I remember last year, in July 2011, seeing on the news the launch of the final NASA space shuttle, Atlantis, bringing about the end of the Space Shuttle program. This pushed the program into retirement, after 30-years of inspiring the American people. At first, it did not strike me as anything, just another upsetting story on the news. As I went about my week, however, and I read more articles about the event, it dawned on me that the United States has reached a point where we have given up exploring, given up innovating, and given up on the American dream. There was so much bitterment, whereas so much spending was going towards the War in Iraq, and yet we had people starving in the US and having to cut programs like NASA. We have grown up in such a wonderful country that has strived to be the best at everything. It seems to me that the NASA program was formed out of competition though, to beat the Soviets (communism), and to show USA’s might (democracy) across the world. By ending the Space Shuttle program it was like giving up the fight, to admit to having too many internal issues in our country to worry about conquering the final frontier that is beyond our planet. I understand the program was expensive, having little effect on the average American, but it seemed like a shot at our patriotism.

Today, the world saw the first commercially-funded space shuttle, the SpaceX Dragon, dock with the International Space Station. Before today, the space station was relying only on a Russian ship to recieve supplies. It seems that the future is yet again bright for the US, both idealistically and economically. We are seeing a shift, like in many aspects of our economy, where government programs are no longer sustainable and private companies are swooping in to save the day. I believe without a solid business model, and projections for a positive ROI, programs cannot survive without heavy opportunity cost. I knew nothing about SpaceX, or about the industry for that matter, before today, however it fascinates me to no end. SpaceX company is a merging of old guard NASA scientists and Silicon Valley tech startups. Equal halves tried and true science and savvy entrepreneurship…all-American ingenuity. The CEO, Elon Musk, had previously co-founded PayPal, and is also currently the CEO of Tesla Motors. He’s heavily vested in solar power technology, as well. He earned both a business degree at Wharton College at UPenn (big ups to Philly), as well as a physics degree there, too.

This is an exciting new opportunity in capitalism…a huge shift in attention towards the possibilities in this young industry of commercial space flight. Imagine, with a little market competitiveness where we will be in 15 years: super-fast flights that can take you across the world in a sixth of the time, vacation resorts on the moon, and anti-gravity amusement parks?? Hearing this in the news today was a breath of fresh air. All you read about these days is the development of Web 2.0, whereas the creation of novelty iPhone apps, the epic IPO of Facebook (and its subsequent drop in share value), and websites that might keep us entertained, only leave us wondering what is happening to our humanity. The internet is a relatively new thing, a construct of our imagination, limited by our ability to write lines of code. But outerspace…we relatively know nothing about. The makers of Angry Birds must be laughing all the way to the bank, but what are they doing to motivate us?

Louis and Clark was commissioned by Thomas Jefferson to explore the western portion of the United States, in order to find a trade route to Asia via the Northwest Passage. They embarked on their journey, mapping out the land, documenting their travels, and recording every specimen of fauna, flora, and indigenous people they come across. However, they ultimately failed in finding any trade route or other means of economic gain. What they did accomplish, however, was inspiring the American people to keep pushing the boundaries. Who really conquered the west, though?

The railroad companies, the builders, the prospectors, the farmers… the private sector .

It is good to know that there are people out there that are staying focused on what we’ve done for thousands of years: looking out beyond the stars and seeing nothing but endless opportunity.