Babeled On: The Future of the Space Program

What to do about space exploration has been a hot topic as of late. On one hand there is the drive to explore the unknown for the betterment of science and mankind.  On the other hand is the fact that over the past 5 decades progress in space exploration has been uncelebrated if not marginalized while pouring billions into a program viewed as outdated and inefficient.  The question posed to the Babelers is what is the future of the space program and the role private industry will play in the business of space.  Thanks to Tamahome Jenkins from Everything is History for stopping by to contribute to this one.

Tamahome Jenkins

I think space travel will be split into two groups, space exploration and space tourism. Private corporations will dominate the space tourism segment by building new ships to take passengers into low-earth orbit. The admission that people will pay to experience this will pay for itself sooner rather than later. This is a given, as private companies are already attempting this, and no government space agency has addressed this potential.

Space exploration, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. It can be divided further into two segments, manned exploration and unmanned exploration. There hasn’t been a human outside of low-earth orbit since the last Apollo astronauts went to the moon in 1972. Leaving low-earth orbit is costly and dangerous, and for this reason private companies won’t try to take on manned-space exploration. Unmanned space exploration, though, will be a mixed bag. Governments will continue to send robots and machines into space, but there isn’t any profit to deep-space exploration, whether it’s manned or unmanned. Thus, only the most profitable companies with cash to burn will even consider taking part. Google has shown a willingness to spend money on unprofitable things for the greater good, so maybe they’ll send a Googlebot into space.

Jeff Ruemeli

Private industry is the only future the space program has. The U.S. government does not support NASA enough. I find it appalling that our current shuttles will be out of commission soon and the new ones won’t be ready for like 5 years. So we gotta pay another country to put our people in space. That’s right, once again we outsource more jobs. Wait, so that means…THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!

Greg Molyneux

First and foremost the importance of the Universe cannot dominate in obscurity for much longer. Once the pressing energy crisis is brought under control, space will be the singular focus of what remains to be conquered—the final frontier. It is human nature to push the envelope; to leave our comfort zone and venture off into the unknown. To deny that desire would be to deny our very existence, the essence of our humanity.

With that said I am in favor of an aggressive two-pronged approach: innovative and accelerated participation of the private sector, and global-leading influence and exploration from NASA.

To borrow on overly-used corporate euphemism, let the corporations go after the low hanging fruit. Let them handle lower orbit space travel, satellite launches, and perhaps someday ventures to the Moon. These endeavors can prove both profitable and beneficial. Space tourism will be the driver for this from an economic standpoint while the potential of Helium-3 on the Moon can pay large dividends to the global economy.

NASA needs to go for broke. As an American I would like to see space pioneering remain in house. I want NASA to push the envelope and continue to send out probes to all the little corners of the solar system. Each of these missions yield more and more promising information about our own neighborhood and come closer everyday to dispelling the myth that life is unique to those of us on Earth. I would encourage NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop better and more powerful systems that can propel us farther and faster into space.

Finally, my two-pronged attack can find suitable mergers where appropriate that bring private sector and country together. Much like how the military works with Lockheed’s Skunkworks and Northrop Grumman on top-secret development for our military. With this type of synergy, we can finance the greatest engineering minds in the world to work on our systems, exclusive to NASA. Of course, military funding towers over a meager NASA budget by unrealized orders of magnitude. This line of thinking would require a paradigm shift in Washington and in the public. People need to realize just how important space is and why our monies are most needed to explore.

Gregory Rineberg

Not really sure how to respond to this Babeled On. I, personally, am a huge fan of the space program and I think that the U.S. should pursue more endeavors exploring the galaxy. We humans are constantly using up resources that are not only relied on by nations, but more importantly mother earth. I think that we should continuously explore more of the galaxy because we could discover more resources (innovations) to further our species’ survival. Hopefully, one day when Earth is so used up by us, maybe we could migrate to Mars. Don’t laugh, maybe with nuclear plants and by creating an artificial atmosphere, it could be possible.

As far as allowing the private industry to do it, well sure it would increase competition and perhaps efficiency. However, I’m skeptical. I think that the U.S. government and NASA, with support from the private industry, should start a new program to look for external resources. My thinking is two-fold. One, space exploration and discovery is great for nationalist pride. Two, perhaps more jobs would occur because of significant investment into the space program.

On an ending note, private industries are interested in solely making money, not necessarily in the best interests of the world. Although it’s debatable that the U.S. would have the worlds’ best interest in mind. I prefer to be ignorant of such claims and think that the U.S. will do the right thing.

Jason Morgan

The US space program has always been a world leader, except for that one time the Russians beat us. Now that the time is at hand for our species to begin capitalizing on the potential of space travel as a commercial enterprise, the US is decidedly taking a step backwards to allow private industry to move to the forefront.

I read an interesting article recently that discussed how this is typically the way the US handles emerging technologies. It began with industrialization, then computers, and now space exploration. In the past this model has worked for the country. However, I do not think that private industries are ready to assume the leadership role for space exploration in the US at this time. Only one private company has launched a manned space flight. This is highly misleading though because their ship only managed to gain about 100 km of altitude, which is only technically suborbital flight. So I do not think this can truly be classified as actual spaceflight. Suborbital flight requires approximately 60 times less energy than propelling a vessel to orbiting levels, so the commercial achievement is a bit overstated and is not truly anything close to real spaceflight. That is just getting to orbit, then consider getting to orbit and traversing the more than 300,000 km to the Moon. This is an enormous difference from the puny 100 km into the atmosphere achieved to date by commercial endeavors.

We are at a critical junction as a species with our endeavors concerning the heavens. Russia and China are poised to take the lead in Moon exploration, which may result in those two countries controlling the potentially game-changing resource known as Helium-3. This particular compound is not found in any great quantity on Earth but can be found in relative abundance on the Moon. We should not allow Russia and China to obtain control over this resource. We will again be put into a position where we are dependent on a foreign country for a natural energy resource, much as we are today with oil. Of course the significance of H3 has yet to be truly determined as there no current technologies in existence to harness it’s energy potential, but it certainly would seem that it could change the future of energy production for our planet.

Putting private industry into the leadership role before it is ready may handicap our country’s ability to compete in not just harvesting H3, but in all of the economic and scientific benefits that arise from developing a new industry. We may miss out on great commercial opportunities that would have allowed US companies to provide transportation, mining tools and equipment, and other technologies and commodities that will be needed to set up mining operations and transportation to and from the Moon. If the US makes a calculated error in allowing private industry to take over space exploration too soon, we could potentially lose out in such a huge way as to drop from the ranks of the most powerful nations because our economy will not be benefiting, but rather being depleted by, the human expansion into space and the harnessing of its resources.

Image Credit

Our Milky Way Galaxy.. photo courtesy of Flickr user Sir Mervs (pinoy biyahero) published under the CC license.