2010-04-14 » Forget About the Moon (Think Bigger!)

Man on the moon

I read today that Obama is going to announce further changes to NASA’s mission tomorrow. Earlier this year he already announced that he was going to be cancelling the Constellation Program that Bush announced in 2005.

The most important part of the program was the development of heavy lifting capabilities as a stepping stone to future projects including a permanent base on the Moon. This is important because the Space Shuttle is being retired and there’s nothing ready to replace it. For near future, the US will have to rely on Roscosmos to launch anything.

From what I’ve read, Obama’s plan seems to include another new heavy lifting rocket but the focus really seems to be on three things:

  • Letting private companies handle more of the work
  • Keeping and creating jobs (even if their projects don’t make much sense)
  • Not committing to any specific goals

I’m a big fan of having private companies doing more in space. They have more motivation to be efficient and they’re also likely to be able to do things that aren’t so much research but are important for other long-term projects. Asteroid mining, orbital manufacturing and other similar projects are important but don’t really fall into the purview of NASA.

Keeping and creating jobs is important politically. Especially in the current economic environment. Not much else to say about that one, though it’d be nice if they were all working on something important.

Not committing to any specific goals seems to be a big problem. I think the idea of having private companies doing the day-to-day tasks like launching stuff into orbit could actually be a really good thing for NASA if they focus their effort on the more ambitious projects that push the envelope of science and engineering. But they need to set a target. Something difficult enough that it’s not certain that it can be done. Don’t say: “We’re going to Mars eventually.” Instead say: “Permanent colony on Mars by 2020”.

John F. Kennedy made it a national goal in 1961 to have a man on the Moon in by the end of the decade. The Apollo program not only landed 12 people on the Moon in 6 trips there, but created many advances in the state of the art in a variety of fields in order to meet that goal.

If the USA can’t come up with their own motivation, my hope is that Russia, China, Europe or even India will be bolder and start a new space race. Maybe having the Chinese flag painted across the whole face of the moon would motivate the US into action.