Letting Go Of Launching Humans
Commercial Space Flight: NASA May Get Onboard, Business Week
“One option under serious consideration is whether NASA should tap the private sector more actively. Since its founding, the agency has done the heavy lifting in space exploration largely by itselfconceiving of missions, designing rockets, and executing flights. Companies such as Boeing (BA), Alliant Techsystems (ATK), and Lockheed Martin simply built spacecraft to NASA’s specs. Some experts argue that NASA should lean on private companies more heavily, perhaps to design rockets or execute such mundane missions as shuttling supplies up to the International Space Station. “The commercial sector could have a much bigger role,” says Keith Cowing, editor of a Web site called NASA Watch, which monitors agency projects. “But NASA has to be willing to give up its monopoly on manned space flight. And that’s the big question.”