President George W. Bush made a large proposition early this year - for a return to Earth's moon by U.S. astronauts in the near future, to lay the groundwork for a manned mission to Mars further down the line. His is an ambitious goal, and predictably, it's been compared to John F. Kennedy's 1962 challenge - to get a U.S. astronaut to the moon. The proposition has given NASA a new mission, but if we as a nation want to get anything useful out of space exploration, we'll have to get a certain gigantic, inefficient, overpriced government-supported monopoly out of the picture.
NASA was formed in 1958 to take over the military's aerospace exploration programs. It made sense, at that time, for the government to be actively involved in space exploration. Soviet Russia's government was actively studying space, likely for military purposes. The USSR's objective was to get the upper hand in the arms race, to become the dominant world power. The first man-made satellite, Sputnik, launched in 1957, rightfully alarmed U.S. citizens and officials. A working satellite had (and has) many militaristic implications, possibly providing an espionage center, and a convenient place to launch massively destructive weapons against enemies. It's easy see how it may have made sense to separate space exploration from the military; if military ends were the only ones publicized, the arms race could have been dangerously accelerated. A civilian-headed organization, though, was less of a perceived threat to the USSR. NASA has had a number of awe-inspiring successes since its creation. Alan Shepard and John Glenn were both pioneers for the U.S. The Apollo program accomplished the incredible feat of landing on the moon, and returning the astronauts safely. The space shuttles have had a number of successes, including installing the Hubble Space Telescope, an amazing research tool for scientists. NASA accomplished its mission - its scientists and engineers helped the U.S. deal with the threat of Soviet attack.
Now the Cold War is over. The military is now capable of maintaining its own intelligence-gathering satellites, and there's no prize for winning a space race anymore. Although some setbacks are to be expected in exploring the final frontier, NASA's screw-ups have claimed human lives, and cost taxpayers staggering billions of dollars. Deaths from complications with the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia missions are tragic, but investigations have shown steps could have been taken to prevent such disaster. NASA's post-war method of operation is to set lofty goals and project low costs for new projects, then repeatedly fall short and overcharge taxpayers. By 1975, there was supposed to be a shuttle program in place that could be used to cheaply accomplish dozens of missions per year. Today, there are fewer than four missions per year, and they're as expensive as ever. The Hubble Space Telescope works today, but its original design was unusable, reportedly because of negligence calibrating the instruments used to manufacture it. A whole separate (and very costly) mission was necessary to install a correctional lens. Millions have been poured into the International Space Station, and it has routinely fallen short of its goals. The Opportunity Rover has given us some incredible pictures of the Martian landscape, but in 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter was lost to bureaucratic incompetence. $350,000,000 burned up, apparently because someone programmed it to orbit in imperial units instead of metric ones.
There is a solution, however. There are plenty of reasons for humans to explore space. A zero gravity environment would be beneficial to a number of commercial entities that manufacture very sensitive components, and corporate sponsored research could lead to new products, processes, and discoveries. There's even the lure of space tourism - there are already a handful of organizations that want to launch a space vacation service. The price tag is huge at the moment, but if given the chance to grow, space travel would be become cheaper and cheaper. Automobiles, air travel, computers, and cell phones started out as goods only available to the rich, but today, they're affordable to most Americans. Private involvement in space would progress at a much faster rate than the last 60 years - corporations that make money grow, unlike government agencies, which depend on the mandates of Congress for their funding. As a government agency, NASA can't make profits to reinvest into its exploration. A private corporation can. There are plenty of potential pitfalls for private companies in space, just like for NASA. However, private companies have to be efficient to make money. Negligent companies tend not to attract investors, and therefore tend not to exist for very long. Insurance requirements and increased efficiency help minimize safety concerns.
Instead of renewing NASA's ticket, Congress should start the process of privatization. NASA would have to be phased out instead of being eliminated all at once, but interested companies would undoubtedly buy parts of it. To encourage involvement, a fraction of NASA's budget could be used as a "prize" for the first private organization that safely makes it to space. Opening the door to private space exploration would help the economy - think of the jobs that would be needed to supply the parts for space shuttles. Space exploration could transform the economy like automobiles did. NASA promised all kinds of space-age products, but all we got were ballpoint pens and Tang, neither of which were really developed for the space program. George W. Bush wants to get humans to Mars, but he could aim for Jupiter and get there a lot faster if he'd start the ball rolling to privatize NASA.