Privatizing The Space Industry Essay

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Privatizing the Space Industry "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!, said Larry Niven” (Engdahl). Progress made over the many years at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has `been impeded because of cuts in funding and the government not seeing any potential with the space program. The current space program needs to be taken from government control to a privately built and funded space industry, so mankind does not turn out like the dinosaurs. With the great reduction n the government money backing the space industry the United States must change to having private companies create jobs, create financing and create a new space industry. “The Commercial Orbital Transport Services program, or COTS, as the the Federal government’s best kept secret,” (Autry). COTS is the first private program that sells private orbital rides to passengers. This is the first step in creating an entire industry to privately held companies controlling the travel to space. In the late 1960’s and 1970’s NASA was still running off of their glory from winning the space race against the Soviet Union by putting a man on the Moon. A manned mission to Mars or a journey to the many Moons of Saturn seemed right around the corner. Project Orion, for example, was a space project that had planned for a nuclear bomb powered rocket to take men and supplies to the far away Saturn Moon of Orion. “It would have been enormously risky,” says Freeman Dyson (Folger), who was one of the astronauts which volunteered to go on the Project Orion rocket. Any person in the capsule would be subject to large amounts of radiation. This highly am... ... middle of paper ... ...th orbit,” (Private Space Companies). Privatizing the space industry would expand the human race into other planets and moons in the solar system. It will allow the United States to be a leader in space explorations. Currently, a market forming is around the larger companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, the real world implications of the companies have began to progress from prototyping their designs to fulfilling their first goals in almost half the time that it took NASA to put a man on the moon. The competition with private companies controlling the space industry will lead to strong and quicker advances in space exploration and travel. Every revolutionary idea passes through three stages of reaction: 1. It’s impossible. 2. It’s possible but not worth doing. 3. I said it was a good idea all along,” once stated by Arthur C. Clarke (Private Space Companies).

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