The explosion of SpaceX’s latest Starship test on June 18, the fourth in succession, and this time on the launchpad and without even getting airborne, was as spectacular as it was destructive. It was another very unwelcome and untimely setback for the SpaceX Starship program and visions of Martian conquest.
Here, things now seem to be as problematic in terms of reliability as the commercial issues afflicting Tesla’s electric vehicles. Somehow, this catastrophic event seems an “apt” metaphor for what has befallen Elon Musk himself and an occasion of high space drama imitating Earth-based life.
Talking of EVs, other players are now building their dreams too, as the Chinese BYD EV firm can attest. The rapid emergence of this company and many others in the EV market, in China in particular, but also across Europe, together with all the associated innovations, battery advances, design excellence and affordability that accompany these factors, bodes well for the transformation of 21st-century private transport in most developed countries away from fossil fuel dependency, with perhaps one current, but notable exception. This is something that is desperately needed if we are to slow the dial of climate collapse from incrementing inexorably, it seems, toward profound and negative global impact. Hence, the growing international reputation and financial clout of companies like BYD reflect just how quickly things can change positively when value for money is so evident for the customer. It is this that drives customer choice at least as much as anything else, including social awareness. Of course, cars on roads may also soon be increasingly replaced by aerial, dronelike taxis and other vehicles in the sky as the low-altitude economy (LAE) rapidly takes off, so to speak.
Hong Kong is putting increasing emphasis on the LAE as a significant growth and opportunity area. This is clear if one looks over the border onto the mainland side of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, where aerial taxis may soon be commonplace and where efficient fleets of electric buses and taxis already undertake all ground public transport. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has a plan to have all-electric public transport by 2050 … decades too late, I believe. Indeed, the can appears to have been kicked so far down the road that the rising sea levels on this timescale may submerge the road! We need to do better and overcome the difficulties that impede the shift.
Anyway, right now, and not in 2050, the scale of the Chinese mainland’s innovation and creativity, not just in the EV industry but also in the LAE, is as breathtaking as it is transformative, with new advances and commercial game-changing advantages emerging almost weekly. This includes self-parking motor scooters, whose built-in gyroscopes prevent them from falling over, even when pushed, and cars that can rotate and park parallel to the curb in a space that would be impossible to drive into otherwise.
Still, the LAE is also dependent on the low earth orbit (LEO) economy for satellite-based telemetry, which enables LAE vehicles to use GPS for navigation — something that I hope our HKSAR government can increasingly appreciate.
In any event, I remain a huge fan of SpaceX and its highly reliable Falcon rocket family, which has taken over much of the literal and figurative heavy lifting of the American space program from NASA and deployed thousands of Starlink satellites into space. This also applies to SpaceX’s amazingly successful Dragon capsule used for transporting astronauts in almost Zen-like conditions to the International Space Station (ISS). This is reflected in the clean, white, and minimalist internal design, which extends to the spacesuits. It’s just a pity that this excellent transport vehicle typically takes 16 to 19 hours to dock with the ISS, compared to the two to three hours for the Chinese version. Nevertheless, the cutting-edge technologies associated with various high-end space satellite and ground-based enterprises that Musk has invested in, to excellent effect over the last 15 years, are still worthy of great admiration.
However, these recent trials and tribulations of SpaceX create opportunities too. Nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum, and a faltering of success in one area, especially in the commercial domain, does not stay unanswered for long. Indeed, China’s own rocket family is expanding rapidly, not just from State-owned enterprises, but also with several new commercial companies entering the fray, offering commercially viable and cost-effective ground-to-space satellite launch capabilities. This was clear and on display at China’s 10th Space Day in Shanghai in April. A whole range of launch capabilities were promoted to cater to a variety of markets with rockets for potential tourist flights like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, to sea-launched options from floating launchpads that can go where needed for maximum orbital window benefit, to solid-fuel versions offering safe and stable fuel options to reusable first stages being captured back at their launch platforms just like Musk’s Falcon 9.
The ground-to-space high-tech ecosystem is becoming increasingly competitive and crowded, from low altitude to low Earth orbit. There will be winners and losers, and the ecosystem itself is highly dynamic and still risky. Hong Kong has all the ingredients necessary to help manage this risk, drive investment in local and global aerospace, and create the right kind of explosion in ideas, talent, and finance needed to win.
The author is director of the Laboratory for Space Research at the University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
