91色情片ary: NASA moon plan was an illusion, wrapped in denial
IN THE almost half century since Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth, human space flight has been the preserve of state agencies 鈥� first Russian and American, and more recently Chinese too. That could be set to change, as the US charts a new course for its space agency, NASA.
The White House wants to scrap NASA鈥檚 Constellation programme, which has been developing two new rockets to deliver astronauts to the moon and take over the task of ferrying people to the International Space Station after the space shuttles retire. President Barack Obama鈥檚 proposed budget, which will implement this change, will likely face fierce opposition in Congress, but if it is approved, NASA will be able to shift the latter responsibility to private companies, leaving it free to spend its money on other activities.
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Paying commercial enterprises to take astronauts aloft may not seem like such a big change. After all, NASA has always contracted with the private sector to provide its space hardware, and companies like Virgin Galactic have already announced plans to take paying customers into space. But if NASA can hand over to private 鈥渟pace taxis鈥� the routine activities of delivering supplies and people into orbit, it will be able to concentrate its energies on truly revolutionary work. The possibilities range from demonstrating brand new technologies, such as ion engines and lunar mining (see 鈥淪pace 2020: what NASA will do next鈥�), to further developing robotics and other technologies at which it excels.
鈥淚f NASA hands over routine tasks to private 鈥榮pace taxis鈥� it can focus its efforts on truly revolutionary work鈥�
Strategic change along these lines could revitalise NASA and be the best possible riposte to those who have written off Constellation as an expensive attempt to clone the achievements of the Apollo programme in the 1960s. It will also do wonders in restoring the agency鈥檚 fading glamour, and its ability to inspire the next generation of spacefarers.
If private companies succeed in developing reliable vehicles for routine tasks, more adventurous space exploration will be the long-term winner. Private-sector companies already reckon that they will be able to launch astronauts for a fraction of the cost of a space shuttle flight 鈥� and they could even undercut Russia鈥檚 Soyuz craft. Competition between them could drive down prices even further.
As time goes on, there will be new commercial opportunities for space tourism, contract research, even private exploration beyond low-Earth orbit for manufacturing, minerals and more. A few decades from now, human space flight could be supported more by commercial activities than government funding 鈥� and we鈥檒l look back in amazement to the days when cumbersome national agencies were allowed to monopolise our exploration of the final frontier.
