What Happens When the US Stops Funding the Science Behind SpaceX?
NASA’s shrinking budget threatens the public science behind SpaceX’s success, and it could weaken America’s ability to develop breakthrough technologies.
Illustration: Ard Su for Bloomberg
Once Elon Musk decided to build a reusable spacecraft to carry his dreams of Martian colonization, the engineers at SpaceX knew they would need a special engine for the world’s most powerful rocket.
Starship, as the vehicle came to be called, demanded what’s known as a “full-flow, staged combustion” engine. Wringing every last ounce of power from rocket fuel demands a machine that can precisely control an explosion again and again — failing in that mission means picking pieces of it out of the ocean. The design is so complex that it had never been used: The Soviets built one and tested it on the ground in the 1960s, but never sent it into space.