Getting to space is about to be outsourced.
The Obama administration on Monday will propose in its new budget spending billions of dollars to encourage private companies to build, launch and operate spacecraft for Nasa and others. Uncle Sam would buy its astronauts a ride into space just like hopping in a taxi.
Obama’s budget also ends work on the shuttle follow-on vehicle, known as Orion, as well as a pair of rockets developed to fly astronauts to the space station, the moon and other destinations in the solar system. The president wants to end Nasa’s moon program, officials said on Monday.
The idea of outsourcing space travel is that getting astronauts into orbit is getting to be so old hat that someone other than the government can do it. It’s no longer really the Right Stuff. Going private would free the space agency to do other things, such as explore beyond Earth’s orbit, do more research and study the Earth with better satellites. And it would spur a new generation of private companies — even some with internet roots — to innovate.
But there’s some concern about that — from former Nasa officials worried about safety and from congressional leaders worried about lost jobs. Some believe space is still a tough, dangerous enterprise not to be left to private companies out for a buck.
Proponents of private space, an idea that has been kicking around for nearly 20 years, point to the airline industry in its infancy. Initially the US army flew most planes. But private companies eventually started building and operating aircraft, especially when they got a guaranteed customer in the US government to deliver air mail.
That’s what Nasa would be: a guaranteed customer to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station through 2020. It would be similar to the few years that Nasa paid Russia to fly astronauts on its Soyuz after the Columbia accident in 2003.
“With a $6 billion program you can have multiple winners. You’ll literally have your Blackberry, your iPhone and your Android phone all competing for customers in the marketplace”, said John Gedmark, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. The White House has said it will be adding $5.9 billion to the overall Nasa budget over five years; Gedmark believes most or all will go to commercial space.
Mike Gold, corporate counsel at Bigelow Aerospace, which is building the first commercial space station and is a potential spacecraft provider, believes the government should have privatized launchings decades ago. “It will force the aerospace world to become competitive again and restore us to our glory days”, he said.
Last year as part of the stimulus package, Nasa said it would give out $50 million in seed and planning money for the idea of a commercial spaceship. Several firms expressed interest and Nasa will soon pick a winner or winners.
But the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, created after Nasa’s first fatal accident, warned that the existing private rockets are not rated by the government as safe for people to fly on. That has to be addressed with testing before jumping into commercial space, the panel said.
Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Obama-effect-Nasa-to-outsource-space-journeys/articleshow/5525666.cms
