Space travel comes with big dreams and bigger business

Is there life on Mars Europa?

NASA’s trying to answer that question with the launch of the Europa Clipper on Monday. The spacecraft is headed toward Jupiter’s moon Europa, which scientists believe has a massive saltwater ocean beneath its surface that’s a prime location for extraterrestrial life.

But don’t get your hopes up (or get scared) about us making contact with aliens. The Europa Clipper is just trying to understand if the ocean could even support life.

That might not be as exciting as snapping photos of little green people, but it’s still a big deal. It’s the largest interplanetary spacecraft NASA has ever built, weighing 3.5 tons with wings that extend 100 feet wide.

It won’t arrive at Europa until April 2030, but that hasn’t dimmed the space community’s enthusiasm. One NASA director said these kinds of missions are “modern cathedrals” and “generational quests.”

Space travel also happens to be a great business opportunity.

Helping power Europa Clipper into space was a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Elon Musk’s company has won plenty of government contracts, from creating a network of spy satellites to helping it retire spacecrafts, en route to becoming an incredibly valuable company.

The Europa Clipper launch follows another massive win for SpaceX. In a separate launch on Sunday, a Super Heavy booster, which stands 233 feet tall, safely navigated its way back to its launch site.

That’s a massive step toward Musk’s ultimate goal of significantly reducing rocket-launch costs, which could eventually make humans a multi-planetary species.

Musk still has hurdles to overcome. The California Coastal Commission recently rejected a request for more-frequent SpaceX launches. Some officials cited Musk’s political posts during discussion of the request.

Musk said on X he planned to file a suit today against the commission “for violating the First Amendment.”

But it’s not just regulators Musk is facing off with.

The business of space has the attention of several entrepreneurs, including fellow tech billionaire Jeff Bezos. The two have been known to feud, and have differing views on whether colonizing Mars (Musk) or living in space (Bezos) is a more realistic future for humanity.