Rick Raw: NASA’s Glory Days Are Over–Obama’s Bold New Vision for US Space Program

Proposes Doing More with Less

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

When I worked for United Technologies on the Apollo Moon Landing initiative,(1965-1976) NASA had a blank check as did the private contractors. Our determination to beat the Russians to the moon and beyond drove the Space Race, with carte blanche funding. America had already been embarrassed by the Soviet Union’s launch of the first satellite, Sputnik, and sending up the first astronaut to orbit the earth.

At the time, there was real hysteria that our arch-enemy, the USSR, would use the moon and satellites as bases to blackmail us into submission. NASA became a powerful government agency literally overnight as the money poured in.

Then in 1973, after the last moon landing in 1972, NASA hit a rough patch with thousands of engineers and workers laid-off until the Space Shuttle Program geared up in 1976. The Space Coast, including Coco Beach went bust for a few years.

Today, as the Shuttle Program is nearing its end, fear of layoffs has again spread through the Cape like the plague. Presently, there is no new government funded space program to replace the Shuttle.

In his long anticipated speech last week, President Obama laid out a new vision for the U.S. space program. The ill-conceived new moon landing initiative called Constellation was axed. And despite Obama’s optimism about his new vision, his speech hit the Cape like a dumb bomb.

Nonetheless, Obama was upbeat about America’s future role in space as a cooperative venture which, ironically, includes the Russian space port to launch astronauts to the Space Station. But the future space programs will depend on private companies to build future rockets and space vehicles for deep universe exploration.

The widespread use of robotic space vehicles is the new paradigm for exploring space. If we take the human out of the space vehicle, it greatly simplifies the engineering and the cost. Sending fragile humans into space means taking care of them with food, water, and waste disposal on very long missions.

Boredom and crew conflicts could also be a serious problem on long journeys. At the present time it’s not practical. There is initial planning for a Mars mission, which will be in the far distant future.

The thing is: How can the well educated engineers and other technical support personnel working at the Cape get excited about Obama’s vision when they are facing layoffs at the worst time in recent history.

Some ex-Cape workers will find jobs with private companies, but the majority of highly trained space workers will be the newest victims of the economic apocalypse, that drags on, now in its third year.

America has always led the way in advanced engineering in space. It turned out that the USSR were technically far behind us and our anxiety over their gaining superiority was unfounded. However, we accomplished great things when money was not an object and we were driven by the Space Race with the USSR.

It’s a new dawn in today’s world of our struggling economic reality, while funding two wars, which eat up resources. Obama’s vision makes sense and NASA needs to learn to be a lean mean machine without relying on massive funding. In other words, if NASA is to survive, it has to become more like a private company than a government agency.

Private companies are already leading the way into space. Billionaire entrepreneur, Richard Branson’s private space company will soon launch paying customers into space to feel zero gravity and get a spectacular view of earth.

When cost and competition become the driving motivation in building future spacecraft, it will produce amazing results. In the future, the Space Shuttle will be viewed as the Model A of space travel-- a big clunky space truck and a relic of past government overspending.