Bumps in the Road Back to the Moon

With announcement by the Obama administration that Federal spending (save for security-related expenditures) would be frozen came confirmation that what many ardent supporters of the space program had long feared and that was that the plans to return to the moon by 2020 would be cancelled. Now most people that know me know that I'm a big supporter of the space program. I think the continued exploration of space and the worlds beyond our own are important in understanding more about the universe and in some small way, about ourselves as well. Returning to the moon was to be the first step in our nation's eventual goal of landing on Mars and beginning a colony there. Since 1972, there hasn't been a single manned exploration of our planet's nearest neighbor let alone to planets farther out and over time, interest has waxed and waned almost like the phases of the moon (pun intended).

Now as an economist I do understand the rationale behind the decision to freeze the budgets of numerous agencies. Given that many private companies are being forced to rollback the amount of work they are doing or are curbing costs for the near term should logically also take place in the government as well. Maybe not everyone agrees with that but that's what I feel is leading by example. But one of the unintended casualties that I have mixed feelings about is the space program and the ulitmate consequence that the budget freeze/cuts means to the planned Constellation program intended to return US astronauts to the moon. Now some have made the argument that returning to the moon will have little value to those of us on Earth since there is no real immediate benefit to doing so. Don't believe me? What if scientists proved that there were oil deposits all over the entire moon; how fast do you think we'd be returning there?

In this case that's probably a case of wishful thinking (especially for those of us who want to see us return to space exploration) but I think one of side consequences of the decision to reduce NASA (and hence the government's) direct participation in the space program is to help private industry companies get in on the race back into space and hopefully turn out technology at a much faster clip. Already we have seen evidence of how quickly private industry can move when it has a good motivator. The Ansari Space-X price from a few years ago which helped pave the way for Scaled Composites to develop and fly their SpaceShip One and SpaceShip Two spacecraft was driven to success in the hope of not only winning the prize but in proving private companies could do just as much as government agencies like NASA but for far less.

Already industrialist have started developement on spacecraft that will carry passengers into the outer reaches of the atmosphere for short duration space voyages. I don't think it will be long before it's popularized. Think back to when LCD and plasma TV's first came out. When they were first released the cost was prohibitively expensive. Now it's more affordable than ever to get a decent HDTV. Similarly I think after a few years, seats on flights to the outer atmosphere will become vastly encheapened and we'll see it becoming more mainstream. Perhaps it will take longer than if it were on a larger or grander scale (like with NASA backing) but it doesnt' mean it can't happen.

When the Wright Brothers first flew they didn't do it through government funding; they did it on their own dime and then innovators followed their example to help expand the aviation industry in our country and around the world. I think a similar sort of genesis could occur this time around if the industry remembers two things. They should definitely keep the consumer in mind since the consumer is who will help spur any industry. If flights around the world at the edge of space are made affordable, people will come. The other is that jobs in this industry should be kept here as far as budgets allow. Sure it's cheaper to outsource work but then we're sending the brain trust, the people who were instrumental in landing man on the moon in 1969 (over 40 years ago!), to other countries. That would be worse than the financial recession we're already going through.