Officials at both NASA and those working at the Pentagon reacted with "alarm" over Elon Musk's stunning falling out with Donald Trump on Thursday and started sending out feelers to alternative companies who may need to step into the void if both the president and the billionaire make good on their threats.
According to the Washington Post, dueling social media posts by Trump and Musk over pulling the plug on Musk company contracts with the government, and Musk threatening to shutter the Dragon spacecraft program, has set off a panic.
The Post's Christian Davenport is reporting that, although Musk backed off the Dragon threat, the race is on to prod other companies to step into the breach.
The report notes that one NASA official initially found the Trump/Musk break up “entertaining" until the Dragon program threat turned it "terrifying.”
Noting that the Pentagon is highly dependent on Musk's SpaceX for launching its most sensitive satellites, "There was a similar reaction in the Pentagon, where a person said staff officers 'looked at each other and said, 'oh, it’s not funny anymore.' There was a realization that we’re not watching TV. This is a real issue," the Post is reporting.
"The worried reaction within space and national security agencies highlights the risks of the government’s heavy dependence on SpaceX for crucial tasks, including classified missions," the Post's Davenport wrote before adding that inquiries elsewhere were promptly initiated.
"Since Thursday’s exchange, at least three commercial space companies, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, have been contacted by government officials about the status of their rockets and when they might be available for government missions, according to four people familiar with the inquiries. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)" the report states. "Officials at Sierra Space, which is developing a Dream Chaser spaceplane that could deliver cargo to the space station, were in a meeting with NASA officials on Thursday as the Trump-Musk feud was getting underway."
Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, raised a red flag over the split between to the two billionaires.
“It’s almost like an embargo of the space station,” he pointed out. “Musk was saying he is going to cut NASA off from its own laboratory in space.”
Harrison added that defense officials should be"rattled" by the“idea that the nation’s missile defenses could be held hostage to the twittering whims of Elon Musk.”
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