Jeff Greason is CEO of XCOR Aerospace and sits on the US’s Augustine Committee, which reviews NASA’s plans for human space flight. He spoke at a recent Space Investment Summit in Boston.
What can NASA do to improve?
NASA should have a technology road map: it doesn’t have a plan saying, “These are the capabilities we have today, these are the capabilities we want tomorrow, and how are we going to get there from here?”
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Which cutting-edge technologies should NASA develop first?
The very first element would be a technology for the handling and storage of propellant in space. If we had such a “gas station” it would significantly change the game in terms of what you could do: it would let you launch a much more capable, bigger mission with the same-size launchers. If you use chemical rockets, you want to be able to manufacture that propellant at your destination. That saves a huge chunk of initial mass because you don’t have to take the propellant with you to get you back to Earth. Then there’s a whole bunch of ideas for advanced space propulsion. An ion engine called VASIMR is a perfect example.
What surprised you most in your work with the White House’s Augustine Committee?
We hoped to find a way for NASA to do great and wonderful things within their current budget but we really didn’t. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. Over the long term, if you’re not going to make the budget go up, and you want to do something great, you have to lower the fixed costs.
What can NASA do to cut costs?
There was one option which involved relying on expendable launch vehicles – the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets – the cost of which would be shared with the Department of Defense. That does have the potential to change the fixed costs of the human space flight programme.
Is NASA still capable of inspiring achievements like the Apollo moon landings?
It’s easy to say, and I’ve said it myself, that we just don’t have the NASA we used to have, so we can’t do the things we used to do. But whatever is wrong or right with NASA, the quality of the people isn’t a problem. NASA has really good, motivated people. One contributing factor could be that we’re not asking them to do the right job. But the bigger question is, do we really want to spend whatever it takes, hundreds of billions of dollars, all so we can race to plant a flag for reasons of national pride?
But you don’t think we should discontinue human space exploration?
I think one of the most important findings that we made on the Augustine committee is that there is an underlying reason why we should be doing human space exploration, which is that we ought to extend permanent human civilisation beyond this planet, and that is an incredibly important human endeavour [see Stephen Hawking calls for Moon and Mars colonies]. To my mind, I can’t see why we wouldn’t do it. It’s the only way to create a future in which humans can live somewhere other than Earth. Robots will help, but you don’t learn how to live in places by just sending robots.
Read more: Where will NASA send its astronauts next?
