The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been treated like a red-headed stepchild over the past few Presidential administrations.  Sure, Presidents talk a good game—return to the Moon, human exploration of Mars, et cetera—but we all know that the budget needs of the agency have taken a distant back seat to the needs of other Executive agencies, including the Department of Defense.  After all, fighting a Global War on Terror clearly takes precedence, as do the needs of the Department of Homeland Security.

Even if NASA had been given all the funding it needed, there is some question as to whether they could have spent wisely.  In any case, things look bleak for the beleaguered agency.  We have posted before about findings from the Augustine panel or Augustine Commission or The Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee (or whatever you want to call it).  See, for example, this post or this one.

The Augustine Commission told President Obama—

The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most demanding and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. … Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations. Such is the case today. … Once the Shuttle is retired, there will be a gap in the capability of the United States itself to launch humans into space. … The Committee did not identify any credible approach employing new capabilities that could shorten the gap to less than six years. The only way to significantly close the gap is to extend the life of the Shuttle Program.

There are some who have called for NASA to get out of way, and let private industry tackle the problem.  For example, this blog entry asserted that the Government simply can’t oversee space exploration.  Conquering space?  Sure.  But exploring it?  Not a chance.  The Government needs to get out of the way of the entrepreneurs who have the necessary vision and passion to lead the exploration of space.  The author, Jim Wright, said—

Governments don’t explore.

Governments conquer. Governments grandstand and stage stunts. Governments argue and bicker and wage war. Some are good and some are bad and some are indifferent.

But they don’t explore.

It is human beings who explore. Individuals of courage and daring and burning passion and enterprise.  …

The Constellation program has been doomed from the start. Hell, the Constellation program has been doomed since July 20^th, 1969. We’ve been there, we’ve done that – and America as a nation wasn’t interested in continuing when we had the hardware and the resources, what makes you think we’ll do it now when we have to recreate the entire infrastructure at a hundred or a thousand times the cost? Access to space hasn’t gotten cheaper or less complex, just the opposite in fact. The age of daring, of the test pilot astronaut is over – it’s the age of the bean counter. Constellation has always been underfunded, organized by committee after endless committee, awash in adminstrivia and paperwork and government bullshit – and really, it was never more than a political gambit by an uninspired and uninspiring twit of an anti-science President who tried to pull a do-over of JFK but couldn’t motivate his own Administration let alone galvanize the nation…

Constellation has always been doomed.

Constellation has always been doomed because governments don’t explore. Bean counters and bureaucrats don’t explore. Because when Congress runs your space program, indeed any program, you are doomed from the start.  …

It is private corporations who explore, hunting profit and new markets and assets and resources. …

Governments don’t explore, but if they do the job right their citizens do.

We have discussed several private industry initiatives that would advance the state of space exploration technology.  For example, we reported on the VASIMIR© plasma propulsion engine and the company developing the promising technology, the Ad Astra Rocket Company.  We also reported on ALICE (Aluminum/ICE) propellant that would drastically lower launch expenses because it could be manufactured on the Moon or Mars instead of being transported there.  So President Obama’s recent call to NASA to “jump-start development of a commercial space industry” instead of focusing on the Constellation program is not as far-fetched as it may at first seem.

Here is a link to details of the Obama Space Plan, over at Space.com. 

One of the private companies best positioned to capitalize on the Obama Plan is SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies).  We have written about SpaceX before—notably here, where we noted its aim of reducing launch costs “by a factor of ten.”  The company is also linked to VASIMIR©, as we reported it was in negotiations to deliver Ad Astra’s VX-200 model to the International Space Station for testing in space.

Here is a snippet from Elan Musk’s statement on the Obama Space Plan, as found on the company’s site.

In 2003, following the Columbia accident, President Bush began development of … the Ares I rocket and Orion spacecraft. It is important to note that this too would only have been able to reach low Earth orbit. Many in the media mistakenly assumed it was capable of reaching the Moon. As is not unusual with large government programs, the schedule slipped by several years and costs ballooned by tens of billions.

By the time President Obama cancelled Ares I/Orion earlier this year, the schedule had already slipped five years to 2017 and completing development would have required another $50 billion. Moreover, the cost per flight, inclusive of overhead, was estimated to be at least $1.5 billion compared to the $1 billion of Shuttle, despite carrying only four people to Shuttle's seven and almost no cargo.

The President quite reasonably concluded that spending $50 billion to develop a vehicle that would cost 50% more to operate, but carry 50% less payload was perhaps not the best possible use of funds. To quote a member of the Augustine Commission, which was convened by the President to analyze Ares/Orion, ‘If Santa Claus brought us the system tomorrow, fully developed, and the budget didn't change, our next action would have to be to cancel it,’ because we can't afford the annual operating costs.

Cancellation was therefore simply a matter of time and thankfully we have a president with the political courage to do the right thing sooner rather than later. We can ill afford the expense of an ‘Apollo on steroids’, as a former NASA Administrator referred to the Ares/Orion program. …

Thankfully, as a result of funds freed up by this cancellation, there is now hope for a bright future in space exploration. The new plan is to harness our nation's unparalleled system of free enterprise … to create far more reliable and affordable rockets. Handing over Earth orbit transport to American commercial companies, overseen of course by NASA and the FAA, will free up the NASA resources necessary to develop interplanetary transport technologies. This is critically important if we are to reach Mars, the next giant leap in human exploration of the Universe.

… For the first time since Apollo, our country will have a plan for space exploration that inspires and excites all who look to the stars. Even more important, it will work.

On June 7, 2010, SpaceX reported that its Falcon 9 launch vehicle had successfully launched “and achieved full Earth orbit right on target.”  As the company announced—

SpaceX currently has an extensive and diverse manifest of over 30 contracted missions, including 18 missions to deliver commercial satellites to orbit. In addition, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft have been contracted by NASA to carry cargo, which includes live plants and animals, to and from the ISS. Both Falcon 9 and Dragon have already been designed to meet NASA’s published human rating standards for astronaut transport, allowing for a rapid transition to astronauts within three years of receiving a contract to do so. The critical path item is development and testing of the launch escape system, which would be a significant improvement in safety over the Space Shuttle, which does not possess an escape system.

Yes, we are heartsick at the United States Government’s abandonment of its commitment to manned space flight.  But so long as the future of the program is in the hands of companies such as Ad Astra and SpaceX, we are not overly despondent.  To put it another way, we’d rather have Elan Musk and Franklin Chang Diaz running the show, instead of the current NASA administrator and his team.

PHOTO CREDIT:  The Russian Progress resupply craft on track to dock with the International Space Station.  The first attempt was aborted, but the second attempt was successful.  Photo courtesy of NASA.