Throughout all of modern history, nations and empires have been the great powers of human society. The final say on what could or could not be done ultimately rested in major governments and their leaders. This has been the status quo for centuries, if not millennia, and it may be on the verge of changing. The catalyst for this change, as unlikely as it may seem, could be space exploration.
It is possible that in the coming decades and centuries, the real power here on Earth and off-Earth may be held by private corporations. While this may sound far-fetched, there is growing evidence to suggest that the future of space travel, and thus humanity’s expansion into the universe, will be led by private companies such as SpaceX.
To understand why, it is best to start at the earliest days of human space exploration and look at the role private companies played.
During the Apollo program, many aspects of the missions were designed and built by companies. The Saturn V rocket was built by Boeing, the Douglas Aircraft Company and IBM. The lunar lander was built by Grumman, and the Apollo Command Module was built by North American Aviation.
All of these components were brought together by NASA and assembled into the Apollo program, very clearly a United States Government-led effort.
By contrast, it is looking increasingly likely that future Mars programs will be a SpaceX-led project. While NASA does have “plans” for a Mars program, they reek of Old Space.
They involve many of the same old players, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and Northrup-Grumman, and it seems very unlikely in the current political climate that these plans will ever become a reality.
That leaves SpaceX, which has been very vocal over the last decade about their desire to “make life multiplanetary.”
In the last two years, SpaceX has been making incredible progress towards this goal with their Starship rocket, which has been designed since day one to land humans and large amounts of cargo on the surface of Mars.
It seems clear now that if humanity is to reach Mars within the next two decades, it will be on Starship, and by extension, it will be with SpaceX. There is simply no other system in development that is anywhere near what SpaceX has accomplished with Starship.
If they are successful, and we have little reason to believe they will not be, SpaceX could very well establish a colony on Mars within the next few decades.
However, how would this work legally? Would this colony be an extension of the United States of America? Would it be run by SpaceX? Who would establish laws? Who would enforce those laws? The implications of these questions are massive.
We may have gotten our first hint at an answer earlier this year. On May 3, 2025, SpaceX incorporated their R&D facility in South Texas into a full legal town. The city of Starbase, Texas is now a legal entity just as much as Daytona Beach or Orlando.
What is even more interesting is the city government of Starbase is made up entirely of active SpaceX employees, giving the company de facto legal control over the town. SpaceX has the power to levy taxes, issue permits, and in theory, operate a law enforcement agency, though in practice they outsource this to Cameron County, where Starbase is located.
Starbase seems to be the clearest indication of how SpaceX would manage the government of a Martian colony. This has major implications for the future of space exploration.
If more colonies on other worlds, or around other stars are established, SpaceX could set a precedent that these colonies can be controlled by private companies, not governments. Eventually, we could see entire planets under the jurisdiction of corporations.
At this point, the question of resource security would become a very real one. It is not inconceivable that these companies could hire their own security forces to ensure their property is not seized by another group. If this happens, the line between companies and governments will become blurred. After all, a government is nothing more than an organization which holds a monopoly on the use of violence.
As debt-ridden national governments stay focused on issues here on Earth, it may turn to private corporations as the only organizations capable of expending the resources required to push humanity beyond our solar system.