White House seeks to privatize space travel :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: 44: Barack Obama: "WASHINGTON -- Getting to space is about to be outsourced.
The Obama administration today will propose in its new budget spending billions of dollars to encourage private companies to build, launch and operate spacecraft for NASA and others. Uncle Sam would buy its astronauts a ride into space just like hopping in a taxi."
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I think the plan here is for the US government to abandon any commitment to space exploration and turn NASA's gaze around to look at the earth. Or somebody's navel.
1 comment:
Like it or not, NASA has been significantly privatized for years. Since the Mercury program, their primary responsibility has been approving the plans and writing the checks. OK, they recruited the astronauts and ran the PR machine too. But the majority of spacecraft and payloads have always been engineered, designed, built, maintained, and launched by the private sector.
Cutting out the virtual monopoly and the limitations on private development may actually speed up the exploration of space and the number of launches.
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