I was pretty upset when NASA was dealt huge funding cuts, and then I was upset again when it retired the space shuttle. I grew up in love with the idea of space travel (blame Star Wars), and I never grew out of it (blame Firefly). I figured since NASA was that much more inactive, the U.S. would have fewer and fewer people in space. But now I almost wish NASA had been scaled back sooner.
The private sector’s space industry leapt forward as soon as NASA’s budget got downsized. We’ve had the Planetary Resources announcement and the SpaceX cargo shuttle go to the International Space Station, and there’s more to come. It almost seems like the only thing holding it up was NASA. If the current trend continues, the private sector could beat NASA to Mars.
The private sector has better goals than NASA did. Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Project Dream Chaser already has a prototype of a hybrid rocket and aims to have the first passenger space shuttle able to land on conventional runways. Combining these technologies will create a much more practical space shuttle and, eventually, one that can be used for recreational space flight.
Planetary Resources aims to have its first craft out in orbit and identifying potential asteroids by 2014, and SpaceX’s primary long-term goal isto establish a permanent colony on Mars. Are some of these things years away? Probably. But it looks more and more like humanity will have a presence beyond our planet during my lifetime.
All of this means that someday soon people other than astronauts will be able to go into space. Right now it may cost a lot of money to travel in a space shuttle, but all new technologies start out expensive. The early adopters of cars, airplanes and television were the wealthy, but after a while the technology became affordable for everyone.
There’s no reason space won’t one day be the same. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will offer personal space flight at $200,000 per seat. That’s pretty expensive, but before that, Russia’s space agency charged upwards of $20 million. We’re making progress already.
Planetary Resources promises to bring billions of dollars into the global economy, which might be a bit premature. But it was also a bit premature when Kennedy announced, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade.” We still did it. We have lofty goals because those are the only kind worth having. Absolutely there will be setbacks. But the only reason we went to the moon was to compete with the Soviet Union, and when the space industry is privatized there won’t be a lack of competition.
Humanity has always had a frontier, something more to explore, something else to aspire to. It used to be the New World, and then it was the West. That frontier has been space for a long time, but this is the first time we have an actual shot at exploring that frontier. Sure, NASA forged the path, but NASA worked at such a slow rate that it became irrelevant even before it was downsized. The only way to make humanity’s dreams of exploring new worlds and traveling between the stars come true is through privatization.
It might not be any time in the near future, but because of the last few months, we’re about to see a lot of big things happening. And I—and my inner child—will be cheering the whole way up.