Mankind is once again on the verge of traveling to the moon thanks to private companies who now play a leading role in the future of space exploration. And these partnerships are opening a path by which NASA can shed its expensive dependence on Russia.
At the end of last month, SpaceX announced it will send two private citizens who paid a "significant deposit" around the moon and back to Earth. If successful, the flight would be the farthest distance any human has flown from Earth.
Through successful resupply missions to the International Space Station, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of defense contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have already proven that commercial enterprises can assist the space program. The next step, before the moon shot, is for these private ventures to send people up to the space station 220 miles above the Earth.
The future looks bright for space flight in the halls of the U.S. Capitol. Brendan Curry, vice president of Washington operations for the Space Foundation, told the Washington Examiner that while the general climate in politics continues to be a toxic one after a contentious 2016 election, space exploration enjoys "bipartisan support." He pointed to the fact that the House just passed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, which appropriates $19.5 billion to the agency, the first time in more than six years that both chambers of Congress passed a NASA authorization bill. The bill, as of press time, now just needs President Trump's signature.
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