Obama taps private sector to fast-forward space development

By Dick Pelletier

      

    The Obama Administration scrapped the program that was to return astronauts to the Moon, and replaced it with a new far-sighted mission aimed at the private sector with focus on developing new space technologies, exploring the solar system and pushing humans closer to living offworld.

    The President is sensibly ceding space flight development to competitive entrepreneurs, with companies such as SpaceX which will soon ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, along with other aerospace businesses that are close to launching humans into orbit. The government will now partner with private industry to fly people into space.

    In defending the strategic change, Office of Science and Technology Policy Chief Jim Kohlenberger said that although NASA's goals were designed to send humans back to the Moon by 2020, they couldn't have achieved that goal until the 2030s, "if ever." "It was called '20/20 vision.' I think it was nearsighted by about 20 years," he added.

    Experts believe this strategy could repeat what the shift from government controls of the computer and information technologies did in the 70s and 80s. During this era, businesses were encouraged to develop new technologies, which in turn created the Internet, raised economies, and led to success stories like Apple, Intel, Microsoft and Google.

    Entrepreneurs from Amazon's Jeff Bezos to Tesla, and Space X's Elon Musk to Microsoft's Paul Allen are already developing ideas to get more Earthlings into space. With international partners, including programs in Canada, Japan, Europe and India, U.S. efforts to explore the 'wild blue yonder' is accelerating faster than ever before.

    Under the new plan, NASA will receive a 5-year budget increase of $6 billion; $100 billion total. Administrators have already awarded Space Act Agreements for human spaceflight development to Blue Origin, The Boeing Company, Nevada Corp., and United Launch Alliance.

    Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut who walked on the Moon with Neil Armstrong, believes the President's direction is correct. To send humans to Mars and other exciting destinations, he says, will require game-changing technologies that private entrepreneurs have the best chance of developing.

    The new budget focuses on innovative engines, propellants, materials and combustion processes which positive futurists believe will lead to new space travel technologies that might one day even send humans beyond our solar system.

    Physicist Stephen Hawking said humanity should try to expand to Earth-like planets around other stars. If only 1% of the 1,000 or so stars within 30 light years of Earth has a planet with liquid water, he says, that would make 10 such planets in our solar system's neighborhood.

    "We cannot envision visiting them with current technology," he said, "but we should make interstellar travel a future aim." Hawking believes that traveling into space is the only way humans will be able to survive in the long-term. "Life on Earth," he said, "is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by global warming, nuclear war, a genetically-engineered virus or other dangers... I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."

    Mr. Hawking, America hears you. Get ready to enjoy what promises to become an amazing "magical journey" as humanity begins spreading its populations to the stars.

This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.