The good news is that the editorial board at the WaPo seems to recognize the potential for commercial space in addressing NASA’s needs, much more so than NASA has to date. The bad news is that they remain incoherent on the purpose of sending people into space. They also (like FL Today) seem to think that the problem is simply not enough money:
If the committee’s public comments are any indication, its findings will be grim: NASA’s recent budget cuts render the current manned mission plan impossible. This is not the first time NASA’s plans have suffered from lack of fiscal foresight: Once the international space station is completed next year, the current budget calls for deorbiting it by 2016. Maybe it’s time to take a step back to assess the right role for a manned space program that requires billions of dollars annually — and for what? Certainly, boldly going where no man has gone before is an American creed. But with the advent of increasingly complex and precise instruments, science in space requires less and less input from astronauts. Groundbreaking research can occur without humans — witness the Mars Rover and Hubble telescope. NASA should not have to sacrifice programs that are truly ground-breaking — researching dark matter, black holes and gravitational fields of space objects — to keep the international space station manned and supplied.
So they have a recommendation:
Now that the station is nearly complete, this might be an optimal time to open space to entrepreneurs. Many companies claim they possess the capacity to transport humans and payloads into space; the review committee found their reports convincing enough to suggest that these space entrepreneurs could take over the transport of astronauts and supplies to the space station after the shuttle program ends.
The problem is that they seem to have no vision for space beyond LEO, or a commercial role in it. Partly because they fall into the standard mental trap of thinking the primary purpose of human spaceflight is science. So we still have a lot of persuasion to do. But hey, even if it’s for the wrong reasons, if they have some good advice, why complain? After all, when government occasionally makes a good decision, it’s often for the wrong reasons. You take what you can get.
[Update mid afternoon]
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation piles on. Is Congress listening?
If the primary purpose of space were science, it should compete with all other forms of science for funding. And, it would likely lose, since it’s very expensive. Space gets preferential treatment if there is a purpose to it beyond the merely scientific.
Rand,
I don’ t know that I entirely agree with your statement about them thinking the primary purpose of human spaceflight is about science. Quoting from the article
That first sentence doesn’t seem to be about humans doing space science per se, at least not in my mind. They do see human spaceflight as important, but they really don’t give a reason why its important. But they don’t want it pulling funds from things that there isn’t any disagreement about having scientific value.
I don’t know that this is necessarily an improvement, but thats my take on it
I think that the “but” that prefaces the following sentence negates your point. Clearly they are talking about science in both. In their minds, “going where no man has gone before,” boldly or otherwise, is a scientific endeavor.