Several weeks after the release of the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee’s Summary Report, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden appears to be signaling that it may finally not be “business as usual” at the space agency.

Since his nomination in May and confirmation by the Senate in July, Administrator Charles Bolden has been confronted by the inevitable and unenviable reality of having to oversee the agency at precisely the same time that a presidentially appointed committee was busy evaluating the fundamental viability of one of that agency’s primary purposes.

The Obama administration announced formation of the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (also called the Augustine Committee, for its chairman, Norman Augustine) on May 7 and the committee released its Summary Report on September 8. Between these dates, retired Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden — who is also a former astronaut — was nominated and confirmed to be the first African American to head NASA, and the United States observed the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Given the Bush administration’s commitments toward a program to return to the Moon by 2020, and to make preparations for missions to Mars at some point after that date, there was cautious optimism that NASA might be on its way to a return to the “good old days” of the successes of the 1960s and early '70s.

And then the Summary Report appeared ready to scuttle such missions before they could get off the ground: The United States could not afford the $3 billion a year that missions to the Moon and Mars would require, and any future missions should (like the International Space State debacle) involve “international” cooperation. The one bright spot in the Summary Report was the door it left open to increasing the private sector role in space exploration, and now Administrator Bolden appears ready to look, and perhaps step, through that door.

According to SpaceNews.com:

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told an audience of space entrepreneurs and U.S. lawmakers he is skeptical of the private sector’s ability to take over manned operations in low Earth orbit, but is hopeful commercial space companies will succeed.

“I would be telling you a lie if I told you we’re on board, we’re really excited about this,” the former astronaut said during a commercial space seminar held Sept. 23 on Capitol Hill. Bolden was referring to a private-sector push for NASA to outsource manned missions to and from the international space station after the agency retires its aging space shuttle fleet in the next year or so....

“We’re battling, we’re struggling to advise our president on what is the proper course to take,” Bolden said of the Augustine panel’s options. “But I am confident we can come up with the right answer.”

While Bolden expressed reservations about the future of private-sector space, in the same breath he acknowledged a willingness to change the way NASA has done business in the past.

“Old habits die hard. Many of us who have grown up in the traditional space program, you know, we really believe we have all the answers. It has to be our way or no way at all,” he said. “I don’t believe that. I am becoming more and more convinced every day in this job that there are different ways that we can and must do this.”

Bolden went on to describe the merits of NASA’s commercial space initiatives, including the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Under COTS, NASA is paying Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., up to $278 million to conduct three demonstration flights of a reusable Dragon logistics capsule launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket currently slated to make its debut late this year. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia, is developing a competing cargo module and rocket under a separate COTS agreement valued at $170 million.

NASA awarded both companies Commercial Resupply Services contracts in December totaling $3.5 billion to haul a minimum of 40 tons of cargo to the station by the end of 2016. “NASA’s COTS is applying funds to stimulate efforts to develop the ability of private companies to fly cargo, and potentially crew, to the international space station, as well as future low-Earth-orbit destinations,” Bolden said. “It’s our hope that this initiative will grow jobs in engineering, design and research, and it will spur economic growth as capabilities for new markets are created.”

The COTS program is a tentative step in the direction of privatization. But it was not the only bright spot in Bolden’s remarks. Given NASA’s apparent hostility to such notions as space tourism in the past, a surprising statement was Bolden’s endorsement of the concept: “It is my hope, it is my sincere hope, that a space tourism industry really takes off in the years ahead.”

The United States is a long way from encouraging private industry from taking the lead on the new frontier. But when the dust clears from the report of the Augustine Committee, it is possible that NASA may begin to recede a bit into the background, and new companies may begin to take a more substantial role. As long as space exploration remains primarily the plaything of the political agendas of various national governments or, even worse, of internationalist schemes, human space flight is unlikely to move beyond going in circles, in low earth orbit.

Rt. Rev. James Heiser has served as Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas, while maintaining his responsibilities as publisher of Repristination Press, which he established in 1993 to publish academic and popular theological books to serve the Lutheran Church. Heiser has also served since 2005 as the Dean of Missions for The Augustana Ministerium and in 2006 was called to serve as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). An advocate of manned space exploration, Heiser serves on the Steering Committee of the Mars Society. His publications include two books; The Office of the Ministry in N. Hunnius' Epitome Credendorum (1996) and A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (2006), as well as dozens of journal articles and book reviews.
 

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