Science fiction seems to have chronically over-estimated our progress into space even when it’s gotten other forms of technology (aside from AI, flying cars are doable but highly impractical) about right or even been overly conservative. Cost is a huge factor here, the price of transistors, genetic mapping, and the like have dropped precipitously while it’s still heinously expensive to get into orbit or beyond.
Joel Achenbach has an article on the report of the Augustine Commission on Spaceflight (the full report comes out Tuesday) and one possible way forward: commercialization.
SpaceX, an 800-employee firm founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, has a rocket in development called the Falcon 9 and a capsule named Dragon that could be used for human spaceflight, according to the company…
Such a move would be a historic step toward privatizing human spaceflight. It could be a huge boost for relatively new, modest-sized companies such as SpaceX, which already has an agreement with NASA to deliver cargo -- but not people -- to the space station…
"The difference here is one where NASA is not designing the system, is not describing the path, but they are stating the destination," Musk said. He compared it to car shopping. "You don't go to the car company and say 'here's how I'd like you to design my car.' "…
Going commercial might save the government money, but it would mean an increase in risk, said Scott N. Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. Private companies have yet to demonstrate that they can safely put a human being in orbit, he said. The cost of building a spaceship is likely to be higher than $2.5 billion, he added.
The whole article is worth reading and not that long. I’m with Augustine on this one. The big non-scientific goal in space exploration shouldn’t be the moon, it shouldn’t even be getting to Mars, it should be figuring out the basic infrastructure problem. (I’m not really qualified to say what the big scientific goals should be, I expect they tend to be a range of smaller projects typically not done via human space exploration). The Deep Space mission to asteroids is probably a more practical mid-term human space flight goal, but I think even that is secondary unless there’s a rare minerals economic case or the like.
Bringing the cost down in this sort of situation is the type of task commercialization is well suited too. I don’t doubt that Scott Pace is right that it will end up costing more than $2.5B, he’s probably also right that there’s safety risks but that was also true of the Apollo program and frankly the shuttle mission. However, I think he’s wrong in saying that the Augustine commission has a burden of proof they aren’t meeting. Exploration is worthwhile in its own right, but does anyone really have a solid idea as to why a moon colony, or a trip to Mars, or the much easier trip to Mars’ moon Phobos, should be our next priority?
I do think there’s a fair amount of boosterism in the recent Piers Bizony Outlook piece describing a range of private rockets and praising their more dynamic culture, but on the balance I think he’s right. Let NASA focus more on what we want to do in space and let crazy billionaires run down their fortunes trying to work out cheaper ways to get there. I would strongly recommend against investing in these efforts if your primary concern is making money. Someone will make a mint eventually, but it’s hard to predict who before hand and from what I’ve read the technical problems tend to be understated. But on the whole, I think providing some funding to encourage a diverse and competitive commercial launch sector is a better use of money than trying to find the best single rocket solution or prioritizing human space ventures in the solar system. I’d give basic science priority over that, but if we bring the cost of launch down, science benefits too.
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