The Spectacular SpaceX Splashdown Is Worthy of Celebration
A triumph for Elon Musk, President Trump, and capitalism
With the press full of the cacophony of conflict and alarmism—reports of renewed war in Gaza, partisan fears of persistent inflation, claims of constitutional crises, market volatility related to tariffs, and, on campuses, protests and research-grant uncertainty—it is worth noticing, and celebrating, when there is some genuinely inspiring, and dramatic, good news.
In that category, indubitably, comes the stunningly successful rescue of NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Credit Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its Dragon spacecraft. Williams and Wilmore had been stuck in space for 286 days.
Millions of Americans were riveted to the live video streams this week that showed the spaceship docking with the space station, bringing a new crew and extracting members of the old one. Not since Tom Hanks in the Hollywood movie “Apollo 13”—“Houston, we have a problem”—has the space program been so suspensefully, and successfully entertaining.
Much of the left-leaning press has downplayed the story. Until after the splashdown late yesterday, it wasn’t even among the top 40 news stories on the Bloomberg terminal. The New York Times today featured on the top of its front page a Gaza war photo that could have been from any time in the past year and a half, relegating an image of a rescued astronaut, Suni Williams, to below the fold, and the story and headline to inside the newspaper.
For those willing to escape the tribalism and the “Thunderdome” effect, there are some positive signs. That’s not to endorse everything Trump and Musk have done or to dismiss all concerns about the administration’s actions. But anyone who thinks Trump is “anti-science” or is trying to turn back the clock entirely to the McKinley administration isn’t paying attention to the reality—not just Trump shopping for a Tesla and touting AI-powered mRNA vaccine research, but also the splendid spectacle of a private spaceship, in cooperation with NASA, rescuing both American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut. In President McKinley’s era, that was science fiction, not the real news.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, playing his own calliope in this afternoon’s Fed press conference, described the new administration as changing course on trade, immigration, fiscal policies, and regulation. What mattered, he said, was the net effect of all four—an implicit rebuke to those commentators who have focused on the tariff and trade piece to the exclusion of the other elements. I’m no tariff fan, but the tariff obsessives are the market equivalent of the editors who can’t recognize the SpaceX splashdown as a captivating story. They have tunnel vision.
Powell dismissed the idea of a replay of 1970s stagflation, or the Fed having to force a recession to wring out persistent inflation. “I don’t see any reason to think that we’re looking at a replay of the seventies…I don’t see that we’re looking at anything remotely comparable to that,” Powell said. He could be wrong, but it’s also possible that the Fed’s fight against inflation is in for a landing as smoothly successful as the SpaceX splashdown.
If America resists recession, or if any contraction is mild and brief, it will be in part because of bold technological risk-takers like Musk. And, too, some credit will accrue to a president who is willing to let the private sector lead the ride to the rescue.
No government subsidy for Mad Musk Mission to Mars.
"If America resists recession, or if any contraction is mild and brief, it will be in part because of bold technological risk-takers like Musk. And, too, some credit will accrue to a president who is willing to let the private sector lead the ride to the rescue.'
This is not exactly a non sequitur, but it is close. Trump, in 60 days, has had no impact on whether or not to "let the private sector ride to the rescue." The privatization of space has been going on for decades with serious people in both parties "deciding." The rules and regulations, as well as most of the basic science, that gave us orbiting spacecraft that can return to earth, were products of government programs and priorities. This is not to detract from or criticize the accomplishment of SpaceX. It is not to play down the joy and gratitude that we all should feel in the safe return of the astronauts. It is simply to say that Mr. Trump is an ignoramous who should be left out of any serious commentary on economic aspects of the rescue.
In my opinion, the only "ride" that is going on with Trump is his own ride. Any positive developments coming out of his moves so far (and these must be acknowledged) are in spite of his recklessness, not because of his wisdom. He is a revolting individual in every respect. I am sorry to see him on the same screen with pictures of the people who made this happen.