After 30 years of doing business the same way, NASA is finally entering the 21st century by embracing competition, capitalism and entrepreneurship. In NASA's new budget, President Obama and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden have proposed spending billions of dollars to purchase commercial human launch services and invest in game changing technologies.
Many of the traditional players have translated this to mean that NASA's "Moon Mission" has been canceled, that NASA is out of the exploration business and is making a risky move turning over the 'right stuff' from Government hands to entrepreneurs and commercial industry. In reality, NASA is making a brilliant move.
During the past 30 years the cost of getting humans into space has gone up, while reliability has gone down. Rather than have two or three commercial suppliers of human spaceflight, we have been solely dependent on the Space Shuttle. When the Shuttle stands down from service in a year's time, NASA will need to send American Astronauts to Kazakhstan to launch aboard the Russian Soyuz at a price of over $50 million per person... Until, at least, new commercial U.S. vehicles are made operational.
The U.S. Government doesn't build your computers, nor do you fly aboard a U.S. Government owned and operated airline. Private industry routinely takes technologies pioneered by the government and turns them into cheap, reliable and robust industries. This has happened in aviation, air mail, computers, and the Internet. It's about time that it happen in space.
The President's plan for commercial competition will ultimately take us much farther and much faster, not only to the Moon, but to Mars, the asteroids and beyond. Private companies will drive a very high level of safety because they will cease to exist if they do not. America's capitalist engine drives reliability in our aircraft, our cars, our computers and will do so in space, as well. Private companies will also inject innovation and breakthrough technology into our space program because that is their ethos.
So, I applaud the President's bold decision for NASA to focus not on their past glories, but on building a sustainable space exploration program that can inspire all of us. Today's decision has laid the ground for the future Apple, Cisco and Google of space to be born, drive job creation and open the cosmos for the rest of us.
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hmmm, me too
In fact, the Military industrial complex desperately doesn't want it to change
Then came Apollo. It began the same, multiple proposals from Lockheed, Boeing, Martin, North American, but then NASA axed it, to design their own system. Same with the Shuttle, and everything since.
No, I say let us revert back to when NASA functioned, not only well, but excellently. I call this new program of Obamas, Gemini II, for it is, truth be told, a Gemini-style project, a far more ambitious and useful project than a simple boots n flags on moon mission. This can lead to long term deployment, months long if not full colonies. That is what we have to look forward to, a long term, far more useful program than we had before.
And the pieces are already there. ULA, SpaceX, Orbital, Sea Launch, ILS, SNC, all are either operational or in late-stage development of their pieces to the puzzle. And part of this move also is the return of pieces developed to the shuttle to the contractors. It would not be hard to envision Lockheed pulling out the Star Clipper again. Or ATK pushing forward. It's a far more dynamic field now than it was friday night.
In a time where half the country dwells only on our country’s faults and shortcomings and blames us for all of the world’s problems, it would be nice to have a reason to hold our heads higher.
The next logical step is a permanent, manned moon base. There are only two viable locations that have access to full-time solar power – the poles. All other locations are dark for half of the moon’s orbit. If we allow the Chinese, Russians, Indians or even the Europeans to get there first, we will have to go through them to get anything done. We will already be paying for transportation to the space station – I thought we were against outsourcing…
As for competition, NASA subcontracts nearly all of its services, development and production to industry partners. There is plenty of competition under the current model.
Your Friends in China.
The proposed budget cuts for the NASA projects is terrible and cowardly; furthering the erosion of the productive economy. The United States must act with vigor and courage now. Great space exploration and nuclear production / generation based infrastructural projects must be activated now by the power of the Federal government acting as if in a war-time urgency. The job-mobilization in this effort will lift the economy for generations; it is the only way that economic recovery can actuate.
We paid for the development of the internet and now pay again to use it....
So nice ya gotta pay twice??
Anyway, the first people they need to send in space should be a garbage cleanup crew to clean up the mess from all the other space explorations.
Then they can move on to junking up other planets.
Privatization of NASA will send our scientific/technological innovation to 'cheap labor markets' like China and India.
Why anyone cannot see that this just another move by Wall Street/City of London to own EVERYTHING is beyond me.
No private company on earth has enough money to match a government's sovereign power to 'subsidize' scientific/technological development...none.
Do you think Wal Mart, which is supposed to be worth 200 billion has enough money to finish the scientific/technological discoveries we need for the next generations to live with space innovations?
At some point there will be a role for retailers of what we as a people discover and develop but until then we need to collective organizing of government to build the foundation for that to happen first.
The military budget is OUT OF CONTROL due to private contractors.
Overbilling, overpricing...that's the name of the game with private contracts. They do this and then complain about "government spending".
It is NOT just formal education; it is applied sciences and vocations in the middle class, designers, tool and die makers, developers, engineers of all kinds that this country was built upon.
The union leaders played a major part of the GM debacle.
How can we innovate if we are just creating short term, unsustainable beltway jobs? NASA, although imperfect is an asset that needs to be taken to the next level.