Jeff Foust has an article at The Space Review in which he repeats his spoken remarks on Saturday in Phoenix. It includes quotes the same day from me and Jeff Greason.
[Update a few minutes later]
I have some thoughts on tomorrow’s anniversaries, over at the Washington Examiner.
Does NASA have a reason to exist? What would happen if it’s people moved on and some started up their own businesses?
While government contracts can be helpful; SpaceX has shown they could be profitable without it.
If NASA went back to its NACA roots, it’d be a much smaller and more relevant organization IMO. Instead of trying to own and operate a fleet of its own spacecraft, NASA-lite would help develop technologies that would benefit American aerospace companies, helping them improve their capabilities and be more competitive worldwide. NASA currently does some of this such as the PICA heat shield technology that SpaceX incorporated into their Dragon capsule design. I’d like to see NASA do much more of this and less direct operations.
It’s always going to be a balance between the glory and the cost, if the price of space access can be slashed by commercial operators the cost of manned deep space flight also gets slashed.
A couple of spacecraft along the lines of Nautilus-X,ships that can go on a series of missions is all that’s needed.
Could this free up more resources for unmanned missions? While we’ve been stuck in LEO 40 years, NASA has done amazing work with unmanned spacecraft. While robotic missions aren’t as sexy, they push the boudaries of science and the imagination much further than any thing I’ve seen done in with men in orbit. Even non-planetary missions such as Kepler are amazing.
mpthomson,
I’ve heard that argument a lot over the years, though I’ve never quite bought it. It’s just as possible that a lack of a manned program would make gutting the unmanned program that much easier from a political stand point.
Man + robots = win
Chris, as far as I can tell there are two major factors threatening unmanned space exploration: 1) No coherent overall space policy which leaves a big question mark around just how important unmanned space exploration is. I think this is just another way of stating what you said. 2) Looming budget battles that will magnify problem one as a mad rush is made to protect better lobbied priorities for federal money.
It wouldn’t surprise me if NASA is one of the first things thrown into the shredder if budget battles do become real.
The whole humans-vs-robots debate only makes sense if space is merely for scientific exploration and nothing more. Exploration is good, but it must be a part of a larger goal.
Similarly, technology development is also a good thing, but it too must be part of a larger goal. By themselves technological developments are not enough of a driver.
Planetary protection – the dinosaurs didn’t have it and we should – we still only have rough estimates about the population of potential killer impactors and only the flimsiest of ideas of what to do if we found one. Even that isn’t enough of a reason to keep NASA around without a larger goal, nor is it even clear that NASA would have any jurisdiction or influence in that situation.
Put them all together: scientific exploration, technological development, even protecting us from killer asteroids, heck, throw education in the mix, too – still there isn’t enough reason to do space, unless there is an overarching goal state. They are all means to an end, not the end themselves.
Rand has said many times that space is unimportant – and for Congress, it is, at least compared to things like war and Medicare. However, Transterrestrial Musings has had five million hits. Somebody thinks space is important.
Why?
Let’s have a quick show of hands, how many people reading this want to go into space themselves? (one, two, three… hmm looks pretty unanimous…) Let’s ask the guys at Space Politics. [hey guys, how many of you want to go into space yourself?… ] Yeah, pretty unanimous over there, too.
Again, why?
The answers would probably be different for everyone, but for me I can sum it up in two words: Liberty and Profit.
And for that to happen, we not only need to go up there, we have to go up there to stay.
I think its time for government funded HSF to end, including subsidized programs like CCDev. Let the market work.
And speaking of real commercial markets…
http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1492
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if VG starts scheduled flights to Bigelow habitats before the first NASA approved CCDev flight to ISS? I know Bigelow wants to get a habitat up by 2015. And Dream Chaser could easily be flying by then on an Atlas V.
BTW I understand drops tests of Dream Chaser will start early next year.
No coherent overall space policy which leaves a big question mark around just how important unmanned space exploration is.
It’s ironic how unimportant space is. When you work the problem backwards (from the point of view of an inhabited solar system, galaxy or universe) it makes everything else unimportant by comparison.
This is what gives me so much confidence in Elon (and what a blow it would be if that confidence is unjustified.) Although he knows how to make money, that’s not his focus. He’s put together a company that is aligned with his focus. These guys will get rich, but that will not detract from their shared vision… a true space faring civilization starting with the initial settlements.
He’s not alone of course. I’m not as enthused with all the suborbital folks but I’m happy to see that pot bubbling. I’m more interested in Bigelow because, like SpaceX they are building and doing things in space.
Blue Origin has me perplexed. I’m not sure if they are on the critical path or not. They don’t seem to be going anywhere. If they were to announce a lunar or mars lander that would change things.
Other companies, while not on the critical path, will probably have a lot to contribute once we actually start up some settlements.