Excuse me, but as a 10 year veteran of the US space program, manned and unmanned, I’d like to question the premise of this editorial. First, we STILL put payloads into orbit. Period. We do that fine and guys like Spacex are WORLDBEATERS at it. Second, we are at the dawn of private spaceflight. Ask Scaled Composites’ Burt Rutan about that? He and Richard Branson are lining up paying customers to fly in zero-G. Third, so it’s not gummint space. So what! We can do it better faster and cheaper than the Ruskies and the ChiComs and they admit it! The Space Scuttle (TM) should have been moth balled years ago. Its 1970s technology was expensive an unreliable. There are a number of high dollar NASA programs that are very vulnerable right now. And they should be. Let the capitalists do it!!!
Heads up Americans this article is propaganda by the same folks who funded Solyndra. Don’t buy the FUD. Yes there are some things government can do to help US space capabilities. Mainly stay out of the way and pay the pros to put a few payloads up. New man-rated systems? New heavy lift? Nope.
Check this out if you want some valid information on the subject ...
http://blog.nss.org/?p=3080&cpage=1
Preach it, brother! Amen! Get gooberment out.
/johnny
I’m wondering why we need to thumb a ride to the space station.
Great news! The USA controls LEO Space Tourism, China’s PLA controls everythng above that. Sweet. /s
Did you know that the only properly hardened chips in their computers that NASA would approve for the Space Shuttle was the 386 processor since the late 80’s?
So, we had computers driving our shuttle fleet that were so old they couldn’t handle the capability of Angry Birds on my cell phone.
The US government has a duty to create space-based defense systems to protect the US and it’s citizens when they do get to space again.
On another note, when do you think there will be a company that decides to go to space and harvest the “space junk” we have in the skies right now? There’s a fortune in materials there.