Opinion

NASA pact is a hopeful sign for space flight With two firms, U.S has double the chance for timely launch

NASA will choose the next generation of space vehicles, either from Boeing or SpaceX, ﻿to carry U.S. astronauts to low Earth orbit and back, thus ending the 14-year reliance on Russian crew transport. NASA will choose the next generation of space vehicles, either from Boeing or SpaceX, ﻿to carry U.S. astronauts to low Earth orbit and back, thus ending the 14-year reliance on Russian crew transport. less NASA will choose the next generation of space vehicles, either from Boeing or SpaceX, ﻿to carry U.S. astronauts to low Earth orbit and back, thus ending the 14-year reliance on Russian crew transport. NASA ... more Photo: HANDOUT, Handout Photo: HANDOUT, Handout Image 1 of / 6 Caption Close NASA pact is a hopeful sign for space flight 1 / 6 Back to Gallery

If all goes well, three years and $7 billion from now American and other astronauts will start visiting the International Space Station in a Boeing CST-100 or SpaceX Dragon spaceship. Their selection last week to complete NASA's Commercial Crew program was good for NASA, the ISS and commercial exploitation of space; challenging for Johnson Space Center, and bad for Russia and the Space Launch System (SLS).

Most important, NASA chose two, not one, firms. Space flight remains a very risky enterprise. Developing two different space capsules follows good engineering practice: If a problem grounds SpaceX, Boeing can still launch astronauts. If the United States had relied solely on the space shuttle, as NASA had wanted, when the Challenger exploded in 1986, we would have faced a two-year delay in launching military, civilian and commercial satellites. Fortunately, the Air Force had insisted on maintaining the Delta and Atlas rockets as alternatives.

Almost as significant, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, strongly endorsed NASA's decision. This Republican support should ensure smooth political sailing and hopefully full funding. Reduced budgets have delayed the program from its original 2015 goal.

To meet the 2017 goal requires the Obama administration to ask and Congress to approve full funding for the Commercial Crew program. Full funding may not guarantee meeting that goal, but partial funding will ensure delays and continued dependence on Russia to send astronauts to the space station. And if the Russian space agency is asked again, the price will definitely be more than the current $70 million per astronaut.

From Project Mercury through the space shuttle, JSC's responsibility for human missions began once the rocket cleared the launch tower at Kennedy Space Center. Since 2011, Russia has launched all American astronauts, the result of a 2004 decision by the Bush administration to halt space shuttle flights due to their high risk.

JSC faces two major challenges. The first is expanding its mandate from operating the space station to also ensuring the safety of American firms - not NASA - conveying astronauts into orbit. If Boeing and SpaceX succeed in extending their markets beyond the space station, JSC will have to evolve too, becoming more of a Federal Aviation Administration, a very different role than any it ever had.

Second, JSC will be working with two very different firms. Boeing is a traditional aerospace corporation, an icon of the military-industrial complex with a history stretching back to 1916. SpaceX emerged out of the Silicon Valley and the dotcom boom, created by Elon Musk and initially fueled with his profits from Paypal. Watching how these different cultures work and learn from each other will be interesting - at a distance.

NASA's selection of SpaceX may harm the SLS, a rocket being developed to carry a payload of 70 tons initially and 130 tons ultimately into low earth orbit. SpaceX is also developing its Falcon Heavy rocket to launch 53 tons (compared with 14 tons for its current Falcon), only 40 percent less than the initial SLS. The SLS program consumes $3 billion annually (one-sixth of NASA's budget) with an initial launch in 2018 and a second launch in 2021. Expect someone in Congress to ask NASA if launching two or three SpaceX Heavy rockets would be cheaper and more efficient than launching one SLS.

NASA and commercial space advocates have heralded launching astronauts to the space station on private instead of NASA spacecraft as a large step forward in expanding the commercial exploitation of space. This may well be, especially if the Dragon and CST-100 provide Bigelow Aerospace with a financially viable way to send people to its proposed space station. Yet, it is important to remember that this burst of commercial excitement is based on the federal government paying private firms to develop spaceships to supply a federal facility, the space station.

Lost in the excitement for Boeing and SpaceX was the loser of this competition, Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser. Will Sierra Nevada continue the development of its spaceplane, despite the loss of NASA funding for development and the loss of NASA as its major customer? Deciding to continue would be a strong indication that the space enthusiasts are right, that a real, commercially viable space market may be on the near horizon. And that would be the biggest news of all.

Coopersmith is an associate professor in the Department of History at Texas A&M University.