Eyes in the sky: SpaceX is aiming to make history on Wall Street

The initial public offering (IPO) of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), headed by Elon Musk, promises to be the most extraordinary ever, going by the filing last week at the United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission. SpaceX is looking to raise around $75 billion at a valuation of $1.75 trillion-2 trillion. This will make it the largest ever initial listing in the US. SpaceX will be listed as the seventh-most valuable company on the S&P 500. If the IPO achieves its aim, it will boost Mr Musk's personal net worth to well over $1 trillion. Much of the prospectus reads like a compilation of science-fiction themes. The mission statement is to take "the light of consciousness to the stars", a phrase that occurs repeatedly. The prospectus speaks of mining on asteroids, manufacturing in orbit, energy production on the moon and Mars, along with transporting cargo and passengers to those celestial bodies, and setting up a one-million population colony on Mars.