Although by now it seems like ages ago, it was certainly entertaining to watch the Donald-Elon cage match–not to mention the audience reaction to it. It was especially fun watching Trump’s Fox friends react like it’s their parents fighting (speaking of Friends, one commentator compared Trump and Musk to Rachel and Ross; eww). Meanwhile, I spoke to CNN International about the topic last week.
Well, whether they’re on again or off again, the dispute highlights, in stark (and somewhat crazy) relief, what we’ve been saying for years: Privatization contractually transfers control over important public things to private interests. And this is true whether it’s a rocket, or science, or rocket science. Some things must be kept in public hands.
Not every billionaire is as unpredictable as Elon Musk appears to be (by a long shot). And not every President is as unpredictable as President Trump appears to be (never say never!).
But Elon threatening to decommission the spacecraft that transports astronauts and scientists back and forth to the space station tells you everything about what we mean by private control. Trump may ultimately win this fight and the space station residents will be able to come back to earth (literally.). He does have the money and in the end…. billionaires do what billionaires do. This contract is probably too big to lose, even for someone as superrich as Elon–which is, of course, the likely reason Musk appeared to be softening up toward Trump (that’s SO Ross! Or maybe Rachel?). People can put a lot behind them when there’s so much money being put in front of them.
But the fact that the possibility of stranded space station residents was in the news shows that he has control he shouldn’t have–that no private citizen should have–over whether and when they come back. He’s got the contract, but more importantly he’s got the spaceship–and we, the people, don’t. It’s bad enough that so many federal workers–from the National Park Service to the National Institutes of Health were at the mercy of Musk and his minions. If you were an astronaut, would you want your fate to be in the (sometimes suspiciously-saluting) hands of Elon Musk?
It also raises a critical question, which I brought up in an interview I did last week with CNN International: Did the US consider the importance of redundancy when contracting for something we can’t afford to lose? In other words, is there a Plan B if the contractor fails?
The government outsourced not just the hardware–the building of the starship lunar lander–to Musk; they’ve outsourced the mission to him.
If I were on the team in the space station, I don’t think I’d want to be at the mercy of frienemies Trump and Musk. You never know when they’ll go through another one of their episodes.
Donald Cohen
Executive Director
IMAGE: Courtesy of NASA