Shrinking NASA

Ridden Amtrak lately? If not, why not? While you ponder the answer to that question, dig this. In a recent Obama campaign document ("Barack Obama's Plan For American Leadership in Space"), the candidate lays out his proposed policy vis-a-vis NASA. The paper states that as president, "Obama will support the development of this vital new platform [the Constellation spacecraft currently in development at NASA] to ensure that the United States' reliance on foreign space capabilities is limited to the minimum possible time period." In other words, he will maintain the Constellation project at a minimum $500 million per year budget until the first Orion flight, currently scheduled for sometime in 2015. However, NASA is also planning to end Shuttle operations in 2010, leaving the U.S. with no manned space transportation system for five years (or more — NASA's ability to meet deadlines has suffered greatly since the days of Project Apollo). As a result, it's likely that the space agency will be forced to lay off or give early retirement to the thousands of ground crew that currently rebuild and fly our Shuttle fleet. The effect of all this will be a gradual reduction in NASA size and capabilities; the agency will essentially be left to wither from lack of funding as the years go by.

And I say, "good".

This is one area of Obama policy with which I agree. NASA should be allowed to wither away. The agency is the space-going equivalent of Amtrak — expensive, unprofitable, and deathly slow — and for the same basic reason: because it is run by a big-government bureaucracy rather than as a profit-making private enterprise. And I don't believe that the government has any more business running a space program than they have running a railroad.

To my mind, transportation = transportation. While the airless, radioactive void of space presents unique challenges to space transportation service providers, space transportation itself is fundamentally no different than any other form of transportation: at its root, it's still nothing more than the movement of people and things from point A to point B by means of vehicles.

And in America, transportation services have always been best provided by private operators. Government's traditional role — from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System — has been to provide the infrastructure of our nation's various transportation systems. So should it be with space transportation. Just as the federal government funds the construction of air travel infrastructure (airports, navigation systems, air traffic control, etc.) so it should fund the infrastructure of space transportation: launch centers, space communications, aerospace R&D, and so forth. And, as with air travel, actual space transportation services should be provided by privately-owned, for-profit companies.

(For the record: I believe that the federal government should build and maintain a nationwide network of high speed rail infrastructure, and let the railroads provide intercity passenger rail service.)

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I hate NASA. I grew up during the Space Race years, and idolized the steely-eyed missilemen of the space agency, the boys that put Neil and Buzz on the moon. Sadly, however, we no longer have the reformed Nazis, visionary engineers, and selfless program men that ran NASA during its glory years, nor do we today have Congressmen and presidents who see space as the New Frontier. Today, NASA is just another federal agency full of comfortable, well-paid government bureaucrats, supported in Congress by wheedling politicians who see the space program only in terms of juicy contracts for the folks back home.

In my opinion, NASA should be returned to its original purpose — the research and development of air and space transportation technologies — and should hire contractors to launch satellites, probes, and manned spacecraft. Imagine if, instead of giving NASA $500 million per year to build paper spaceships and conduct endless studies, we were to offer American industry a flat $500 million annual contract to build and operate a moon base and associated space transportation system! I'd be willing to bet the job would get done pronto.

Ridden Amtrak lately? I'm a train fan myself, but even I stay away from our nation's pitifully inadequate government-run railroad. And, in my opinion, our country no more needs a government-run spaceline than she needs a government-run railroad. The sooner NASA is allowed to quietly shrink back to a useful size, and to do the job it was intended to do, the better for those of us who still hold on to the dream of personally traveling in space.