Knock, knock! Anyone home there at NASA? Well here’s a little note I’ll leave on your door.
NASA has been awarded $50 million in stimulus money to award to a company (or companies) that present a proposal for a commercial spacecraft capable of ferrying humans and cargo. Fantastic news for the SpaceX Dragon and Orbital Sciences Cygnus spacecraft. Both are capable of carrying humans and since they have already been under development for quite some time, would be flight ready before Orion. They could also be operated for a far cheaper price than NASA can offer.
On top of this, and NASA REALLY needs to listen to this, Arianespace is offering use of their human-rated Ariane 5 rocket for NASA’s use. The rocket was originally designed for the European Space Agency’s attempts at a human spaceflight program in the 1990’s. The rocket can send humans and large cargo into Earth and Lunar orbits and towards Mars. It’s been flying since 2003 and has made 31 successful launches in that time. The number of successful launches for the Ares V to date? 0. Oh, wait. It’s still being developed and billions of dollars more will be spent to reinvent the wheel our European counterparts are offering us.
If NASA were to devote it’s resources into the Ariane 5 and a commercial contractor for it’s human spaceflights, the shuttle could fly a minimum schedule until the new vehicles are ready and I would suspect that not only could a 2015 or earlier deadline be met for the flight of Dragon (top) or Cygnus versus Orion, but that with the use of the Ariane 5 rocket (bottom) and freed up resources to build a really good Altair lunar lander, NASA could be on the Moon by their optimistic deadline of 2018.
The point to all of this? It’s a global economy. NASA is still one of the only space agency’s in the world that relies solely on home built spacecraft and rockets for its big ticket missions. The European Space Agency and Roskosmos (Russia) have been utilizing each other’s rockets for years and the ESA just finished a launch pad at it’s French Guiana spaceport so they can launch Russian Soyuz rockets. The Chinese manned spaceflight program? Only possible because of Russia sharing their Soyuz designs with the Chinese. There is even word on the street now the Russians are helping the Japanese develop their manned spaceflight program.
NASA is behind the times, and it’s no wonder that at this point in time, even being an aerospace engineering student, that I’m afraid to work for them. It comes from a fear of stagnation and that NASA is at the point where it can rocket to it’s former glory, only with a different strategy that relies on the private sector and free market global economy, versus falling off the cliff into oblivion as it struggles to find funding for 2 new rockets and a manned vehicle that must be ready in 5-6 years time during an already rough economy. The time for NASA to change its game plan is now, and I hope that Obama’s space commission and NASA’s new administrator will take heed in the weeks ahead.
