SpaceX's pivot: Elon Musk downsizes some of his ambitious goals

In remarks on Wednesday uncharacteristic of a visionary billionaire known for his interplanetary dreams and penchant for spearheading changes in the space industry, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk downsized some of his company's ambitious goals.

SpaceX, he said, would no longer implement propulsive landings for its Dragon spacecraft, apparently scrapping his plans to touch down a capsule on the surface of Mars. In addition, the Interplanetary Transport System designed for trips to the red planet would be scaled back to focus on economics. And the premiere launch later this year of his much-vaunted Falcon Heavy three-core rocket propelled by 27 engines would likely fail, he said.

Why would the iconic leader of the game-changing launch provider usually known for his optimism do this?

According to SpaceX watchers and various industry analysts, the adjustment is most likely the result of a collision between science fiction and science fact – between financial realities and technical dreams. The privately traded firm needs billions and more time for those long-term ambitions. Some see the new realism as the sign of a maturing company.

"It's him adjusting to reality," said Laura Seward Forczyk, founder of Astralytical, a consulting firm that analyzes the space industry. "It's smart for any company to adjust once it learns more information about what it's trying to do and evolve its plans."

Musk said the company currently has one primary focus: To successfully – and safely – transport astronauts to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

The changes

On Dragon's canceled propulsive landings, which means the spacecraft capable of carrying people would touch down on land with the help of its SuperDraco engines, Musk said during the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington that the result likely wasn't worth the overall investment.

"The reason we decided not to pursue that heavily is that it would have taken a tremendous amount of effort to qualify that for safety, particularly for crew transport," he said. "Now I'm pretty confident that is not the right way and that there is a far better approach."

In September 2016, Musk told a packed International Astronautical Federation conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, that the company's planned Interplanetary Transport System would take up to a million people to the red planet. The massive rocket, which would overtake the storied Saturn V of the Apollo era, was clearly an expensive venture in the early design stages.

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During Wednesday's conference, however, Musk said ITS would be scaled back, pointing to a required improvement in economics to pull it off.

On Falcon Heavy, Musk previously said it was far more difficult for the company to design than originally anticipated. Falcon Heavy incorporates three core stages with nine Merlin engines each, giving the company flexibility to launch heavier payloads to higher orbits. 

But engineers can't just strap together three Falcon 9 cores, he said. The center core will undergo never-before-seen stresses for the company due to the two side cores' powerful thrust, meaning it needed an entirely new airframe. And that doesn't even mention acoustics, aerodynamics and the hardware needed to physically strap the three cores together.

"There's a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy," he said. "Real good chance that the vehicle doesn't make it to orbit. I want to make sure to set expectations accordingly."

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Musk, however, remained optimistic enough to recommend that people travel to the Space Coast to see the first attempt later this year.

"I encourage people to come down to the Cape to see the first Falcon Heavy mission," he said. "It's guaranteed to be exciting."

Dale Ketcham, chief of strategic alliances at Space Florida, said Musk isn't a stranger to failure, so his willingness to carefully explain the risks when it comes to Falcon Heavy's planned launch from Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A makes sense.

"Falcon Heavy's going to be the biggest vehicle on the planet, and this will be its first launch," said Dale Ketcham, chief of strategic alliances at Space Florida. "He's right to downplay expectations because it may very well fail."

A more realistic approach

To Forcyzk, Musk's comments didn't seem negative or a sign that the company is backing down on its dreams – they're likely signs of maturation.

"It seems to me that he's still pretty focused on his dreams," she said. "Everything starts as a dream, and as you work toward it, you figure out how to actually make it happen. And that's what this sounds like – he's figuring out how to make it happen."

SpaceX has been known for substantial, long-term pronouncements about future goals. Musk often peppers those objectives with stone-cold views of the difficulties, but his discussion at Wednesday's conference seemed more like a scaling back, said Chris Quilty, president of Quilty Analytics, a St. Petersburg-based research and consulting firm that focuses on the space industry.

"He's always put out those caveats, but in the big picture, they just scaled back significantly their overall timeline and goals." he said. "He's not in any way abandoning Mars, [he's] tweaking the plan."

"There was a much more toned-down view and admission that SpaceX nor NASA have endless resources," Quilty said.

Resources for SpaceX's endeavors

That lack of endless resources is a reminder that one of SpaceX's biggest financial supporters is still NASA through the Commercial Crew Program, an effort designed to allow companies to send astronauts to the ISS.

"NASA has been one of their biggest supporters and is still one of their biggest customers," said Richard Rocket, CEO and co-founder of NewSpace Global, an information service provider that tracks the space industry. "They have yet to send a human being to the International Space Station.”

But reaching the ISS isn’t easy, Rocket said, and involves hitting a “moving target that’s only available for a limited launch window that can be as short as three minutes once a day."

From a proposed constellation of thousands of satellites that would beam wireless internet connectivity to securing lucrative national security contracts, SpaceX's ambitions in finding more revenue are well-documented.

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Officials with the company have insisted that moving forward with an initial public offering, or launch in the stock market, isn't in the cards, and some experts agree that Musk's control over SpaceX is what helps drive it forward.

"It's smart for him not to do that because he's in control," Forczyk said. "Elon Musk doesn't have to think about too many stakeholders other than the ones he's contracted with."

Instead, she said, his plan could be to adjust the scope and size of his long-term Mars goal to possibly include NASA, other companies and governments. 

Ketcham agreed: "I think giving up his much more significant control of the company would probably be as much a disincentive as it would be opening up the books. Elon has been very successful by being able to make decisions and drive things the way he wants them."

Rocket, meanwhile, thinks the proposed constellation of more than 11,000 satellites could mark a financial turning point, but still begs the question: How long can SpaceX remain a private company?

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook at @EmreKelly.