NASA at 50

Yesterday marked the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Despite the half century that NASA has spent on space exploration, the entire field seems oddly stunted. Though startling advancements have been made in the unmanned exploration of the solar system, the actual manned missions only ever got as far as the moon, and the last mission there was thirty years ago. NASA's progress, though explosive in the sixties, has largely stalled in recent years. Namely, the Space Shuttle and International Space Station have proved to be hideously expensive and altogether lackluster in their ability to inspire the public or private investors. As NASA reaches this milestone in it's history, a moment should be taken to consider if this is the right path to be followed if humans are to colonize our solar system.

Seventy years before the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, the Ming Dynasty drafted and released a fleet that could have easily circled the Earth created the first truly global trade network. This was three hundred ships, and 28,000 sailors charting the oceans under the Chinese banner. The reach of this fleet was unprecedented, traveling as far as Greenland and Antarctica. The ships, however, were recalled before they could reach Europe, and the entire operation was scrapped, just before it was to come to fruition. Why? A group of bureaucrats in the emperor's court felt that the entire effort was a waste of money, and that the fleet's continuation would bankrupt the empire. As a result, the fleet stalled, and the single greatest exploration of the Old World was allowed to die. NASA and the Ming Fleet have a similarity that should be taken note of today. They are both government sponsored programs, massive projects with enormous budgets that, unfortunately, are a ripe target for the accountants of any empire. They employ massive risk by the sheer scale of their operation, but also promise amazing profit for those seeking it.

Fast forward seventy years to 1492, where a Genovese explorer/pirate by the name of Christopher Columbus asked the Spanish king and queen for three ships and the money to travel across the Atlantic. A small voyage, and a comparatively small risk. The results of which, however, were dramatic. This small investment by a spanish king and queen launched the discovery of the new world by the West, and fomented the rise of Europe as the dominant power in the world. Three ships were all that was needed to send a group of men to discover a new world.

The charting of Space, like the Atlantic, cannot be done by a program that relies on government administration. The cause is simply too remote, and too expensive to escape the slashing of a bureaucrat's red pen. Like the Ming Dynasty's fleet, NASA is simply trying to do too much with too little, and as a result it is unable to produce truly inspiring results. The U.S. government, if it wishes to stay solvent in the exploration for space, should not concentrate on massive space stations costing in the tens of billions of dollars. What it should do is facilitate companies like Virgin Galactic, and other exploration companies to create their own vehicles and launch them into space. They can lend the ships, but like Ferdinand and Isabella, this shouldn't be their undertaking, rather, it should be someone with more profit motive and a greater vision.