President-elect Barack Obama has submitted a questionnaire to NASA inquiring about the progress of the Ares 1 and Ares V rockets and the implications of cutting back and essentially canceling the Ares 1 rocket all-together. This issue will no doubt divide space advocates, but I for one am quite excited about this turn of events.
Barack Obama’s initial space policy early on in his campaign involved cutting funding to NASA’s Moon, Mars, and Beyond initiative, or Project Constellation, and then funneling those funds into the education system to boost science and math scores; a fair trade-off, and a great opportunity for the private sector. As the days of excessive government spending end, so shall the days of over-budgeted NASA endeavors. The bureaucracy and the simple dependence on taxpayers’ dollars to fund NASA programs is enough to make any space enthusiast’s blood boil. I know I’m sick of it.
America needs to maintain its supremacy in space exploration. As recently as this week, India became the third country to pledge landing its own astronauts on the Moon by 2020, along with the United States and China. In order to maintain supremacy, we must meet this goal of returning to the Moon. Unfortunately, in this day and age, the workings of the federal government and management structure at NASA will limit the capabilities of Project Constellation.
NASA is wanting to return to the Moon this century using the methods of the last. There’s nothing wrong that way of doing things, but during the 1960’s when the Apollo program was being developed, NASA might as well have been a branch of the military with the amount of funds and priority it was being given. Most of its workforce was in their 20’s and the management structure consisted of men aged in their 30’s. Today, few in management are younger than 40. The reason I point this out is that those in management who are older, unfortunately, lack the ‘youthful energy and imagination required for work in deep space.’(1) Short of restructuring NASA’s management structure, there isn’t much that can be done now and still ensure a return to the Moon by 2020. At the current rate, NASA will land humans on the Moon by 2025 or later.
There is a viable solution, and it’s oftentimes overlooked or at least under-appreciated. The private spaceflight industry has been maturing since President Bush made his declaration that NASA needed to send humans to the Moon by 2020 back in January of 2004. XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, California announced today that they would be selling tickets to paying costumers who wish to travel to suborbital space for $95,000. Virgin Galactic will be selling tickets for rides on SpaceShipTwo for $200,000, and those prices are likely to decrease with XCOR’s announcement. SpaceX is currently developing the Falcon 9 launch vehicle which will loft into orbit the Dragon spacecraft. In an arrangement with NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS program, SpaceX is already receiving up to $278 million to develop Dragon into a vehicle capable of delivering supplies and eventually crew to the International Space Station.
Here’s my solution, one which is shared by several aerospace engineering students at my university: scrap Project Constellation. Funnel available resources from NASA’s budget into companies like SpaceX that actually have the management structure and ingenuity to get a spacecraft developed on time. If NASA misses a deadline, who cares? They’ll keep getting money until the job is finished or cancelled. If SpaceX misses a deadline, they go out of business. Government agencies can’t go out of business unless their services are no longer needed; private companies can go out of business. One other company had been participating in NASA’s COTS program, Rocketplane Kistler (RpK). RpK has since been excluded from the program for failing to raise required funds to supplement NASA’s contributions. It amounts to simple business.
SpaceX proved their technology is a viable alternative with the successful launch of its Falcon 1 rocket this summer. Granted it was the fourth try after three other attempts failed, SpaceX has proven they have what it takes to be successful. Furthermore, their Falcon 9 rocket is being readied for a test flight in early 2009 from Cape Canaveral. NASA’s Ares 1 was initially slated to be tested next year as well, but that has since been pushed back to allow one final use of the launch pad in May 2009 for one final space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
The point is, whether it is through SpaceX or some other private venture, the technology already exists that NASA is needlessly pursuing on their own budget. This is the time for the commercial spaceflight industry to boom. The American entrepreneurial spirit represents NASA’s best opportunity to get to the Moon on time and to even potentially arrive a few years early. It’s viable enough I’m willing to wager my future career on it.
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References
(1) Schmitt, Harrison H. Return to the Moon. New York, NY: Copernicus Books, 2006. Page 3