiment. A 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that, while 69% of respondents agreed that it is essential that the US continue to be a leader in space exploration, that exploration does not include human exploration. A very low percentage of respondents believed that human moon (12%) or Mars (11%) mission should be a top priority. A significant percentage agreed that moon (41%) or Mars (43%) missions are not important or should not be done at all.[20]
Similarly, a 2021 survey of more than 2,000 adults found that they rated as a priority monitoring Earth’s climate (63%) and monitoring asteroids that might strike Earth (62%). But only 33% replied that sending astronauts to the moon or Mars should be a priority.[21]
Zealous Enthusiasts
Private groups of space enthusiasts are also among the cosmic cheerleaders. Often self-described as evangelists, they host conferences heavy on futuristic drama, such as idealized concepts for lunar and Martian colonies, and light on hard science.
Such groups include:
Profit-Seeking Space-Industrial Complex
The aerospace industry is undoubtedly the most well-funded cosmic cheerleader. The industry has garnered significant profits from the human space program, often with no incentive to perform efficiently.
NASA has two funding modes, space exploration advocate Robert Zubrin has declared. It spends money to do things, and it does things to spend money. The highly successful unmanned space science program constitutes spending money to do things—examples being the brilliantly engineered James Webb Telescope and Mars landers.
However, the wasteful practice of doing things to spend money is an apt description of the human deep-space exploration missions. Prime examples are the massive payments to corporations, including Aerojet Rocketdyne, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, to build the equipment for the Artemis program.[27]
A key source of industry’s massive profits has been the “cost-plus” mechanism by which NASA has often paid industry to develop such systems. In this funding practice, NASA contracts with companies to build a system for whatever it costs the company to build it, plus a fee. With such a system, companies have no incentive to save money. In fact, they are incentivized to draw out contracts as long as possible.
A more cost-effective alternative is a fixed-price contract, in which companies bid a fixed price on a project. If the winner accomplishes the contract under budget, it makes a profit. If not, it loses money.
NASA only recently began to appreciate the massive pitfalls of cost-plus contracts. In 2022, then-NASA administrator Bill Nelson declared in a Senate hearing that a fixed-price contract policy “allows us to move away from what has been a plague on us in the past, which is a cost-plus contract.”[28]
In the early days of the space program, cost-plus contracts made some sense, given that companies were asked to take risks on complex, untried technologies. However, today building rockets is not, well, “rocket science.” For instance, the Space Launch System (SLS) derives much of its engine, fuel, and booster technology from the Space Shuttle.[29]
Nevertheless, the contract to Boeing for the SLS is a classic case of cost-plus insanity. The SLS is years late and vastly over budget. However, NASA was pressured into giving Boeing a cost-plus contract to the company’s Alabama facility because the Alabama congressional delegation includes a Senator who is key to supporting NASA’s budget.[30]
NASA’s Inspector General (IG) concluded in a 2020 study that “Boeing’s poor performance,” due to politically driven budgeting, was mostly responsible for delays and cost overruns.[31]
Despite the disadvantages of cost-plus contracts, the fiscal insanity will likely continue, according to the Government Accounting Office, which audits government spending. The GAO declared in a 2023 report that NASA “does not plan to measure production costs to monitor the affordability of . . . the Space Launch System (SLS).” It found that “NASA plans to spend billions of dollars to continue producing multiple SLS components, such as core stages and rocket engines, needed for future Artemis missions.” The report said that NASA itself told GAO that “at current cost levels, the SLS program is unaffordable.”[32]
In fact, NASA has favored Boeing over the private company SpaceX, found the OIG. That favoritism included excluding SpaceX from proposing a solution to SLS production delays. Also, the report found, Boeing’s cost per seat to launch an astronaut would be about 60% more than SpaceX’s.[33]
The IG also found massive cost overruns and delays in the Lockheed-developed Orion spacecraft—a key component of the Artemis human lunar program. The 2020 IG report found that costs had risen some $900 million since the program’s baseline was set in 2015, a figure expected to rise to at least $1.4 billion through 2023. The report concluded that “NASA has been overly generous with award fees provided to Lockheed.” The schedule has slipped three years, with additional delays expected, concluded the report.[34]
All this is not to say that other NASA projects than the human space program have not suffered massive cost overruns. A classic case is the James Webb Space Telescope, which in 2012 was estimated to cost $1 billion, but ultimately cost $10 billion.[35] However, such overruns are more understandable for bleeding-edge projects such as the Webb Telescope, given that it constituted a wholly new technology launched into the unforgiving environment of deep space, where no repairs were possible.
Besides the cost-plus problem, NASA has also tended to call for systems far more elaborate than necessary, compared to those created by private companies. In her book Escaping Gravity, former NASA administrator Lori Garver describes NASA’s sought bids for a vehicle to transport Artemis astronauts the four miles to the launch pad—a trip that would take place only a few times. NASA’s expansive specs called for a vehicle that could carry:
. . . a driver, four suited-up flight crew, three additional staff, room for six equipment bags, cooling units, and two additional cubic feet per passenger for miscellany. It also requires at least two large doors for entry/egress and an emergency exit. SpaceX manages to transport its four astronauts in their space suits. . . on the exact same route with a couple of Tesla Model Xs.[36]
As might be expected, aerospace firms are among the top spenders on lobbying, according to the website OpenSecrets.org. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and other aerospace companies spend well over $10 million each a year to lobby Congress and the executive branch.[37] Such money does not even count campaign contributions by the companies’ political action committees and employees.
What’s more, aerospace companies hire former legislators to lobby for them, in the rapidly spinning revolving door between Congress and the lobbying industry. An example is MoonWalker Associates run by Robert Walker, former chair of the House Science Committee.[38] Its website boasts that:
We know the players on Capitol Hill and work closely with executive departments and agencies. We have . . . direct access to key decision makers throughout NASA, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce, and the Executive Office of the President.
The revolving door sees traffic both ways. For example, Boeing lobbyists have actually served as Congressional staffers.[39] In 2022, one former Boeing lobbyist was staff director on the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Another lobbyist had served as chief of staff for the chairman of the committee.
Billionaires with Space Visions
Elon Musk’s stubby, winged Starship looks for all the world like an updated version of the 1930s-era Flash Gordon’s rocket. While Gordon launched his ship to Mars to battle Ming the Terrible, Musk and his SpaceX company aim ultimately at nothing less than establishing a vast colony on the planet.
The 400-foot-high Starship/Super Heavy booster is certainly no science-fiction fantasy, but real hardware. It is capable of delivering 150 metric tons into space.[40]
Musk and his fellow spaceflight billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos exemplify the most dramatic new development in human spaceflight. The advent of privately funded spaceflight companies has brought an entrepreneurial approach to the industry not seen before. The companies have also restored a “cool factor” to space travel not seen since the Apollo era.[41]
SpaceX in particular has drastically lowered the cost of launching cargo and humans into space, principally by making its components reusable.[42] [43] The result has been an enormous boon for both the civilian and military space programs. In his book Reentry, space journalist Eric Berger cites SpaceX’s bid to launch the civilian space probe Europa Clipper at $178 million, far lower than NASA’s price of $2.3 billion. And for the military space program, SpaceX has brought down costs particularly for large satellites required by the National Reconnaissance Office. Berger quotes Colonel Douglas Pentecost of the U.S. Air Force Space Systems Command as saying, “We’ve saved 50 percent over what the older prices were like for the Delta Heavy. . . We are just saving a ton of money on the high-end.”[44]
SpaceX’s success has had an industry-wide impact, prompting others to plan reusable systems, with the promise of lowering launch costs.[45]
Former NASA administrator Lori Garver, in her book Escaping Gravity, touts the achievements of the private companies, writing, “It has become popular to rail against ruinous billionaire space ventures, while saying nothing about the nation’s spending billions of tax dollars on lagging and inefficient NASA programs that undermine our international competitiveness.”[46]
Besides the Starship, SpaceX systems comprise the Falcon 9 booster, the Falcon Heavy rocket, and the Dragon spacecraft. The last can carry seven passengers or cargo to and from Earth orbit, and ultimately to lunar orbit.[47]
SpaceX is also planning to play a role in future space stations, for example, using Starship to orbit a fully equipped Starlab space station in one launch.[48]
Musk’s vision for a Mars mission consists of first launching a crewed Super-Heavy-boosted Starship into Earth orbit. This launch would be followed by launches to refuel the Starship on-orbit. From there, the Starship would launch to Mars, using its engines to land.[49]
Beyond exploratory Mars missions, Musk envisions building a city on Mars—a vast complex of housing, industry, and agriculture—all served by Starships.
More down-to-Earth, Starship might be used for high-speed cargo transport across the globe. If SpaceX manages to achieve low cost and quick availability, Starship could transport many tons of cargo and/or many soldiers anywhere on the planet in an hour or so.[50]
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin also aims at using reusable heavy-lift boosters to send large payloads into orbit and beyond. To that end, the company has developed the New Shepard suborbital booster to deliver astronauts and research payloads to space and back. Its larger New Glenn heavy-lift launch vehicle could carry people and payloads to orbit and farther.[51]
Bezos’s ultimate goal is space colonies. Inspired by the 1976 book by Gerard K. O'Neill, The High Frontier, he envisions constructing vast, spinning cylindrical colonies orbiting the Earth at the distance of the moon.
Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic aims “lower” in its ambitions. Working with a partner, The Space Company, it aims to fly a winged spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, carrying tourists on suborbital flights. However, it also aims to carry customers to the ISS.
Although these are the most visible private space companies, there are a great many more that aim to build launch vehicles, planetary rovers, sounding rockets, and to launch satellites.[52]
The three major companies—SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic—do have plans to make money from ventures other than NASA-funded space exploration. For example, they all plan space tourism ventures for rich clients. And SpaceX is launching satellites for private customers and the Pentagon, as well as developing Starlink—a huge constellation of satellites that provides global Internet services.[53]
However, SpaceX and Blue Origin depend heavily on NASA contracts for their survival. For example, the companies and others were selected to develop human landers for NASA’s Artemis Moon missions.[54] And SpaceX is developing a lunar-optimized Starship to transport crew and cargo between the Gateway lunar orbit and the lunar surface. Thus, it would not need the flaps or heat shielding required for Earth return.[55] NASA also selected SpaceX to deliver cargo to Gateway.[56]
Neglecting the human factor
Musk, in particular, exemplifies both the talent and the hubris of the new breed of space entrepreneurs. While he is not without technical savvy, he is a charismatic leader with utopian schemes—critics would say a P.T. Barnum of space.
There is a saying, “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” To Musk and his fellow rocket engineers, everything looks like a rocket launch. To them, deep-space exploration and lunar and Mars colonization are only engineering problems, presenting no psychological or medical hazards of radiation, microgravity, and environmental toxins.
Indeed, Musk reportedly has SpaceX employees developing plans for a self-sustaining Martian city of domed habitats that would be established in about two decades.[57] Perhaps recognizing the stark reality of such plans, Musk has been quoted as saying of the first Mars colonists, “It would be, basically, ‘Are you prepared to die?’ If that's OK, then, you know, you're a candidate for going.”[58]
Nor do Musk and his cohorts address the massive cost of deep-space missions and colonization. The cost of just one Mars mission would run into the many tens of billions of dollars. And a lunar or Mars colony would require huge costs to be established and to continually resupply.
In the end, Musk and his fellow entrepreneurs are effective cosmic cheerleaders who advocate for a human deep-space program with little regard for its medical, political, and economic realities.
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[2] NASA. Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex website.
[3] NASA. How We Are Going to the Moon - 4K. (December 19, 2019).
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[6] NASA. First Woman: NASA's Promise for Humanity website.
[8] NASA, Artemis Program website.
[9] Haberman, Clyde. “How NASA Sold the Science and Glamour of Space Travel.” The New York Times (June 23, 2019).
[10] Blanchett, Amy and Laurie Abadie. “Space Radiation Won’t Stop NASA’s Human Exploration.” NASA (October 12, 2017).
[11] NASA. Human Research Roadmap website.
[12] The Planetary Society. Your Guide to NASA's Budget website.
[13] Goldsmith, Donald and Martin Rees. The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration. Harvard University Press, 2022.
[14] National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades (2024).
[15] Foust, Jeff. “NASA’s Infrastructure Crossroads.” The Space Review (November 4, 2024).
[16] Brysse, Keynyn, Naomi Oreskes, Jessica O’Reilly, and Michael Oppenheimer. “Climate Change Prediction: Erring on the Side of Least Drama?” Global Environmental Change 23, no. 1 (February 2013).
[17] Oreskes, Naomi, Michael Oppenheimer, and Dale Jamieson. “Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change.” Scientific American (August 19, 2019).
[18] The White House. National Space Council website.
[19] The White House National Space Council. United States Space Priorities Framework website.
[20] Kennedy, Brian and Alec Tyson. “Americans’ Views of Space: U.S. Role, NASA Priorities and Impact of Private Companies.” Pew Research Center (July 20, 2023).
[21] Morning Consult. “Nearly Half the Public Wants the U.S. to Maintain Its Space Dominance. Appetite for Space Exploration Is a Different Story. (February 25, 2021).
[22] Coalition for Deep Space Exploration website.
[23] Mars Society website.
[24] Earthlight Foundation website.
[25] Explore Mars, Inc. website.
[26] National Space Society website.
[27] NASA Artemis Partners website.
[28] Berger, Eric. “NASA Chief Says Cost-Plus Contracts are a ‘Plague’ on the Space Agency.” Ars Technica (May 3, 2022).
[29] NASA. Space Launch System website.
[30] Berger, Eric. “NASA Will Award Boeing a Cost-Plus Contract for up to 10 SLS Rockets,” Ars Technica, October 17, 2019.
[31] NASA Office of Inspector General. NASA’s Management of Space Launch System Programs and Contracts. (March 10, 2020).
[32] US Government Accountability Office. “Space Launch System: Cost Transparency Needed to Monitor Program Affordability.” (September 7, 2023).
[33] NASA Office of Inspector General. NASA’s Management of Crew Transportation to the International Space Station (March 10, 2020).
[34] NASA. NASA’s Management of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Program. (July 16, 2020).
[35] Roulette, Joey. “A Costly and Difficult Path to the Launchpad.” The New York Times (December 25, 2021).
[36] Garver, Lori. Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age. Diversion Books, 2022.
[37] OpenSecrets website.
[38] MoonWalker Associates website.
[39] Schouten, Fredreka, Ted Barrett, and Lauren Fox. “Boeing A Major Lobbying Player on Capitol Hill.” CNN Politics. (March 3, 2019).
[40] Scoles, Sarah. “PRIME MOVER: Starship Will be the Biggest Rocket Ever. Are Space Scientists Ready to Take Advantage of It?” Science 377, no. 6607 (August 12, 2022).
[41] Morris, Charles. “Cool Factor: Elon Musk and SpaceX Play a Role as NASA Rises in Popularity.” EVAnnex (September 5, 2020).
[42] Venditti, Bruno. “The Cost of Space Flight before and after SpaceX.” Visual Capitalist (January 27, 2022).
[43] Berger, Eric. “Falcon 9 Reaches a Flight Rate 30 Times Higher than Shuttle at 1/100th the Cost.” Ars Technica (December 2, 2024).
[44] Berger, Eric. Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age. BenBella Books September 2024.
[45] Foust, Jeff, “Expending the Expendables: More Launch Companies are Betting Their Future on Reusability.” Space News (November 11, 2024).
[46] Garver, Lori. Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age. Diversion Books, 2022.
[48] Smith, Rich. “America's Next Space Station Will Be Twice as Big Thanks to SpaceX.” The Motley Fool (February 19, 2024).
[49] SpaceX. Mars & Beyond website.
[50] Foust, Jeff. “Delivering a Business Case for Rocket Cargo.” The Space Review (February 19, 2024).
[51] Blue Origin website.
[52] Wikipedia, List of private spaceflight companies website.
[54] Foust, Jeff. “NASA Selects Blue Origin to Develop Second Artemis Lunar Lander.” Space News (May 19, 2023).
[55] NASA. “As Artemis Moves Forward, NASA Picks SpaceX to Land Next Americans on Moon.” April 16, 2021).
[56] NASA. “NASA Awards Artemis Contract for Gateway Logistics Services.” (March 27, 2020).
[57] Grind, Kirsten. “Elon Musk’s Plan to Put a Million Earthlings on Mars in 20 Years.” The New York Times (July 11, 2024).
[58] Wall, Mike. “1st Mars Colonists Should Be 'Prepared to Die,' Elon Musk Says,” Space.com (September 30, 2016.).