"Schneider's glasses"

Private space

Elon Musk recently completed the first privately financed spacewalk in the history of space travel. But is it really that special?(Bild: AP)

In his latest column, author Robert Schneider looks at Elon Musk's ambitions in space. He can understand why the entrepreneur and billionaire is sending satellites into space. But not the excitement surrounding the first privately financed spacewalk.

I am suspicious of Elon Musk's space ambitions, apart from the 42,000 Starlink satellites that he intends to send into space in the coming years and use to provide fast Internet access all over the world.

It's all about money, power and control. I can understand that. But to want to land on the moon again, set up a habitat there and then travel on to Mars is incomprehensible to me. Such a dream should actually be over.

Not for Musk. Years ago, he stated on the US talk show "60 Minutes" that astronauts Neil Amstrong and Gene Cernan were among his greatest "heroes", only to be told by those very heroes that they had no expectations of a commercial conquest of space.

That moved Musk to tears at the time. It must have been a déjà vu experience for him, a childhood moment where the son is humiliated by his father and has to realize that he will always be in his shadow, no matter what he achieves in life.

Last week, Musk's SpaceX, i.e. the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, successfully completed its first EVA, i.e. an extravehicular activity or spacewalk. However, the Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov already undertook this in 1965, lashed to a four and a half meter long safety line. In the same year, the American Edward H. White followed in his footsteps on the Gemini 4 mission.

How does Musk celebrate the maneuver, which has been common practice for decades and doesn't really draw anyone out from behind the stove? "SpaceX" announces: "It's the first privately funded spacewalk in the history of space travel." Is this about space or about private or public money? Where is the sensation?