As private companies erode government’s hold on space travel, NASA looks to open a new frontier - The Washington Post

Feb 25, 2021

The four astronauts who will fly aboard a SpaceX mission by the end of the year will be a bunch of private citizens with no space experience.

In fact, for this mission, the first comprised entirely of private citizens, NASA is little more than a bystander.

This is the new look of human space exploration as government’s long-held monopoly on space travel continues to erode, redefining not only who owns the vehicles that carry people to space, but also the very nature of what an astronaut is and who gets to be one.

Thanks to NASA’s investments and guidance, the private space sector has grown tremendously — no entity more than SpaceX, which according to CNBC is now worth $74 billion.

The commercial space industry is taking on ever more roles and responsibilities — flying not just cargo and supplies to the International Space Station, but even NASA’s astronauts there.

The private sector will launch some of the major components of the space station NASA wants to build in orbit around the moon, and private companies are developing the spacecraft that will fly astronauts to and from the lunar surface.

Space enthusiasts, including NASA, see enormous benefit in the shift — a new era of space exploration that will usher in a more capable and efficient space industry.

“NASA leadership in human space exploration is still preeminent, but the agency’s role is evolving with critical implications for how risk and safety will be managed.”.

But as the agency continues to evolve “NASA must make some strategically critical decisions, based on deliberate and thorough consideration, that are necessary because of their momentous consequences for the future of human space exploration and, in particular, for the management of the attendant risks.”.

government fostered the commercial aviation industry in the early 20th century.

NASA’s predecessor, NACA, or the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, “did research, technology development to initially support defense … but also later on supporting a burgeoning commercial aircraft industry and aviation industry,” he said.

Not in looking for financial gain, but blazing the trail and opening new frontiers, and then allowing private industry to take over in the way homesteaders expanded into the West.

Or Axiom Space, which is building a commercial space station.

That is when it awarded relatively small contracts to see if the private sector could develop spacecraft capable of bringing cargo to the International Space Station.

Turning over human spaceflight to the private sector was a line many thought NASA would never cross.

But last year, SpaceX successfully flew two crewed missions to the space station, and Boeing, the other company with the human spaceflight contract, is hoping to fly its first later this year.

Recently, the Bloomberg editorial board called for the Biden administration to “scrap the Space Launch System,” asking, “Why is the U.S.

Some high-level NASA officials, including former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, have indicated that if the commercial sector can develop lower cost alternatives, the space agency would have no choice but to consider those instead.

But the hardware and the launch procedures remain in private hands.

Instead of spending a few days inside SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which has about as much interior room as a large SUV, they will fly to the International Space Station.

NASA has said that it would eventually get out of the space station business — and outsource that to the private sector as well.

If Axiom is successful, it could then proceed to its ultimate goal: charter missions of private citizens, flying on private rockets to a private space station with little to no involvement from NASA.

That would mark the culmination of the long-held dream of opening space to the masses, and build on the first flight of private citizens to space — the flight of SpaceShipOne, a piloted spaceplane, in 2004

Updating the ISS: Replacing the International Space Station could be Biden’s big space challenge

Crew-1 Launch: SpaceX launched astronauts to the International Space Station in the first privately owned and operated spacecraft to be certified by NASA for human spaceflight