By Keenan Smith
The great clash between communism and capitalism that dominated the latter half of the 20th Century was a truly remarkable period: technological boundaries pushed, countless proxy wars, ideologies tested and thoroughly debunked (looking at you, commies).
This struggle between the capitalist and communist world can be best seen through the space race. An endless game of one-upmanship that would even put a campaign trail Bill Shorten to shame. The result of this rivalry between the two superpowers was extraordinary technological development: in little over 60 years humanity went from taking its first flight to taking its first steps on the moon.
While the Soviet Union was corralling resources into putting sickles and hammers into space, the sad reality of a centrally planned economy became apparent. By the late 1980s when the USSR was developing cutting edge space stations and orbiters, it was also approaching its capitalist enemies, cap in hand, for technological assistance with its milking machines. The shortfalls of the bureaucratic, centrally planned ogre that was the Soviet Union had been made abundantly clear: central planning had led to vast amounts of resources being blindly plunged into projects with little care for the “bigger picture”.
The past decade has made even clearer the importance of free enterprise in securing sustainable technological development. Companies like SpaceX have gone from being fringe vanity projects of pot smoking futurists to regularly and profitably placing satellites into orbit. As an example, per kilogram costs for space launches were on average $18,500 before the introduction of private companies in space. With private players, it now costs around $2,720 per kilogram. The pressures of profit and competition means radically new designs, lowered costs and greater reliability. The impact of this is real and meaningful: it means more reliable communications across the world, better scientific research and pushing the envelope of innovation, prosperity and development further.
Yesterday we saw a remarkable achievement: for the first time in 9 years, astronauts were launched from the United States into space. This was done for the first time in history using a private company, SpaceX to construct the rocket and run the mission. Even before all the benefits of an ongoing production line and economies of scale kick in, the United States is already saving 30% on the cost of sending people to space versus both the Space Shuttle programme, and ignominiously paying the Russians to get to Space. There can be no doubt this marks a new era for space related technological development.
Free-market capitalism may be messy at times, but its ability to spur technological innovation and promote rising living standards is unmatched. The lesson from all of this is clear: central control, constraint and over-bearing regulation hold back the full potential of free individuals and businesses – to reach for the stars.