View this post on the web at [link removed]

We hear a lot these days about how the United States can’t get big things done or, when we do, get them done well or on schedule. This is particularly true in the realm of what might very loosely be called big hardware—everything from jumbo jets to large public works projects. While the successful development of what might conversely be termed cutting-edge software—from ChatGPT to RNA vaccines—continues apace, we seem to have a problem actually making big stuff. And that’s a problem.
Sure, we still throw up skyscrapers. And as Robert Tracinski pointed out [ [link removed] ] recently in an excellent piece in Discourse, the U.S. remains a large manufacturer, with a 16% share of all global manufacturing output. There’s even still the occasional marquee success, such as the recently deployed Webb Space Telescope [ [link removed] ], which is a marvel of engineering. But for the most part, the country that coined the term “moonshot” seems to have scant few on offer or even on the drawing board.
Indeed, in the nation that built the transcontinental railway, the interstate highway system and the Panama Canal, lengthy delays and massive cost overruns [ [link removed] ] for even routine infrastructure projects are now the norm. Some extreme examples of this would be comical if they weren’t so frustratingly sad. For instance, after $11 billion and 15 years, not a single mile of track has been laid for the first leg of California’s proposed high-speed train line [ [link removed] ]. Across the country and under the Hudson River [ [link removed] ], a much-needed rail tunnel linking New York and New Jersey that was first proposed in the 1990s is not expected to be complete until 2035.
Meanwhile, the country that was building an aircraft carrier a month at the end of the Second World War took 13 years to construct and deploy its latest flattop, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford. (As for large commercial ships: The U.S. simply doesn’t make them anymore.) And the nation that invented the airplane and is largely responsible for the development of global air travel is struggling to properly manufacture its most popular planes (the Boeing 737 and 787)—let alone the next Air Force One—without continued delays due to a string of defects.
As I already noted, there are exceptions. Some are even models for the future. The biggest and best of these is SpaceX’s interplanetary megarocket [ [link removed] ], Starship, which is being built and tested right now amidst the once barren dunes and tidal marshes along the far southern Texas coast.
Until recently, America’s long-dominant space launch industry was well on its way to becoming yet another example of the country’s inability to execute on big hardware projects. After the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2014, the U.S. was not only relying on the Russians to fly American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), but also to provide engines for our rockets still being used to launch military and commercial payloads into orbit.
But thanks to SpaceX and its reusable workhorse rocket [ [link removed] ], the Falcon 9, the United States is once again the leader in the space industry, not only flying astronauts and cargo to the ISS but becoming the dominant player in the global commercial launch business. Since 2020, for instance, the Falcon 9 and its Dragon capsule has successfully flown seven astronaut crews to the station. That’s on top of 15 cargo resupply missions there. By contrast, a Boeing-led project to build a launch vehicle to service the ISS [ [link removed] ], dubbed Starliner, is way behind schedule and way over budget.
The contrasts between Boeing and other legacy aerospace companies and SpaceX are actually much, much starker. In 2023, for instance, SpaceX successfully launched a total of 97 rockets [ [link removed] ] with commercial and government payloads into orbit. That’s nearly half of the entire world’s orbital launches for the year. Boeing (and its partner Lockheed Martin) launched just three orbital missions [ [link removed] ] last year. And because SpaceX rockets are reusable (some individual boosters have flown as many as 19 times) the cost of its launches are much lower than other major players in this sector, including Boeing-Lockheed and Europe’s launch champion Ariane.
SpaceX is now the go-to company for cheap, reliable launch services. But it wants to be much more. Amidst those Texas dunes I referred to earlier, the company is now test-launching the largest, most powerful rocket ever built, the aforementioned Starship. Once operational, this 400-foot, two-stage behemoth will carry 150 tons of payload into orbit, much more than Falcon 9 (25 tons) [ [link removed] ] or even SpaceX’s biggest rocket, the Falcon Heavy (70 tons) [ [link removed] ]. However, Starship’s real purpose is not just to be a much bigger orbital lift vehicle, but to take us back to the moon and then to Mars and beyond—and with enough payload capacity to support permanent human settlement.
Starship has already test-launched and failed twice. But the second test went much better than the first, with that vehicle coming close to orbital velocity. It is possible, even likely, that future tests will also result in failure, which is a routine occupational hazard when building new, powerful rockets. It is also likely that at some point, very possibly in the next year, Starship will not fail and the rocket will be on the road to full operational use. When that happens, everything will start to change. According to SpaceX, Starship will be able to carry 100 people on a long, interplanetary voyage.
It’s easy to get caught up in pictures or video simulations [ [link removed] ] of what might be. Deep space travel is a very challenging and risky enterprise. But if Starship performs as intended, it will likely be sitting on the surface of the moon sometime in the next three to five years and Mars within a decade. Such predictions might be laughable if SpaceX didn’t have a history of delivering on its promises. Think about it: Twenty years ago, when Elon Musk founded the company, the idea that a relatively poorly funded startup would build a fleet of reusable orbital launchers from scratch and successfully launch one of them a rate of every three to four days would have elicited a loud, collective guffaw from the aerospace industry. But that’s exactly what happened.
The SpaceX story is a useful case study for almost any business interested in creating and making new products and, not surprisingly, the company has already been the subject of much interest [ [link removed] ] at business schools. But more importantly, it also offers lessons and inspiration for a country that should be doing more bigger and bolder things.
To begin with, Musk and his team at SpaceX had a bold vision: They didn’t just want to build reliable orbital rockets, although that is a worthy goal. They also wanted to make space travel cheap, safe and common enough to facilitate the transportation of human beings to the moon, Mars and beyond. As Musk has often said [ [link removed] ], he wants human beings to be “a spacefaring and multiplanetary species,” a goal that contains echoes of earlier bold projects like a continent-spanning railroad or a canal to connect two oceans.
SpaceX also started with a clean slate. When the company was founded in 2002, it did not just want to build a better version of the Atlas and Delta rockets that were at the time the mainstays of the U.S. rocket fleet. Instead, they set out to produce a new kind of launch vehicle and, in doing so, create a new business model and even a set of new industries. While SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 sports innovative engines and other new features, its great and novel innovation is that it can fly to orbit and back over and over again without significant cost for refurbishment. Reusable rockets have been a trope in science fiction since the early 20th century, but before SpaceX built the Falcon 9, the concept had never been efficiently developed. The only reusable orbital vehicle up to that point, the Space Shuttle, was so complex and fragile that it cost over $1 billion [ [link removed] ] to ready for each flight.
For policymakers, there is also a valuable lesson. While SpaceX and other up-and-coming private launch companies like Blue Origin and Rocket Lab have received some federal support (mostly through government launch contracts), the main driver of the industry has been a business environment relatively free of burdensome regulation. Thanks in part to policies put in place by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the private space industry has been free to experiment and innovate without too much interference from federal agencies. Not surprisingly, the industry has attracted nearly $300 billion in venture capital in the last decade alone, according to business historian Rainer Zitelmann [ [link removed] ].
While one can make a good argument for some kind of national security industrial policy focused on the domestic production of military hardware (although our current version of it [ [link removed] ] is a mess), for the vast majority of our industrial sectors, the best policy isn’t to favor some industries or companies over others, but to favor all of them by getting and staying out of the way. A light regulatory environment will do much more than any basket of subsidies to encourage new entrepreneurs to try to build bold and big—be it infrastructure, rockets or something completely different and new. And given that our existing manufacturing sector can’t find anywhere near enough skilled workers [ [link removed] ] to fill the jobs it currently has on offer, any industrial policy we do come up with should be focused on workforce training rather than second-guessing the market.
The United States has always been a frontier nation, and since the beginning of the 20th century, that has largely meant something other than settling new lands. We split the atom, reached the moon, nearly doubled our lifespan and created a host of new globe-spanning industries in areas ranging from transportation to energy to communications. Much of this work involved building big things, from grand highways and suspension bridges to jumbo jets and nuclear power plants.
As the SpaceX story shows, we can still dream big and build big. We are still the most imaginative innovators in the world. Going forward, through our policies and more importantly in our national outlook and rhetoric, we need to rekindle the spirit that has taken us this far. We need to encourage more projects like Starship and stop accepting multidecade boondoggles. 
Meanwhile ...
What I’m watching: Last week, I recommended “The Gathering Storm,” a film about Churchill and Britain in the run-up to World War II. This week, I’ve gone into the storm, with “Masters of the Air [ [link removed] ],” a nine-part series on Apple TV that follows the exploits of American B-17 crews from the famous 100th Bomb Group (nicknamed the Bloody Hundredth) starting in 1943. The series was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who also did the honors for the wonderful World War II series, “Band of Brothers,” as well as “The Pacific.”
I’ve only watched the first few episodes of “Masters,” but so far the series hasn’t disappointed. Almost immediately, one gets a sense of the tight claustrophobic environment within the Flying Fortress (as the B-17 was called), as well as the tremendous risks the crews took every time they left for another bombing raid over Germany or German-occupied Europe. (According to a website [ [link removed] ] maintained by the 100th Bomb Group Foundation, 27 of the original 35 crews sent to England in 1943 were lost within four months of the 100th’s first mission.) The scenes in which the bombers try to fend off German fighters are particularly terrifying.
Like “Band of Brothers,” “Masters of the Air” does a nice job of bringing certain characters into focus, which in turn makes the viewer feel more invested in the ultimate fate of the larger group. And as with “Band,” at the center of “Masters” is a steady, decent man (Damien Lewis’ Dick Winters in the former and Austin Butler’s Gale “Buck” Cleven in the latter) who ultimately finds the strength to lead his men through incredible challenges and hardship.
I’m a sucker for World War II dramas, especially when they involve historical characters, as is the case with “Masters of the Air.” I also love it when a series or film thoroughly entertains me while at the same time teaching me something. “Masters of the Air” does both. While I’ve read dozens of books over the years about the war, the show’s attention to detail and its no-holds-barred depiction of fighting has definitely added to my understanding of the conflict in the air over Europe. But the series also has very much held my attention, and I’m looking forward to watching the rest of it in the coming weeks.
And while I’m at it: The best and most moving film ever made about the cost of war endured by those who fight and survive it is director William Wyler’s 1946 masterpiece, “The Best Years of Our Lives. [ [link removed] ]” The story of three American servicemen returning home from World War II, “Best Years” was far ahead of its time in so many ways, exploring issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (although it wasn’t called that in 1946), disability, depression and alcoholism—all topics that, up to that point, Hollywood had largely shied away from.
The three men, played superbly by Frederic March, Dana Andrews and Harold Russell, all struggle in their own way to return to a “normal life” after experiencing the horrors of war. Those who love them, played by Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright and Cathy O’Donnell, struggle just as much to help them. The result is one of the most beautiful films ever made about the human condition.
“Best Years” went on to win seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Score. In addition to Wyler, who was probably the best American director of his generation, the film showcases the wonderful talents of cinematographer Gregg Toland, screenwriter and playwright Robert Sherwood, and composer Hugo Friedhofer, who wrote a beautiful, Coplandesque score. “The Best Years of Our Lives” is a movie to return to again and again, not only because it eloquently speaks to the cost of war, but because it also poignantly depicts our capacity to transcend tragedy.
Finally: Next week, we have some great pieces coming from Rob Tracinski on Alexei Navalny, Gary Hoover on teaching business history and NASCAR star Jerry Nadeau on his journey back from a life-threatening injury. Best of all, my colleague Jen Tiedemann will occupy the Editor’s Corner next Sunday. Until then, wishing everyone a great week.
Latest Stories
Martin Gurri, “The Fifth Wave: Andrey Mir Takes on World History [ [link removed] ]”
Joe Romance, “‘Right-Sizing’ the Presidency [ [link removed] ]”
Michał Fiszer and Michael Puttré, “Ukraine Is Entering Its Third Year of War at a Difficult Crossroads [ [link removed] ]”
Erec Smith, “We Are Too Good for DEI [ [link removed] ]”
David Masci, “Biden and Trump Are Both Agents of Chaos [ [link removed] ]”
Jon Gabriel, “The Autodidact: To Improve Society, Start With Improving Yourself [ [link removed] ]”
Addison Del Mastro, “What Are Restaurants For? [ [link removed] ]”
From the Archives
Zachary Shore, “Plumbing Putin’s Mind [ [link removed] ]”
Seth Moskowitz, “Is a Donald Trump Candidacy the Only Path to GOP Unity? [ [link removed] ]”
Ben Klutsey interviewing Rachel Ferguson and Marcus Witcher, “Classical Liberalism and Racial Justice [ [link removed] ]”

Unsubscribe [link removed]?