If all goes as planned, two tourists will crawl into a space capsule at the end of next year and blast off for a weeklong trip to the moon and back. It's the ultimate couple's vacation, offered exclusively by Elon Musk's SpaceX, which announced the venture last week. It may also serve as the starting gun for a new and very different space race.
Unlike during the Cold War, the competition this time around isn't between countries. Instead, it's between startup companies like SpaceX, on the one hand, and government space agencies and traditional contractors on the other. The immediate prize is the moon. But longer-term, victory will go to whoever speeds up the pace of exploration while driving down the costs. In that race, the private sector will always have an advantage — and the sooner the U.S. government accepts that, the better.
Since Americans last visited the moon in 1972, NASA's human exploration program has been hindered by poor planning and shifting priorities. In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush announced an ambitious plan for new lunar missions that would (over time, in theory) reduce the cost of exploration. President Barack Obama's administration later canceled that plan in favor of a poorly defined "Journey to Mars."