Privatization of space travel closer to reality as NASA moves in new direction
Friday, April 9, 2010 at 03:23PM 
Bigelow is depending to some extent on the other major player in the commercial space game, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX. That company's Falcon 9 rocket is awaiting its first test flight at Cape Canaveral. A flight scheduled for April 12 has been postponed due to the need for additional safety tests, but if all goes according to plan, the rocket will be ready to carry astronauts into space in two years. Bigelow is hoping that the Falcon 9 will provide the boosters for his 2014 launches.
Musk's SpaceX is one of the companies President Obama wants NASA to work with. In cancelling the Constellation program, Obama announced new funding of $6 billion for NASA to invest in the development of new launch technologies. SpaceX has been given $1.6 billion to supply the International Space Station with cargo and could be running routine service trips—space taxis—in just a couple of years for a fraction of the cost of the old space shuttle. A single launch of the shuttle cost $1 billion, and the technology, developed in the sixties, was considered outdated and extremely dangerous. Musk is betting that he can slash launch costs.
The government seems to be betting that the eventual privatization of space is the only sustainable option for America, though the loss of thousands of jobs at NASA will not go down without a fight. Buying space technology from the private sector is no different, say proponents, than what the government already does in every other department. Military aircraft, for example, are not built by government, but by private companies who work on contract to the government. Why should this model not work for rockets?
Few would disagree with the principle as a long-term solution, but many argue that the private companies today lack the expertise that NASA has acquired over decades of trial and error. Even NASA chief Charles Bolden says that travel to the moon and beyond remains the responsibility of government, until commercial entities have demonstrated the ability to do it safely. Private sector activity will be confined to low Earth orbit for now.
The Obama plan actually reverses years of cuts to NASA's budget and injects new money for research and development, into new propulsion systems, for example, with deep-space exploration the ultimate goal.
Some highlights of the proposed changes at NASA include
- · $6 billion for developing new technologies, such as refueling space vehicles in orbit
- · research into long-term living in space for humans
- · cancellation of Constellation, the program to develop next-generation rockets and space vehicles
- · termination of the shuttle program this year
- · endorsement of private companies' efforts to develop spacecraft for low-Earth orbit
- · continuation of the International Space Station until at least 2020, with $3 billion additional funding over five years for scientific work
- · $3.1 billion for developing next-generation propulsion systems
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