Opinion: Let Private Enterprise Develop Manned Spaceflight
Department:
The Future in Space
Teaser:
Bob Clarebrough argues that human spaceflight is inherently dangerous, but it is worthwhile going out into space. NASA's job ought to be using robot spacecraft to facilitate human exploration of the Solar System. It should be up to private enterprise and entrepreneurs to work out how to get human beings out there.
Link:
Source:
The Space Review Download time: Jan 4 2010 7:03 AM ET
Is sending humans into space the riskiest venture ever undertaken by mankind? Are the required technologies more fiendishly complicated and the perils greater than any other feat of exploration in history? Are the difficulties such that only a centralized agency such as NASA, with close government oversight, can undertake this endeavor? These questions imply assumptions about the hazards of manned space flight and raise the question of whether we are mythologizing space travel. The challenges may seem unprecedented but people have trodden this path before to produce stunning achievements in environments every bit as hostile as space.
To turn myths into reality it is helpful to understand: how we build complex machines; our capacity for taking risks even as we strive for safety; and the fundamental role of NASA. The theme throughout is that no government has any right or duty to act as a gatekeeper to the worlds beyond Earth—they are open for all of us to explore and private enterprise will develop safe technologies that enable us to do so.…
I generally agree with Clarebrough's point of view, but we do need to keep in mind that there are tasks that are simply too big for entrepreneurs or even large private companies to undertake. It has taken 50 years and billions of dollars to provide the technological foundation for manned spaceflight. Private enterprise could not have done it. Getting a human being into space was simply a project that was too big for even the largest corporations and too risky for investors. And where were the dollars of profit to be found?
The profit motive does stimulate imagination and invention, but no business person will continue to back a project that continues to suck up dollars without the prospect of a forseeable return. Only national governments can make such an investment -- in the service of human goals greater than that of simple material gain.
