There is a lot to admire about Elon Musk. The eccentric billionaire who immigrated from South Africa became the world’s richest man through a nearly unquenchable thirst for innovation and exploration. And he has now taken up the cause of leading President Donald Trump’s project to rid the federal government of waste and fraud.

In many ways, Musk is the most visible embodiment of the spirit of adventurism that inspired generations of Americans to strike out on their own and build lives in uncharted and often dangerous places. Such is the promise of SpaceX, the company that he founded with the expressed goal of establishing a permanent human presence on the planet Mars. The company was created with the expressed purpose of furthering American adventurism into the final frontier.