I believe that profits will be made in space exploration in the not to distance future (certainly in my lifetime), but for now NASA is all we have.
But the most radical change, the one that would improve space exploration most dramatically, has been ignored: privatizing the space program.
Um...space is open to private enterprise. The only problem is that private enterprise isn't buying if it doesn't have to. For one thing, space exploration requires MASSIVE amounts of Research & Development (R&D). NASA's prime expenditures are R&D. Most businesses that want to stay in business slash R&D from their budgets at the first sign of economic downturns.
The results are written all over the past twenty years of NASA's history: the space program is a political animal, marked by shifting, inconsistent and ill-defined goals.
As one who's followed NASA since 1969, I can tell you that NASA's objectives have not changed in the least. What changed was public interest. And when public interest went away, so did a lot of public funding.
If you wish to challenge this, tell me the names of the astronauts who flew on the shuttle mission before the Columbia disaster. Hell, I'll even make it easier: tell me the name of the last shuttle to fly before the Columbia disaster! I'll wager that few (if any) can do it without doing a Google search.
Hence my point.
The space shuttle was built and maintained to please clashing constituencies, not to do a clearly defined job for which there was an economic and technical need.
Nonsense. The STS was built as a proof of concept for reusable space vehicles. Up until that time, all space vehicles were one-shot wonders. A reusable craft put the space program a very large step ahead in making space travel accessible for commercial purposes.
Granted, the shuttle is by no means perfection...but was the Model T automobile? No...the STS is but the first in a (hopefully) long series of reusable spacecraft.
The shuttle was to launch satellites for the Department of Defense and private contractors—which could be done more cheaply by lightweight, disposable rockets. It was to carry scientific experiments—which could be done more efficiently by unmanned vehicles.
While it is true that cheap rockets could have been used to launch military and commercial satellites, one must recall that we had a rash of those cheap rockets exploding following takeoff. That's the main reason why Galileo was launched via an STS mission. The rockets we normally used for those purposes were exploding en masse.
But one "need" came before all technical issues: NASA's political need for showy manned vehicles.
Which totally ignores the Mars Pathfinder mission. That was perhaps the most "showy" of all our recent expeditions. And lo! It was UNMANNED.
The result, as great a technical achievement as it is, was an over-sized, over-complicated, over-budget overly dangerous vehicle that does everything poorly and nothing well.
Show me one other space program on Earth that does it better than NASA. ESA? Puh-leeze!
Indeed, the space shuttle program was supposed to be phased out years ago, but the search for its replacement has been halted, largely because space contractors enjoy collecting on the overpriced shuttle without the expense and bother of researching cheaper alternatives.
This is pure, unadulterated RUBBISH. NASA briefly flirted with advancing the technology of reusable craft with the X1, but that project failed for a large number of reasons; not the least of which was that the thrusters had a habit of breaching the air frame of the spacecraft.
Judging from what I've read from this article thus far, the author is speaking entirely from ignorant hubris. I have yet to see one statement that speaks to the actual facts of the matter.
Now comes evidence that the political nature of the space program may have even been directly responsible for the Columbia disaster. Fox News reported that NASA chose to stick with non-Freon-based foam insulation on the booster rockets, despite evidence that this type of foam causes up to 11 times as much damage to thermal tiles as the older, Freon-based foam.
Thank the rabid environmentalists for that one, but don't blame NASA for having to submit to the will of the vocal minority.
Nor would it be difficult to spur the private exploration of space. After government involvement in space exploration is phased out, the free market will work to produce whatever there is demand for, just as it now does with traditional aircraft, both military and civilian.
Sorry, but businesses these days are not disposed to take risks...especially when those risks run in the tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of dollars. If the space program were privatized today, space exploration would take a HUGE back seat, and we would be reduced to the "cost effective" cheap rockets that only go up once and burn up in re-entry. Moreover, scientific research in space would become nonexistent.
And these chumps call that PROGRESS? Give me a break.
Like it or not, going into space isn't something that a company can just hop into. Space exploration is a highly scientific, highly technical and highly *expensive* venture that -- at present -- only funding on a national scale can support. The space program has a _HUGE_ technological infrastructure that, if possessed by any one private enterprise, would constitute a technological monolopy that would make Microsoft look positively picayune.
Losing the Challenger and Columbia crews is bad enough. But needlessly capitalizing (no pun intended) on these tragedies to forward ridiculous notions that the private industry is somehow better suited than NASA to handle space exploration is not only absurd, it's pathetic.
-Jay
Actually the reason is the "McNamara Syndrome." McNamara--the Whiz Kid--had an insight: paper studies were much cheaper than hardware. "Run along and do another study; don't bother me about building anything."
We in the evil contractor community have--at NASA's behest, had--oh, maybe a half-dozen "major" studies for replacing the shuttle. The best part was the acronyms: NLS (National Launch System), ALS (Advanced Launch System), NGLS (Next Generation Launch System), etc. Right now it is OSP (Orbital Space Plane); right after this study is completed we will get another acronym and another few million dollars to study it to death some more. There were also gigantic (but cheap) studies on Space Tugs, which morphed into Orbital Transfer Vehicles, which wasted away to nothing.
Remember: compared to hardware (with testing, facilities and actual stuff being purchased) such studies are fabulously cheap.
So are science-fiction novels, which can be had for much less, although rarely supported by detailed calculations, tables, charts and graphs.
So blame Wiley E. Coyote (McNamara), Super Genius, for his great "insight" that military and space systems could be very cheap--if never actually built.
--Boris