Donald Trump-Elon Musk showdown threatens United States space plans

SPACEX'S rockets ferry US astronauts to the International Space Station. Its Star-link satellite constellation blankets the globe with broadband, and the company is embedded in some of the Pentagon's most sensitive projects, including tracking hypersonic missiles.

- AFP

So when President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to cancel Elon Musk’s federal contracts, space watchers snapped to attention.

Musk, the world’s richest person, shot back that he would mothball Dragon -- the capsule NASA relies on for crew flights -- before retracting the threat a few hours later.

For now, experts say mutual dependence should keep a full-blown rupture at bay, but the episode exposes just how disruptive any break could be.

Founded in 2002, SpaceX leapfrogged legacy contractors to become the world’s dominant launch provider.

Driven by Musk’s ambition to make humanity multiplanetary, it is now NASA's sole means of sending astronauts to the ISS -- a symbol of post-Cold War cooperation and a testbed for deeper space missions.

Space monopoly?

The company has completed 10 regular crew rotations to the orbiting lab and is contracted for four more, under a deal worth nearly $5 billion.

That's just part of a broader portfolio that includes $4 billion from NASA for developing Starship, the next-generation megarocket; nearly $6 billion from the Space Force for launch services; and a reported $1.8 billion for Starshield, a classified spy satellite network.