The Tribune

ACTIVTRADES WEEKLY

By Ricardo Evangelista

www.activtrades.bs

IN 1957 the then Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first communication satellite, firing the starting shot for the first space race. Over the following decades the USSR and the USA were involved in a competition, with each side trying to outperform the other.

The most compelling episode in this saga was the Apollo 11 lunar landings of 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first astronauts to walk on the Moon and America claimed victory in the race, asserting its technological supremacy and claiming a PR coup of incalculable value within the context of the Cold War.

The Soviets never managed to land astronauts on the Moon and that perhaps marked the beginning of a decline, that ultimately ended with the collapse of their system and fragmentation of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was as much about hard power, epitomised by the constant threat of a nuclear conflict, as it was about being able to project credibility and influencing public opinion. Ultimately the United States won the Cold War, not through an armed conflict, that certainly would have meant doom for mankind, but by gaining undisputable economic supremacy and slowly eroding the other side’s self-confidence. In this respect, the role played by the space race was central.

Fast forward to 2020; amid the mayhem generated by the coronavirus, culture wars and social unrest, a new space race is beginning. On Saturday, May 30, for the first time, a private firm operated a space ship carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. It’s true that private contractors have always worked with NASA and other space agencies, too, but SpaceX is the first non-governmental organization to oversee such a project, beating competition from, among others, Boeing. And it did so at a fraction of the cost incurred by NASA with its previous astronaut carrying programme; the cost of developing the Space Shuttle reached, in 2019 $27.4bn, while SpaceX’ Dragon project was comparatively cheap, at a mere $1.7bn.

SpaceX is of course owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who, among other business interests, is also the founder and CEO of Tesla, who’s shares gained six percent last Monday (the first trading day after the launch); the success of the mission was a spectacular PR coup for Mr Musk, enhancing not only his personal reputation but also that of other businesses he controls. Another beneficiary was Virgin Galactic, owned by billionaire Richard Branson and focused on “space tourism”; its share value rose more than three percent, as new dreams of space travelling entered our collective mind.

In business, as in geopolitics, soft power is key; public relations do, to a large extent, determine how consumers and investors make decisions, and nothing captures the collective imagination, projecting competence and credibility, as space conquest does. It is, therefore, unsurprising that some of the better-known business leaders of our time (a list also including Amazon’s CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, through his Blue Origin company) are entering a new space race, likely to soon return men to the moon, with the ultimate objective of reaching Mars.