Cowing & Sietzen's In Depth Policy History, Plus Comments On The Last Part

01/17/04 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Frank Sietzen Jr. (UPI) and Keith L. Cowing (NasaWatch) have been working on a three part series (one, two, and three) that details the history and reasoning behind the President's new space policy. The series is interesting and will give you a good idea of how policy is made (think sausage).

The third article gets into what I thought was particular interesting: the role of private enterprise. If Frank and Keith's characterization is accurate then maybe the administration did recognize that industry is capable of offering economical and profitable solutions. Read for yourself:

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The commercial industry could be a different story, however. Aerospace companies might be able to supply small communications satellites orbiting the moon, for example, keeping landing parties in touch with Earth, even if they traveled to the moon's far side. In fact, the issue of how to leverage commercial space entrepreneurs or companies – even universities – into a new attempt at moon landings was taken seriously.

Potential private partners could contribute in various ways. A Global Positioning System or GPS satellite system in lunar orbit could guide all incoming craft to precision lunar landings. If operational, such a system could allow smaller space vehicles with crews to land near cargos previously dropped down from orbit nearby. In that way, mission planners could simplify the complexity of the moon lander's electronics, keeping costs down.

The navigational approach would allow somewhat smaller ships to be built, because more accurate positioning cuts down on fuel requirements and hence size. Smaller spacecraft need smaller rockets – and existing space launchers could be procured from existing launch companies in place of the massive, Saturn-type rockets used during the Apollo landings of the 1960s and '70s.

The lunar GPS idea also could be applied to Mars exploration. Indeed, NASA's current plans for missions to the red planet include the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter. Scheduled for launch in 2009, the MTO will act as the telecommunications center for missions to the red planet for years to come. It would seem an ideal candidate for navigational data relays as well.

As mentioned below, perhaps this portion of the overall policy will have a more direct impact on the non-NASA portions of the government's space related departments.

This policy shift, coupled with the fact that the 'private space' meme is propagating:

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Economist: America's space programme

New York Times: The Citizen Astronaut

The Age: Moon Inc: canny move or sheer lunacy?

The Australian: Over the moon (is everyone channelling Ben Bova today?)

Space Today: Private investment to pay for refurbished Baikonur launch pad

could mean that things will begin moving rather quickly. I could be projecting but some of the things that have been happing lately are starting to give me that feeling again.