The whole world is anxiously awaiting the first test launch of the SpaceX Starship/Superheavy combination launch system.  It could take place as early as today, Monday, April 17, 2023.  This test will mark the dawning of a new age of human space industrialization and colonization, the importance of which can only be compared to the 1903 launch of the Wright Flyer, the 1957 launch of Sputnik, the 1961 launch of Yuri Gagarin, or the 1969 launch of Apollo 11.

Whether the first vehicle successfully completes its test plan, or blows up upon initial engine ignition, we already know that the world will never be the same. The test program will rapidly move forward until a preliminary successful design is achieved–a Model T of space transportation. And SpaceX will not stop there, nor will NASA, nor any of a new breed of companies which have been applying new methods for rapid prototyping, testing, proving, and producing both evolutionary and radically new designs for everything related to developing what John F. Kennedy had called the New Frontier.

Although a version of the Starship spacecraft is destined to land the next batch of astronauts on the Moon in 2025 or 2026, that is merely one application of this incredible system. Due to its completely rugged, rapidly reusable design, Starship will make space operations as ordinary and common as airline operations on Earth. Starship is designed to be always in motion over a lifetime of years–like an airliner. Turnaround times will be measured in a few hours–not weeks, months, or years.

The cost of putting a kilogram of payload into orbit will be cut by a factor of 10 from the previous reduction by a factor of 10 accomplished by the partially reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 system. In other words, the cost of space operations will be cut by a factor of 100 as compared to typical launch costs of a decade ago.

All of this will make permanent human and robotic operations on the Moon–from mining and processing, to metalworking, to farming–a commercial reality. Because of the ease of launching supplies from the Moon, Lunar industry and agriculture will meet the growing demands of operations in Earth orbit and the first forays by people to Mars.

In Earth orbit, arrays of space factories (manned and unmanned) will be deployed and serviced by Starship. Visits by prosperous but otherwise ordinary people to space hotels will become commonplace.

For exceptional circumstances, it will become possible to move people and equipment to almost anywhere on Earth within an hour.

Now that the FAA has finally given SpaceX the license to fly, the pace of testing will pick up, a robust standard design will be finalized, rapid mass production will begin, and the new fields of endeavor mentioned above will raise mankind to a new level of power over nature.

Neither the British Empire, nor its useful fools can stop the power of people committed to making progress and lifting up our descendants. So, celebrate with LaRouche PAC and use the power of progress and optimism being demonstrated live before your eyes to drown out the voices of Imperial pessimism who serve as legal counsel for the Devil's purveyors of Doom.