Space policy being discussed

With the Republican primary season moving to Florida it’s natural that space policy has become a topic during the campaign. Heretofore it’s been nonexistent.

Newt Gingrich, who has long had an interest in space, declared the following during a campaign rally: “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.”

That’s a good rallying cry in a state that would launch the many rockets needed to accomplish such a goal.

Although Gingrich did not elaborate a detailed plan, it’s clear that privatization would play a key role in any such feat. For example, he would consider using existing commercial rockets for such a goal (he asked about man-rating the Atlas 5) instead of NASA’s costly plan to develop a new heavy lift rocket.


Gingrich wants us to go back to the moon. And soon. (AP)
Gingrich’s idea of setting aside 10 percent of the NASA budget for commercial initiatives excited some in the space industry.

“Newt’s proposal to allocate 10 percent of NASA’s budget to establish a series of prizes would be revolutionary,” said Charles Miller, who recently stepped down as NASA’s Senior Advisor for Commercial Space and is now is President of NexGen Space.

“For example, if you took 10 percent of NASA’s budget next year — say about $1.8 Billion — and allocated it to a Reusable Spaceplane prize, call it Xprize 2.0, we would have a fundamental breakthrough in space transportation in very short order.  It would transform national security space, civil space, and commercial space. We would have a race between the likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Paul Allen to build the nation’s first reusable spaceplane.  The whole world would be watching.”

It’s unclear what effect further privatization would have on Johnson Space Center, in Houston, but any plan that gets astronauts flying more frequently, sooner, would be a boon for the place that trains astronauts and controls their flights.

Gingrich’s plans come in contrast to the White House-Senate plan for NASA, which calls for the development of a heavy lift rocket during the next decade, but does not allocate any money for actual missions beyond low-Earth orbit, because there is no money left over in the current budget.

With that said, promising the moon in less than a decade is not an achievable goal absent a significant increase in NASA’s funding.

But at least space policy is on the agenda.