NASA has been troubling me lately. Why, I keep thinking, should the taxpayers be assessed many billions of dollars a year for a space program intended only to serve the research aims of a tiny number of scientists? Yes, I know. Millions of Americans derive a sense of uplift from the space program. But couldn’t we give them the same aesthetic pleasure by sending them to see a patriotic movie-”Apollo 13,” for example-once or twice a year?

Now I’ve received an email from a friend, George Savage, who has put my mind at ease. We should keep NASA, George says, but only to do what NASA does well:

First off, my qualifications as a lifelong aerospace fanatic: I’m an instrument-rated pilot, fly a Cirrus SR22 regularly, and I was, briefly, an astronaut candidate (I wouldn’t have made it but it sounds impressive! In any event, my interview was cancelled after Challenger blew up, so I decided to go to business school.) In short, I love this stuff.
NASA, at least as currently configured, is a colossal waste of money. We have a classic example of the organizational structure outliving the mission. A massive, command-and-control program to beat the Soviets to the moon made sense, especially given the direct application to ICBMs and control of earth orbit for military purposes. However, the same organization is now dedicated to what? supporting – poorly – a couple of lonely souls trapped in low earth orbit in seeming perpetuity [in the space station].
A better approach is to privatize much of the program. [The Department of Defense] can purchase launch services from private vendors, just as booster rockets are currently procured for NASA to launch. If DOD needs manned launch capability, I’m sure that private vendors can supply a product here as well (see next paragraph). This will allow a streamlined NASA to focus on the almost hidden part of its current mission – awarding small grants to jump-start promising new aerospace technologies to be commercialized by private industry (e.g., new aviation powerplants, more efficient wings, improved rocket engine technology). I agree with my fellow Cirrus pilot James Fallows that the government has a role in awarding such grants. Fallows’ book Free Flight provides a good example of this under-appreciated – and inexpensive – side of NASA. I think that, in this way, we can spend much much less money on NASA and get a whole lot more R&D output.
By way of example, the most exciting space flight developments of late are coming from Burt Rutan’s scaled composites. Rutan is flight testing the first privately developed manned spacecraft. Rutan’s suborbital craft returns to the 1950’s and 60’s Air Force vision of a relatively simple, flyable space plane – think X-15 – rather than NASA’s ground-controlled capsule – think “spam in a can.”

Cut the budget, privatize many of the functions, and use what’s left of NASA chiefly to prompt enterprise in the private sector. Are you listening, Houston Control?