NASA manned program should be iced

One of the big news items out of the appropriations cycle for the U.S. federal Fiscal Year 2005 is that NASA will receive a 5% spending boost for Shuttle return to flight, a robotic mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, and the president's Vision for Space Exploration.  Let's take stock of what the government is doing with our money.

First of all, an increase of 5% is not that much of an increase.  Space as a percentage of economic activity will decrease with this increase, considering that nominal economic growth will be greater than 5% during Fiscal Year 2005.

That said, almost half of NASA's budget is a money pit with questionable returns in either science or national prestige.  The Hubble Space Telescope is an old bird and is operating well past its design life.  It was designed 25 years ago with the capabilities at NASA's disposal at that time.  This leads to rather kludgy fixes of the telescope when something goes wrong, which is likely to increase the cost of any repair mission.  Pick a number for the mission cost -- perhaps $2 billion.  Hubble should be deorbited when most of its science instruments fail.  I would be willing to discuss a follow-on space telescope.

The real money is tied up in the manned program -- Shuttle and the International Space Station -- to the tune of about $6 billion per annum.  The Shuttle's sole current raison d'être is to assemble Station and Station's raison d'être is international diplomatic cooperation and national prestige.  To put it bluntly, our friends around the world have built modules for Station that are lying on the floor at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.   Diplomatic cooperation is actually pretty important and our friends would rightly be angry at all those modules on the floor at KSC going to waste because we can't get our acts together.  However, Station isn't increasing our national prestige $6 billion a year's worth, so I am inclined to kill it and Shuttle and accept the diplomatic fallout.

Killing Shuttle and Station means that our manned space program likely will be grounded for about 6 to 8 years, with the program coming out of hibernation when the private sector can supply NASA with manned launches to Low Earth Orbit and destination stations on orbit at a reasonable price.  Putting the manned program on ice sends chills up the spine of space enthusiasts and the congress, but would grounding the manned program be so bad, if it saves $40 billion for other space purposes during this decade?  Even if much of that $40 billion is taken away from NASA altogether, I believe space enthusiasts wouldn't be worse off over the long run, since the Vision for Space Exploration will be funded more robustly.

Comments

[Juan Suros]

NASA's domination of manned spaceflight has passed the point of diminishing returns and become a hindrance to human exploration of space. It wasn't intentional, but that is where we are today.

The sooner we limit NASA to designing space hardware & instrumentation and exclude them from spacelift, the sooner we'll all be vacationing on the moon.

[Neil Halelamien]

A good proposal, but unfortunately it's politically impossible.

[Nathan Hampton]

While I agree that the practicality of the Shuttle program is no longer questionable and downright deplorable, we must not forget that there are even more reasons why the shuttle flies.

1) Defense projects
It's hard to imagine how much of NASA's budget is squirreled into DoD R&D so that DoD can take a budget crunch and still manage to keep pet projects alive. Do really think it costs $14,000 for a toilet and another $7,000 for a hammer?

2) Secrecy
Although NASA was founded on an open door and freedom of information policy, it has never been followed. MOF, more than one President has stated that NASA is as much a vault for national security secrets as the CIA, FBI, etc.

3) F.U.D.
Like M$, NASA is great at being the government's FUD factor on manned space missions. Just when things are getting routine, when NASA's clean record is getting too comfortable, a crash or explosion happens to get everyone's attention. Suddenly there's more money, everyone buys NASA merchandise, and NASA's flush with cash again. The comments that keep flying with Challenger and Columbia was, "Space isn't safe. Leave it to the professionals at NASA." No! NASA isn't safe. Leave it to the professionals in the commercial space industry.

4) Politics
If there's one problem with government control it's the politics of the game. The government it quick to expand but sloew (if ever) to contract. The only known contraction is to completely scrap the entire government and start over. If we accept something in the short term, then the situation will remain for the long term. (Remember Chancellor Palpatine and the Empire?) Slick palms and nepotism isn't just the realm of the UN but also D.C., London, Paris, Moscow, Shanghai, and every other self-proclaimed do-gooder government on the planet.

[genf20 plus]

Amazing lines, Thank You!