by Byron York at Washington Examiner
WHY MUSK IS SO IMPORTANT. Elon Musk‘s giant Starship spacecraft went out of control, tumbled, and broke apart several minutes into a test flight Tuesday night. It was the latest in a series of unsuccessful-but-still-instructive tests of Musk’s hugely ambitious rocket program, which is designed to go to Mars. And it is also, at least for now, the heart of the American space program. “Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket,” the Washington Post reported, “and its test flights are crucial to the future of America’s space ambitions.”
That, and not a troubled venture into government, is what makes Musk so important. Musk is crucial to America’s space ambitions because, for a long time, after one of the greatest achievements in human history, the Apollo exploration of the moon, America seemed not to have any space ambitions at all. Musk changed that.
In a recent interview with the science and technology website Ars Technica, Musk discussed why he believes it is so important to go to Mars. The short version is: If you can get there, good things can happen. “There were very few people in California until the Union Pacific was completed, and then California became the most populous state in the nation,” Musk said. “So that’s our goal. We want to get people there, and if we can get people there, then there’s a literal world of opportunity.”
Ars Technica pointed out that NASA, the traditional U.S. space agency, is focused on the moon. “I think its ambitions are too low,” Musk said. Then, Ars Technica asked, “Does it matter to you if China gets back to the moon before the United States? Do you care about that?”
“I think the United States should be aiming for Mars,” Musk repeated,…