By Faith Gonia
Americans have grown familiar with the rise of SpaceX, a private company that creates and launches spacecraft. Since the organization’s founding in 2002, Elon Musk has revolutionized the outer space realm. Developing countless rockets since the early 2000s, the corporation eventually sent its first astronauts into space during the COVID-19 pandemic. Efficacious, SpaceX did not stop there. The company continues to challenge the status quo in space travel.
With ever-growing technological advancements worldwide, American space exploration is not alone. Musk himself has made a habit of interacting—and sometimes instigating conflict—with other countries’ leaders. In fact, following the expansion of Starlink, a satellite internet constellation, Musk has continued to spark hostility with powerful figures globally. The New York Times cites the famous entrepreneur’s “erratic and personality-driven style” as the chief cause of his clash with other political leaders. Their description stems from a 2023 conversation between Gen. Mark A. Milley and Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The two leaders asked American officials “if the United States had an assessment of Mr. Musk.”
Evidently, SpaceX’s influence on outer space travel is not confined to America. As international figureheads take notice, the quest for space dominance widens.
In the past several years, China’s development of both satellites and anti-satellite weapons has skyrocketed—forgive the pun. Notably, the country created a “satellite equipped with a robotic arm that can pull an adversary’s satellite out of orbit.”
Despite the conclusion of the United States and Soviet Union competition, the Space Race did not cease at the end of the Cold War. If anything, the pursuit of space dominance has only augmented since then.