Furor of SpaceX public listing reflects its significance

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War.”

Way back on July 20, 1969, the United States made history when Astronaut Neil Armstrong arrived on the moon and, with great drama, verbally confirmed that historic event back to Earth.

Now Elon Musk and the SpaceX Corp. have achieved a somewhat comparable milestone.

On June 12, the much-anticipated and highly-hyped initial public launch of SpaceX stock proved a success of stratospheric proportions. The stock quickly rose 19%. Musk has become the first trillionaire in history.

Make that the first trillionaire on Earth. Musk is anxious not only to explore other planets but also populate them. There is no doubt that he is a visionary, in multiple meanings of that term. When he talks, we should pay attention, though not necessarily agree.

SpaceX quickly became the sixth most valuable publicly listed company (and rising), boasting capitalization of $2.1 trillion. Shares began trading at $150, 11% above the initial public offering price of $135, The share price at the end of the first trading day was $160.95.

Significantly, the five companies with greater initial value than SpaceX are all concentrated in technology fields. They are Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft and Amazon. Each has enormous capitalization. Nvidia occupies the edge of development of artificial intelligence, which represents an ongoing revolution that is simultaneously fluid, fascinating and frightening — and a magnet for gigantic amounts of investment money.

As a symbol of awe and impact, on June 12 the famous New Year’s Eve ball in Times Square in New York came into action, rose and glowed red, the color of the planet Mars. Musk is known as a forceful advocate for establishing human communities on the Red Planet.

In October 2024, Musk and SpaceX made history by successfully launching and recovering the largest rocket ever made, the Starship Super Heavy. The enormous booster after disengagement was also recovered in a spectacular feat of engineering.

On the morning of June 4, 2022, the company Blue Origin transported a group of five passengers 62 miles above Earth, to the edge of space. Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, and Amazon, is one of a number of business entrepreneurs pursuing ventures in space, once the exclusive province of governments.

Space business is growing rapidly. In April 2021, NASA announced SpaceX will construct a lander to take astronauts to the moon for the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

President John F. Kennedy made the dramatic pledge in 1961 to land a man on the moon before the end of that decade — and return him safely to Earth, the president always carefully added.

Kennedy fostered the strong foundation of business-government partnership in space exploration through 1962 legislation on communication satellites. We automatically recognize JFK’s role in launching the mammoth initial moon project. Yet his leadership in furthering global satellite-based communications, and business investment in space, is neglected.

The Kennedy administration largely continued a course set by the Eisenhower administration. The proposed COMSAT (Communications Satellite) Corp. was privately chartered, not a government agency.

Controversy followed, with angry protests about welfare for big business. Reflecting party dynamics of that time, conservative but populist Southern plus Western Democrats were outraged. Alleged favoritism to big business was extremely controversial not long after the Great Depression.

Nonetheless, Congress approved creation of COMSAT. This in turn led to growing related activity eventually involving a vast array of firms.

Military dimensions are also expanding. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Kennedy endeavored to keep space exploration a civilian enterprise. President Lyndon Johnson initiated a 1967 treaty to restrict weapons in space. However, in 2019 President Donald Trump established the Space Force.

Thank JFK for farsighted leadership.