Posted by Ray Katz in Mars, NASA, current, moon, private
Outsourcing the space program
NASA is in for major changes. This has been obvious for months. The agency doesn’t have the money to do what it’s trying to do now. It’s absurd to pretend they have the money to send people to the moon or Mars.
The Wall Street Journals suggests that the agency will do more outsourcing, possibly abandoning the new spacecraft, Orion. And leaving NASA with no way to send people into space—except by purchasing rides from the emerging private space travel companies.
Yes, I’m a fan of the audacious and talented new companies, particularly SpaceX, which hope to send people into space.
But here we are talking about abandoning sending people into deep space—that is, beyond earth orbit—for the foreseeable future. I’m thinking: no American will approach the moon again in my lifetime.
That’s pretty pathetic.
