Robert E. Sagehorn tells "there is no beating gravity and thus no practical space program beyond the information gathering we now have." (The Thought, 12/92, p12) I agree that the extant space program is very inefficient and not worth continuing for both moral and practical reasons, as if the two were separate. However, a lot of space programs are possible beyond the framework of the current government one that would not be as inefficient or as morally repugnant as today's.
As a first step in this direction, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration must be disbanded and all government involvement (e.g., regulations, subsidies) abolished. NASA and the rest of the government are a hindrance to the peaceful, productive and voluntary use of space.
Removing the state's cold, strangling grip from the space industry will make it more innovative, more competitive, and much more efficient. This last will be true mostly because taxpayers won't be forced to fund any space program. Thus there's no bottomless pit of tax dollars to fund any whim of NASA's bureaucrats.
To give an example, the price per pound lifted to orbit have gone up with the Space Shuttle. According to David P. Gump, "The 1985 costs worked out to $6,000 per pound... The throwaway Saturn rockets used in the Apollo moon program were cheaper... [at] about $3,800 [per pound] in current dollars."(1) The Space Shuttle was originally planned to drive costs down. Why has it done the opposite? To those familiar with economics and government programs it won't come as a shock. NASA is not governed by a profit motive and has no desire or incentive even if it had the desire to cut costs. In fact, every incentive in government-run or funded activities is to raise costs so that more money will pour in. This insures that when and if cuts come they will be meager compared to the waste. We see this all around us today as the U.S. economy looks more and more like the Old Regime in pre-Revolutionary France.
If you think the increases have to do with rising fuel costs, think again."The cost to reach space isn't fixed at enormous levels by the fuel required. Propellants amount to only 1 percent of each shuttle's flight cost. The bloated expense of NASA's space shuttle stems from huge payrolls and overly complicated equipment. Huge payrolls and complex equipment are no accident -- they are the inevitable product of a government bureaucracy that must meet political goals rather than economically efficient goals."(2) Since NASA isn't footing the bill, efficiency is not its concern.
Another recent example is the FREEDOM space station which started in 1985 with a price tag of $8 billion and now has "zoomed past" $30 billion.(3) If NASA used the external tanks of the shuttle -- which are now left to burn up on re-entry over the Indian Ocean -- the cost for a space station made up of one of these tanks would run about $300 million, one hundredth the cost of FREEDOM! Not only would it cost less but it would have twice the space.(4) A private company, External Tanks Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, is trying to sell this plan to NASA. I doubt the NASA bureaucracy will grab the chance since it would mean cutting out about 99% of their space station budget.(5) Even if they didn't cut the budget, they could build a hundred space stations using external tanks for roughly the same money as FREEDOM and they could do it now.
As for the pollution factor, if industry and energy production is moved to space (earth orbit and beyond), in the long run, pollution will go down. Less fumes will be pumped into the air from burning coal and oil. Less land will be needed for factories. This merits looking into by anyone seriously interested in long term solutions to pollution.
Private individuals and their voluntary associations can move in to explore and exploit space for communications, manufacturing, colonization, travel, recreation, research and "information gathering." I don't doubt this will happen in the next few decades. The external tank space stations mentioned above can be built right now with off-the-shelf technology very cheaply, for example. Look at aircraft. The first powered flight was about ninety years ago. Today, millions travel by plane. If government gets out of the way, space, offers even more potential.
Notes:
1. See David P. Gump's Space Enterprise: Beyond NASA, p16.
2. p2.
3. p168.
4. p179.
5. p179-81.