On Friday, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is scheduled to begin trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange. This will be a profoundly positive event for both the United States and the investing public. The public offering of SpaceX represents the nation’s renewed commitment to technological innovation, industrial strength, and leadership in the final frontier: outer space.

Since the late 1950s, space exploration has been primarily the responsibility of the federal government. The Apollo moon landings of 1969 and the early 1970s demonstrated what America could achieve when national ambition was matched with resources and the talents of the nation’s best and brightest. But after the moon landings, the U.S. space program gradually lost momentum. The SpaceX offering changes that trajectory. It promises to reignite space exploration but also to demonstrate the economic feasibility of building data centers in orbit.