Needed: Space-Age Approaches to Space
FYI,
"Needed: Space-Age Approaches to Space"
by Steve Forbes
Forbes Magazine
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2005/0905/031.html?
partner=commentary_newsletter
: The recent mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery dramatically
: points up the need for us to resolve how best to rapidly promote
: space exploration and innovation. One inescapable response: Abolish
: the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) or
: drastically scale back its mission. Since the moon landings over
: three decades ago, NASA has become an obstacle to advancing space
: exploration and travel. If NASA had been in charge of developing
: the automobile, we'd still be riding horses.
: Free-enterprise competition spurs innovation and brings down the
: prices of products and services, the plunging cost of computing
: power being one dramatic example. But like most government
: agencies, NASA has become immersed in bureaucratic procedures and
: is a stifler of innovation. It monopolizes U.S. space activities,
: inhibiting private-sector participation. In the 1970s and 1980s,
: for instance, Washington flatly refused to use private contractors
: to put payloads into orbit.
: Or take the International Space Station. It was first proposed in
: the 1980s, with a price tag of $8 billion, and was to be completed
: by the mid-1990s. Today it's still under construction. Instead of
: housing 12 astronauts, the station's been scaled back to house 3.
: Instead of costing $8 billion, the tab could end up reaching
: $100 billion. And by the time it's finished, the station could be
: useless, outdated--a space-age white elephant by any rational cost-
: benefit analysis.
: The space shuttle program itself is obsolete; continuing it will
: waste billions of dollars and needlessly risk the lives of our
: astronauts. The knowledge gained from these experiments has not
: been worth the cost in lives and money. As first conceived decades
: ago, the space shuttle was supposed to be flying every week;
: instead there have been about four flights per year.
: The shuttle program should be turned over to the private sector.
: NASA should take a cue from the U.S. Postal Service, which in the
: 1920s and 1930s helped promote civil aviation by contracting mail
: deliveries with private companies and pilots. Experiments now done
: onboard the shuttle could easily be contracted out and accomplished
: at a fraction of the cost. Also, the money-draining space station
: should be turned over to private interests or abandoned.
: Burt Rutan's successful launching of a three-.passenger vehicle
: into space twice in a two-week period last year--which won him
: the ..$10 million Ansari X Prize--is a perfect example of what
: ..private interests can achieve when motivated and unleashed.
: Decades ago similar prizes stimulated major advances in civil
: aviation, including Charles Lindbergh's 1927 epic nonstop flight
: from New York to Paris.
: Former Congressman Bob Walker has proposed giving a ....25-year
: federal tax exemption to the first company to build a permanent
: lunar base with its own money. Now there would be an interesting
: diversification for Microsoft!
: At a time when Americans are worrying about possible future
: strategic threats from China, we should be doing all we can to
: stimulate space-related breakthroughs. Sooner than we think, such
: efforts could bring to life old dreams of space tourism and hotels
: and space-based laboratories.
--
Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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