If NASA’s current schedule is met, the next U.S. president will oversee the first moon landing since the Apollo era and preside over the agency’s plans to send astronauts deeper into the solar system. Elon Musk, CEO of the world’s most successful private spaceflight company, has made it clear who he thinks should be president. This fall, he said that Kamala Harris loss humanity to a terrestrial existence, while Donald Trump would realize SpaceX’s founding dream of sending humans to Mars. Trump seems equally enthusiastic about Musk’s space plans. “Elon, launch those rockets, because we want to reach Mars before my term ends,” he said. said in the electoral campaign.

A Trump presidency could push America into a new era of space travel, and Trump has demonstrated his enthusiasm for space exploration: as president, he created the Space Force. However, otherworldly ambitions can have earthly costs.

The US government already relies on SpaceX to send astronauts into space, provide satellite internet for US military operations and help with its plans to return to the Moon. A Trump administration could increase this codependence, further integrating SpaceX – and its CEO – into the framework of American governance. NASA has always relied on private companies to achieve its greatest ambitions, but Trump could essentially entrust Musk with the imagination that guides the future of American spaceflight.

Whoever is president, Musk will play a role in America’s space future. NASA has contracted SpaceX to develop a version of Starship, its largest rocket yet, to land astronauts on the lunar surface by the end of the decade. The agency will also likely rely on the vehicle to make its Mars dreams a reality over the next decade. SpaceX has launched Starship prototypes steadily over the past year from its base in South Texas and is seeking to significantly increase its annual cadence of test flights, from five to 25. But according to Musk and other officials at the company, the Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for approving rocket launches, is hold them to test Starship and send commercial payloads into orbit as quickly as they want. FAA officials have defended the agency’s launch evaluation process, saying SpaceX — whose Starship project is unlike any previous space program — must meet safety requirements before each liftoff.

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A newly reinstated President Trump, who once requested If NASA rushed to carry out a mission to Mars before the end of its first term, it probably wouldn’t object to a pressure campaign against its own FAA to remove regulations. He could ask the agency to relax its rules, or even give Musk some power (official or unofficial) over it. Trump has promised to appoint Musk to head a commission on government efficiency. Such an appointment could lead to all sorts of conflicts of interest, and perhaps even unprecedented results. “You potentially have a high-level senior advisor in the person who owns the largest and most capable private space company in the world, with a direct line to the President of the United States, who will launch a mission to Mars in four years “, Casey Dreier, the Planetary Society’s head of space policy, who has written extensively on the politics of U.S. efforts on the Moon and Mars, told me. “We don’t have historical examples of this.” (NASA was unable to make agency officials available for an interview before publication of this story.)

Freed from the FAA, SpaceX could carry out dozens of Starship missions over the next few years, which is exactly what NASA needs to start dropping astronauts on the Moon and beyond (and achieve these feats before the nations rivals). Space travel is an itch that the United States, regardless of its president, seems unable to resist. “We do it because we can – and because we probably won’t be satisfied until we do it,” John Logsdon, a space historian, once told me. Musk has long maintained that the future of the human species depends on its ability to reach Mars. Government officials may not use the same vocabulary as Musk, but they have nonetheless embraced his vision. In recent years, former top officials from NASA’s human spaceflight program have taken jobs at SpaceX.

In the meantime, however, more SpaceX flights — and more power to Musk — could be complicated, even dangerous. As Starship development has accelerated in recent years, SpaceX’s plans The workplace injury rate exceeded the industry average. Federal and state regulators say SpaceX has ignored environmental rules at its launch site in South Texas, violating the Clean Water Act by discharging industrial wastewater during launches. (The company has said the water is not dangerous.) And perhaps most worrying is that where a Trump administration could remove obstacles for SpaceX, it could also embolden the company’s chief executive, a a man whose conduct is often, at best, questionable. Recent reports that Musk has regular conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin have led the NASA chief to call for an investigation.

NASA has already acted in response to Musk’s relatively mild antics; In 2018, the agency ordered a review of workplace culture at SpaceX, which was preparing to fly NASA astronauts on a brand new spacecraft, after Musk smoked weed on the podcast by Joe Rogan. The Trump administration did not obstruct this investigation, but that was before Musk became the former president’s number one donor and certified hype man. An investigation into Putin under a second Trump administration is unlikely. Trump, who has praised the Russian dictator and refused to openly support Ukraine, would prefer to have a three-way phone conversation with Musk and Putin. Already, with SpaceX’s growing inventory of Starlink internet satellites, Musk exerts considerable control over how the world communicates and has maintained Starlink’s independence from the U.S. government and others. But if President Trump asks Musk, the government’s efficiency adviser, to suspend, say, the Starlink services of a NATO ally or nuclear power, one wonders how Musk would respond.

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Of course, a Harris administration would have a different approach for Musk. Musk publicly questioned why no one tried to assassinate Harris and suggested that Harris would order her arrest if she won the presidency. It’s far-fetched, although a Harris administration might be less reluctant to investigate the billionaire’s ties to Putin. And no matter who takes the White House, rejecting SpaceX would harm America’s space program. Boeing so botched its recent mission to transport astronauts to the ISS that SpaceX has at least a temporary monopoly on astronaut launches from American soil.

The American space program needs Musk, and he knows it. Without SpaceX, NASA astronauts could circle the Moon a dozen times without ever landing: NASA’s own rocket is supposed to put them into lunar orbit, but Starship is their journey to the surface. This leverage raises a worrying, even improbable, possibility. Earlier this year, Musk said to my colleague Damon Beres said he is willing to accept a Harris presidency, but only “if, after examining the election results, it turns out that Kamala wins.” Dreier suggested this hypothetical scenario: “What if Elon Musk had just declared that SpaceX would not work with the Harris administration if he considers it illegitimate? ” (Musk is certainly setting the stage for refusing the election – that seems to be his main concern on clearly who controls American spaceflight. .