In a stunning escalation of the war of words between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump on Thursday, the SpaceX tycoon announced that the company would begin “decommissioning” its Dragon spacecraft “immediately,” a threat to America’s space launch capabilities fueled by his personal animosity for the President. Musk later walked back the threat.
CNBC reports that Elon Musk’s threat to “decommission” the Dragon spacecraft, which is currently the only U.S. option for transporting crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS), was met with concern from the space community. However, just hours after his initial announcement, Musk reversed course, stating, “Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon,” in response to a user on his social media platform X who urged him to “cool off and take a step back for a couple days.”
SpaceX has been a massive federal contractor, receiving more than $20 billion in contracts from NASA, the Air Force, and other agencies since 2008. The Dragon spacecraft has played a crucial role in NASA’s missions, most recently saving astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth in March after they were stranded at the ISS due to issues with a Boeing Starliner capsule. In April, a Dragon craft also delivered essential supplies, equipment, and science investigations to the ISS.
While SpaceX is developing a replacement for the Dragon spacecraft, with plans to continue using the current version for another six to eight years, the potential decommissioning of the spacecraft raised concerns about the immediate future of U.S. crewed spaceflight capabilities.
NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens addressed the situation, stating that the agency would continue to work with industry partners to ensure the president’s objectives in space are met and to execute his vision for the future of space exploration.
With SpaceX delivering 90 percent of all Earth payload to orbit by Musk’s own estimation, as well as controlling America’s only capability to safely send humans into orbit, the fact that the Tesla CEO and X owner would leverage SpaceX to score points in a political battle is deeply concerning for America’s future in space.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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