"Make America Great Again"....in Space

Man has always looked up at the millions of twinkling stars in the night sky with wonder and awe of what could be out there. America has always been a nation of curiosity and discovery. We are in America for that reason. From our very beginnings we were adventurers, searching for a more prosperous land where we could grow. The only natural evolution of that curiosity is outer space. It all began on March 16, 1926 when Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid fueled rocket. From that point on it became a race between America and the Soviet Union to see who could progress and explore faster. It was an amazing time of discovery and wonder for the world!

                

            Albert1 was the first rhesus monkey to be launched into space on June 11, 1948.  He went up in a V-2 rocket the US had confiscated from Germany at the end of the war. He achieved an altitude of between 30 and 39 miles. On June 14, 1949 Albert 2, another rhesus monkey, was launched into space and achieved an altitude of about 83 miles. Though this was only the beginning of a series of suborbital flights they were the first baby steps that paved the way for a human launch. On October 4, 1957 The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 the first artificial satellite to actually orbit the Earth. This event precipitated the American Sputnik Crisis and triggered the Space Race. That launch ushered in a new era of political, technological, and scientific development that has yet to end.

Neither was America the first to send a man into space. April 12, 1961 marked a very historic event when a man named Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union became the man to fly the first human crewed orbital flight. Although America was not far behind. On May 5, 1961 Alan Shepard, became the first American to fly a human piloted space vehicle on a suborbital flight.  Those men were the beginning of a very amazing period in time. The 1960’s were busy with America and the Soviet Union both discovering and celebrating many firsts. Then something amazing happened! On July 16, 1969 Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins blasted off on the Apollo 11.  And just 4 days later Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon in a Lunar Module named The Eagle. On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to step onto the Moon.

                

             Now we’ll fast forward a bit. The date is currently June 6, 2016. America is leading in the never ending Space Race. Up to this point twelve men have walked on the Moon, but none since 1972.  That may very soon change. In addition to NASA, there are several private space companies taking up the exploration banner and running with it.  One idea, which is gaining a lot of traction, is to go back to the Moon as a prep flight for a mission to Mars. Now I’m sure you’re wondering how as a nation we could afford this. An entrepreneur named Elon Musk has created the means to do that. After making a fortune by helping to create the online payment system known as PayPal, he created a company called SpaceX.  This company recently made history when he successfully launched and then landed a rocket upright on April 8, 2016.

He has proven that not only can we build rockets more economically but that we can reuse them as well. Next stop Mars! SpaceX states they will be launching a mission to Mars using the Red Dragon in 2018 and sending humans to Mars in 2024. NASA also has a timeline for Mars but it’s, well, a bit further out, like sometime in the 2030’s so it is honestly far more realistic to believe a private space company will get there first. But after that who knows? The sky is literally the limit. There is no telling how far we can go.

                

             As we embark on this amazing journey of discovery we need to remember that searching for answers and exploring new world’s is the American way. We must go further and aim higher. It’s a necessary part of who we are.  We are the innovators, the explorers, the leaders in a race spanning decades and it’s not over yet. This race probably will not ever be over as long as we keep the curiosity and the drive. It’s up to us to preserve the American desire to know more, to go further, and to excel. Let’s go! Let’s colonize Mars then go further! Let’s push ourselves out into the abyss of space and see what’s there. Because frankly space exploration is as American as Apple Pie!

COMMERCIAL SPACE: WE HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE

SpaceX Is The Twenty-first Century Equivalent To The East India And Hudson Bay Companies

On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy announced before a crowd of 35,000 that “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade”.  On July 20, 1969, we did just that with the landing of Apollo 11.  The United States Government, driven by popular demand made an unprecedented investment throughout the 1960’s, often spending up to 4% of the annual federal budget on manned spaceflight.

As soon as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned to earth however, public interest in space dropped off.  Congress followed popular opinion, and for the last 40 years NASA budgets averaged about one half of one percent of the federal budget.

This financial malaise has continued to this day.  In spite of glorious claims regarding the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) projects, the NASA budget has not increased significantly.  SLS/Orion will not launch until 2021.  Even then the best we can hope for under current budget constraints is to have one launch every two or three years.  This is wholly insufficient for real exploration and completely eliminates any hope of NASA building a Mars colony.

By Contrast, commercial space entities like Bigelow Aerospace and SpaceX are finding ways to get the job done faster, cheaper and more efficiently.  SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy will launch this year for instance, with the ability to lift 80% of the capacity of the SLS block one at as low as one tenth the price.

Despite the advantage that commercial space has both in terms of cost and innovation, many balk at giving commercial entities the lead role in space exploration and colonization.  The truth is that historically it has been shown that commercial enterprises can be for more effective at colonization and resource development than government entities.

Let us look at the history of exploration and colonization of the earth for some examples.  On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I chartered the East India Company.  In 1670 a similar charter created the Hudson Bay Company.

England was interested in expanding her empire and bringing in wealth through trade.  The standing armies and navies and other expenditures necessary to accomplish expansion made this an expensive endeavor.  Instead of the crown (and therefore the taxpayers) shouldering this cost, members of the aristocracy and wealthy merchants banded together to form these independent companies.  In addition to conducting trade, they had their own armies and navies and even local government.

The East India Company in fact set up everything the British did in India.  Eventually they had to let government entities take over, but that was not until 1847.  The British Raj took over an India that already had all the modern facilities of government in place, courtesy of  the East India Company.

The Hudson Bay Company was responsible for the exploration and settlement of the American Pacific Northwest and Canada.  Fur trapping was a major industry, and that resource drove the company’s trappers all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

These examples prove commercial entities have more incentive to do resource development and colonization than governments do.  It is not such a stretch to view the vast expanses between our home world and the red planet in the same way that seventeenth century Europeans viewed the Atlantic Ocean.  It is vast, dangerous, and if you cross that expanse, you may never return.  Only the incentive of profit can drive people to take such great risks. 

SpaceX and other commercial space endeavors are the modern equivalent of the East India and Hudson’s Bay Companies.  We need to be sure they have the opportunity to do what must be done, as history shows that governments may not be the best drivers for economic migration, resource development and colonization of strange lands.