My good friend Peter asserts that it's time to get NASA out of the way and hand over the reins of space exploration to private companies like Space X and Virgin Galactic. (See Privatize space now). Speaking as someone who has been involved with the private space or New Space industry for several years and knows a lot of the major players, including those that
Peter mentioned, I need to set the record straight. For one thing, private companies like Space X get significant government funding and contracts (the most recent was $1.6 billion from NASA to launch 12 cargo missions) and Virgin Galactic will launch from a taxpayer-funded spaceport in New Mexico. This is hardly getting the government out of the picture.
Moreover, the examples Peter gave fall under the space tourism category, which is sub-orbital, a whole different technological ballgame than getting someone to the moon and beyond to the asteroids that Peter and Pres. Obama talked about. The cost to accomplish this is far beyond the resources of a private sector company or the VC community, but we do need to find a way to do it. Getting beyond low-earth orbit will help maintain our space leadership and drive a new platform of technological innovation, which is critical because most of today's private companies are still using legacy technology from the traditional space industry that they can deploy more cheaply than the large aerospace companies can. But these new private companies are as yet unproven in their ability to replace the shuttle or to execute manned missions, so putting all your eggs in these companies is a high-risk endeavor.
Being a person who wants to get the government out of business as much as possible, I still recognize that some problems are too big for entrepreneurs alone to solve. Examples are climate change, hunger, poverty, energy, and water. These kinds of complex problems require major collaborations of industry, government, and entrepreneurs. Exploration of the solar system is an example of such a problem. Those who are involved in the New Space industry fall into three categories:
- Sub-orbital space tourism: Virgin Galactic, Zero-Gravity, Space Adventures, and Blue Origin (producing unique, repeatable, space experiences)
- Extended Stays & Platform: Bigelow Aerospace, Space Island Group (visits to the ISS, space hotels, and entertainment)
- Payload Delivery Services: Space X and AirLaunch (satellites and scientific experiments to the ISS)
The problem in all of these sectors is finding a business model that works. Small satellites have produced the best opportunity for an effective commercial business model, but most funding in this area can still be traced back to some form of government spending or subsidy. It's not certain that even the exciting sub-orbital tourism sector can survive without government funding or contracts for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, China has had two successful Shenzhou human earth-orbiting missions and plans to develop a space station and send astronauts to the moon in the next decade. And for the nearly seven years it will take to
replace the shuttle, we will have to rely on the Russians. When they're the only game in town, do you think they'll be cheap? I can see the prices going up immediately after the last shuttle launch, not to mention the political leverage they will have over the US.
I am a huge proponent of the New Space industry, but I'm also convinced that partnering with experienced private and public companies in the traditional aerospace industry and with NASA and the government will be important if we want to achieve anything on the cutting edge. The $6 billion Pres. Obama has allocated for his privatization plan is peanuts compared to the amount of money Congress has wasted on the stimulus package and the bailouts of failing companies. The jobs created by the traditional space industry and the New Space industry give a far better return to the taxpayer economically and in new innovations that will spawn new companies and additional new jobs. And it's important to keep in mind that it will only take one disaster with humans on board the Virgin Galactic ship for the government to clamp down on the New Space industry causing the costs of doing commercial business to skyrocket.
Given the risk averse path that our country appears to be on, I worry about our ability to stomach pioneering in space the way that we did when we put the first man in space and the first man on the moon. With the end of the shuttle, it is estimated that 7,000 jobs will be lost in Florida. Private launches are estimated to replace only 1,000 of those jobs. Again I say, you don't shut down a successful technology until the next one is ready to go. Our government wastes enough money to fund private companies and their partners to reach an asteroid or Mars in the next decade if we would just get politics out of the business of space exploration and focus on maintaining our leadership in science and technology.
