[X] My Assistant

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

The Space Frontier Foundation has gotten a lot of attention from the mainstream press with their latest Whitepaper.

They advocate a more extensive support fo free enterprise and entrepreneurship in the American space program. They suggest that NASA should no longer be allowed to develop and own new launch vehicles, and that CEV and CLV development should be cancelled. They also advise that NASA rely on Altas 5 and Delta 4 rockets, and transfer more funding to the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

I cannot find the actual white paper on the SFF website. I don't know if SFF is particularly professional (certainly their gaudy website doesn't look it), but I have to agree with some of their points.

[dvandorn]

I think it's important to note that private industry *did* build most of the spacecraft and launch vehicles that the U.S. has deployed over the past 50 years. NASA, DoD or some other federal agency (like, for example, NOAA) were the customers who purchased the spacecraft and launch vehicles, and used them.

The difference between the existing paradigm and the one the SFF seems to be urging is that the federal government has provided these private-industry contractors with detailed specifications for these vehicles (a "we design them, you build them" approach), and has also provided high-level program management. But the manufacture and detailed, day-to-day project management has, in most cases, been done by private industry.

I think this made more sense in the 1960s, when a man like Max Faget and his band of engineering wizards were capable of designing pretty much every manned spacecraft we ever thought we'd need. But the bureaucracy has overwhelmed the engineering ethos at NASA, and I will grant you that perhaps it's time to distribute the responsibilities for the design work out to the industries who have been making the vehicles all along.

Actually, the one area in which this has *not* been the case has been in planetary probes. JPL (with the aid of a number of subcontractors) has actually built a majority of America's lunar and planetary probes, along with a number of other spacecraft. More recently, other NASA centers (such as the APL) have gotten into the act, as well. Building unmanned exploratory spacecraft seems to be something that NASA does best -- at least, I've seen no hue and cry that private industry ought to co-opt that portion of NASA's portfolio...

I know it betrays my rather liberal political leanings, but I truly believe that there are some things that governments can do better than private industry -- and that there are many things that *only* governments can do, since private industry (at least in a capitalist society) will only ever do things that have short-term profit potential. Some things really *need* to be done that only have long-term profit potential (or none whatsoever, at least economically), and only governments can do those things effectively. (Heck, only governments will ever even *try* to do those things.)

At least, that's my $.02 on the subject...

-the other Doug