Only ridden into orbit once, by a little old space scientist from (JPL) Pasadena
NASA is considering privatising the shuttle fleet.
I know a lot of folks who are very gung-ho on space science and exploration who think this would be a Really Good Thing, because they think that (call this the D.D. Harriman Scenario, if you will) private enterprise is a much more efficient way of getting us out into space — that the federalization of space exploration during the Cold War was as much a prestige thing as a security thing. Jerry Pournelle talks this way.
Nonetheless, I worry. Because space travel is expensive. Even if it could be cheaper, it’s still expensive. And it’s not clear that anybody out there, save the feds, are ready to make the sort of massive capital investments, with very long-term (if ever) RoI, that space travel is likely to entail. Not that the feds are doing particularly well at it, but I’m not sure that General Motors or United Airlines is likely to, either. Micro$oft, maybe, but that’s a scenario too horrible to contemplate.
Still, I did like one turn of phrase someone (might have been Pournelle) mentioned. “NASA’s job should not be to put a man on Mars. It should be to assist the National Geographic Society in putting a man on Mars.”
Something to ponder.
(Also via Trance Gemini)