Space Politics – Too Much Already?
Is Space Getting Too Politicized?, Wired
“Now that the 2012 Presidential field is officially set, the candidates can finally focus on the question that is on everyone’s mind: what would you, as President, do with NASA? How would you guide the American space program? Ok, so space exploration isn’t exactly a high salience issue for most of the country, but it does loom large for several swing state constituencies, most notably the Space Coast of Florida. A couple of excellent articles in the current edition of Space Quarterly Magazine, excerpted on NasaWatch, contemplate the role space policy may have in the 2012 election.”
The politicization of NASA and the space program started in the early 1960’s when NASA was formed and big money began being poured into states, companies, etc. Over time, politics has eaten much of NASA and little remains of an agency once dedicated to science, technology, cutting edge R&D and doing all those where the risks could be high. Now billions are spent with little purpose beyond pleasing key congressman and constituents and making sure there is no chance to fail, regardless if billions are spent to eliminate the last slivers of risk. SLS is the seemingly latest example. How many people believe it will ever fly? If SpaceX pulls of the Falcon Heavy……
Then perhaps NASA will get back to doing what it should.
That covers most of it
and then they still fail.
NASA is a public-sector agency, funded by the taxpayer. It is inevitable that its objectives, methodology and priorities would be influenced and decided politically. That is to be expected; what I find occasionally alarming is the number of times what should be engineering or managerial decisions about technology and archetecture have been skewed to please certain politicians or their constituents.
That said, in the real world, this sort of thing is inevitable. It is the test of a NASA Chief Administrator to make progress on his programs DESPITE the ‘assistance’ of the guys inside the Beltway.
While its inevitable that politics will play a role in how resources are distributed, I think the overriding problem has been a lack of direction or planning within NASA for the kind of work it needs to be doing, the capabilities it needs to be maintaining or refining, or the destinations it needs to be aiming for. If NASA leadership were to lay out that plan then politics plays much less significant a role. For example, I don’t see the argument between Moon, Mars, and asteroid, or something else, like Cis-lunar, is a political decision or plan. NASA should have led the nation, long ago, in formulating a logical, technical strategy for program advancement. I don’t even see the program setting up the critical areas to study. Is an unmanned Mars sample return required or not? Is a lunar unmanned ISRU demonstration required or not? Is artificial-G for long duration required or not? Can we demonstrate radiation mitigation or not? There are three major failures that I see occurred simply because NASA failed to take technical/managerial leadership positions: Did the US need to maintain a capability for building and developing long duration modules or not? I think we should have maintained this all along but instead we gave it up a long time ago not because of an active decision but simply because we did not address the question. I think it hinders every thing we will want to do in the future. Second, should the US have maintained a capability for a winged, lifting space vehicle or not. We had the capability with Shuttle, were developing it with X-38, and it would have been much easier to continue to develop or refine the concept and build the new vehicles as long as we had existing skills, rather than throwing the ability away only to try and rebuild it later. More recently, since the Columbia accident and the decision to terminate Shuttle, NASA passed when it came time to decide whether to maintain a heavy lift capability derived from Shuttle. It was a much easier decision when the Shuttle manufacturing capability was still ongoing, then it is today, which leads one to question whether SLS versus some other option is the right answer, and which opens it more to politics.
The problem with a government-run space program in a democratic political system is that it’s hard to maintain focus on goals when the government keeps changing hands every few years. The incoming party will usually have different priorities, goals, and constituencies to please. They’ll also feel a need to repudiate the policies of their predecessors in the other party.
NASA was so successful in the 1960s because there was a clearly defined national goal (reaching the moon) and the same party was in control for that period. It’s been more or less adrift ever since.
The Soviet Union also had a government-run space program, but with a one-party authoritarian system of government, it was better able to keep focused. Today they’re still launching direct descendants of the rockets they developed in the late 50s and early 60s, from the same pads. Our 1960s era pads are crumbling ruins. While they have had less innovation, at least they don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel every few years.
No, I’m not arguing in favor of authoritarian government. What I’m saying is that aimlessness in space policy is almost inevitable in a democratic system. We need a private space industry, not a government space program.