14 DAY TRIAL // Spaceflight has been a source of pride for United States and its population for more than 50 years, but now there appears to be no more drive to achieve groundbreaking performances in this regard. Many believe that the nation is slacking, and falling behind in the space.
While it is true that NASA was the most technologically-advanced space agency in the world for decades, that is no longer the case. The European Space Agency (ESA) is now a leader in many fields, and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) is catching up as well.
While the latter two may excel at robotic exploration, one of the things NASA also excelled at was human spaceflight. The retirement of the three-orbiter fleet, and the shutdown of the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) is bringing systemic problems of space exploration into the spotlight.
While Administrator Charles Bolden and other top officials at NASA are putting on quite a show to impress audiences and Congress, the reality is that there is no more drive for the country to maintain its leadership in space.
Why do people fly to the Moon, Mars or near-Earth asteroids when robots can do this just as well? Combine this line of reasoning with smaller and smaller budgets, and you get a country that is no longer willing to invest in projects that would benefit all mankind.
The post-shuttle era is, and will continue to be, characterized by stagnant or dwindling public funding for spaceflight, even as Congress is continuing to urge NASA to submit its final designs for the future Space Launch System (SLS).
A couple of years ago, US President Barack Obama's Administration shut down Project Constellation – NASA's attempt to land on the Moon by 2020 – due to cost overruns. When it came to beating the Soviet Union to the punch, money was not an issue.
“To get more money for human spaceflight, there needs to be a compelling reason to do it. Either that reason doesn't exist, or it hasn't been articulated,” says space history curator Roger Launius, from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, DC, as quoted by Space.
NASA and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have set forth to found an organization that would manage the proposed 100-Year Starship Project. As the name implies, the goal is to build a spacecraft capable of flying among the stars within a century.
But efforts such as these – as long as they are not supported by not one, but many national governments – are doomed to fail, or take a lot more time than initially estimated. With private companies satisfying the need for transport to low-Earth orbit, widespread support will most likely never be reached.
This is the major downside to funding private corporations for building spacecraft. While launch costs may indeed be driven down, there would be no more incentive for governments or space agencies to conduct bold space exploration. We could be permanently stuck in Earth's orbit.