2026 Is the Make-or-Break Year for the New Space Race
From the Gobi Desert to the Arctic Circle, a generation of private rocket startups is finally bending metal. 2026 is the year they either reach orbit—or run out of cash. (title image credit: Rockets of the World by Nick Stevens)
The Monopoly in the Sky
Look up on a clear night in 2026 and you'll see them: not just Orion or Cassiopeia, but the synchronized trains of Starlink, drifting across the sky like a slow-motion barcode. One company, headquartered in Hawthorne, California, owns roughly two-thirds of everything humanity is currently launching into orbit. SpaceX didn't just lower the cost of getting to space. It vaporized the old market, then welded a stainless-steel tower out of the wreckage in South Texas.
For everyone else, that's been a problem.
The "SpaceX Effect" cracked open the idea that spaceflight belonged exclusively to superpowers and cost-plus government primes. It also created a gravity well...
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