SpaceX’s route to the the International Space Station is paved with political moneys, according to the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news outlet and advocacy organization.
Since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has spent $4 million on lobbying Congress and another $800,000 on political donations. SpaceX founder, CEO and lead designer Elon Musk has spent the greatest personal funds on these efforts — a cumulative $725,000 that cuts across party lines, with $35,800 going to President Obama’s reelection effort in 2011, $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and $5,000 to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
However, as the Sunlight Foundation’s Kathy Kiely explains:
Unlike many high-tech startups, SpaceX — short for Space Exploration Technologies — has maintained a significant lobbying presence in Washington almost since Day 1, records downloaded from Influence Explorer indicate. Since 2003, the company has spent more than $4.1 million on lobbying, an amount that steadily increased from $36,000 the first year to more than $1 million in 2010. SpaceX has used its own lobbyists as well as a series of outside firms. Late last year, it signed on one of K Street’s titans, Patton, Boggs…
The hand-holding may have been vital to the company’s success…
Indeed, SpaceX has been promised $1.6 billion from NASA in exchange for 12 flights to the International Space Station, some of which will contain cargo and others which will transport astronauts.
So while SpaceX and others in the commercial industry are eagerly watching the company’s historic attempt to become the first to dock a privately-owned spacecraft with the International Space Station this week, it’s worth noting that it took political pressure, as well as engineering innovation, to get there.
