Elon Musk’s SpaceX is a contradiction. The company is showing what is possible when private companies tackle the problems of space travel. The company has had more than ninety fully successful missions and a partially successful mission delivering a payload to the international space station. One of the innovative features of the SpaceX rockets is that they utilize a reusable booster. This significantly reduces launch costs. For these innovations and successes, SpaceX deserves our praise and support.
But these heroic achievements are tainted by the company’s threat to use eminent domain to seize the property in a neighborhood near its south Texas facility. For this, SpaceX deserves our condemnation.
On one hand, SpaceX is a glorious tribute to the values possible when the human mind is not controlled and restricted by government force. On the other hand, it threatens to use government force against the minds of innocent property owners.
SpaceX has offered the the residents of Boca Chica Village, Texas, as much as three times the appraised value for their homes. Some of the property owners have accepted the offer, but others think that even that inflated amount won’t allow them to purchase a comparable home near the coast.
While SpaceX does not have eminent domain powers, the county government does. In 2013, county commissioners established a corporation to help develop and promote a spaceport project in Cameron County (where Boca Chica Village is located). Since the Kelo case expanded the justification for the use of eminent domain, local governments have eagerly seized property for economic development. County officials are supportive of SpaceX. And recently, an officer with SpaceX sent a letter to property owners threatening to use “alternate” means to obtain their property if they didn’t sell to the company.
The ends do not justify the means. Noble ends cannot be achieved through ignoble means. The goals of SpaceX are noble. Seizing private property to achieve those goals is not.