All ways in which NASA (and the US Department of Defense depend on Spacex

The feud that broke out between the President of the United States Donald Trump and his now former councilor Elon Musk recalled how interdependent now they are Spacex, NASA and Defense of the United States activities. If the threats of cuts of the government contracts stipulated by Musk advanced by Trump had to materialize, the United States space agency would see all its horizons of exploration of the space, from the most consolidated and daily to the most ambitious, would all compress at once.

The first balances to jump would concern the ISS. Currently, the Spacex Dragon spacecraft is the only American space vehicle to regularly make the dirt between the Earth and the International Space Station and guarantee both passenger transport and refueling missions (with Crew Dragon). When on Truth, the social network of his own, Donal Trump wrote that “the easiest way to save on our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to put an end to the subsidies and government contracts of Elon Musk”, the former president’s right arm threatened to “immediately start dismantling” the Dragon. But what would it mean?

NASA should start paying the steps for its astronauts again On the Russian space spacecraft Soyuz (The figure is around over $ 90 million each), as he did after the retirement of the Space Shuttle and pending the development of his commercial flights. The Soyuz spacecraft alone can transport three crew members at a time: consequently, the number of astronauts would be reduced simultaneously with work on the ISS.

As explained on the New York Timesfrom 2020, the year of the inaugural flight of the Crew Dragon with a crew to the ISS, NASA has tried to diversify the audience of commercial partners for flights to and the ISSso as not to depend exclusively on Spacex. So far, however, he has had no luck.

The Boeing Starliner has yet to fix its next launch, after the problems in its test mission that forced the astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to remain on the ISS 9 months more than expected, before returning to the ground on the Spacex capsule.

The space company Northrop Gumman He has a contract to supply the ISS with his Cargo Cygnus spacecraft, whose last mission was however canceled for structural damage to the vehicle during transport to the launch site.

While they are reusable Dream Chaser of Sierra Space for the transport of astronauts in low orbit has yet to make its inaugural flight.

In addition, NASA has entrusted Spacex the operations of Decommissation of the ISS And his return to the atmosphere with Splashdown in the Pacific after 2030, when the space station will officially retire.

Spacex has a contract to build the version of the starship that should make a human crew unhappy again. It is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, on which Artemis 3 mission depends, the first with astronauts. Even Blue Origin by Jeff Bezos has won the possibility of building a lunar Lander – the Blue Moon – which should however enter service into the following missions, starting from 2029 except for further slips.

Recently, the friendship with Trump had earned Musk a possible “favor” more in line with the ambitions of the millionaire to colonize the red planet. The president had in fact advanced a very disputed proposal of substantial cuts to the Budget of the NASA lunar program to invest in a space agenda focused on travel to Mars.

In recent years, Spacex has positioned itself as the main commercial and operational partner of the launches of the scientific experiments of NASA, but also of those of classified military satellites and of the US intelligence satellites. And the defense of the United States has relied on the constellation of Starlink satellites, managed by Spacex, for speed up military communicationsfor example among the war ships of the American Navy. Deleting all contracts with Musk would also leave many United States security apparatuses.