Keeping people safe is not what's holding NASA back

Well there's two kinds of risk aversion here. First there's the physical safety risk. The importance of this has, perhaps, been exaggerated. Not so very long ago, it was common to suggest that the first fatality of a private space launch would be the end of "space tourism", as it was then envisaged. Well, it happened and it wasn't. It's slowed down the then-winners Virgin Galactic hugely, but it hasn't stopped them. It didn't stop NASA, it hasn't stopped Russia, it won't stop SpaceX or Blue Origin or any other space company.

Safety is important. But in the end, no-one really cares that much when it's other people - well-informed, highly educated people - knowingly taking risks. There is, quite literally, more outrage about shopping trolleys with "sexist" labels (https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/tesco-accused-having-sexist-shopping-1200917) than there ever was about fatal rocket launches; when people are angry, I suggest, has far more to do with their money being wasted than because of people freely choosing to risk their own lives. Had it been a case of rockets veering off-course and crashing into populated areas, thus risking other people's lives, that would have been different. But, tragic though it is, no-one really thinks that the death of an astronaut threatens the space program. To take an (overly) extreme case, no-one's going to try and stop Mad Mike Hughes from launching himself in a steam rocket, and quite a few will even be glad when he rids the world of his stupidity.

Expense is a much bigger factor. Apollo had a unique combination of factors keeping it going, but it wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if it hadn't been successful. "Why are we risking American lives on these damn expensive rockets ? Ahh yes, because we've beaten the Russians, we've demonstrated American superiority, we've achieved immortality through an outstanding feat of human achievement." All of these were stated on the surface, but some were actually more important than others. The risk to life was never much of a factor; expense was temporarily offset by political necessity and success. Risk would never have ended the program - unless it had been at a far higher level than it ever really was - expense would always ultimately doom it. Expense coupled with risk is going to be fatal to any space program : financially so for the private sector, because no-one's going to pay for a costly rocket with a high chance of exploding, and politically so for the public sector, because no government is going to throw so much money at a program whose returns are so intangible, regardless of its actual benefits, if people keep dying (or satellites keep blowing up) at taxpayer's expense.

Which brings me at last to the article itself :

Now, NASA is in the business of risk aversion. This has become necessary for NASA’s political survival. Many observers have noted that when the government cut Apollo’s funding, NASA found itself in an existential battle: how to justify its continued existence... The shuttle was NASA’s answer to that question. Then came the ISS, something to justify the shuttle itself. In order to keep the gravy coming, NASA was forced to make safe political choices. It couldn’t survive by bringing pie-in-the-sky plans to Congress.

That’s why the Constellation Program, the most recent plan to return America to the Moon, failed. It’s why the new Orion space capsule won’t carry astronauts until 2023, five years from now. It’s why the upcoming Space Launch System (SLS) has no clear mission. It’s why NASA couldn’t do what SpaceX did today.

Essentially, America now has two space programs. Ironically, funding for both largely comes one source: the American taxpayer. To date, SpaceX has received more than $4 billion in US government funding to pay for its ISS resupply flights. NASA has an annual budget of more than $19 billion, including millions we pay Russia to take our astronauts to and from the ISS.

Can we afford to continue this? I am not suggesting that we kill NASA in favor of SpaceX. Rather, perhaps the mission of NASA should be changed to bring back risk-taking. If SpaceX can produce and fly the rockets at a fraction of the cost of a government program, then perhaps they should be in the rocket business, and NASA should be in the space exploration business, not the “politically safe” business.

Indeed. To do that, the relationship between NASA and the government has to be fundamentally changed. It needs to adopt an equivalent of the Haldane Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane_principle), whereby NASA should make the fundamental decisions about what it does with the money, not the government (this might involve breaking it into smaller institutions, some focusing on human exploration and others on probes, in order to ensure that all the existing departments of NASA remain funded in some form, should NASA itself decide to focus heavily on one area). Long-term projects can't succeed if they're subject to the capricious whims of changing politicians. Oh, it needs government oversight, sure (can't let them just have a guaranteed blank check, that would be equally disastrous if not more so) : but not outright government control. A lighter hand is required. NASA very much needs to embrace failure as a perfectly legitimate option, because insisting on hugely expensive, albeit mainly very successful, projects, is not a great way to spur development in rocketry. "Faster, better, cheaper" was basically on the right lines, but that doesn't work unless people start to understand that failure is a better way to learn than success. Cheaper rockets mean more failures, but possibly also more innovation and more long-term results.

To an extent, this perception of risk may be changing thanks to the private space companies. Most of these have seen some very public and spectacular "rapid unscheduled disassemblies" , but they have the clout and determination to keep on going. SpaceX in particular had a very nice period in which the first stage booster would crash spectacularly while the satellite was launched successfully, thus getting the best of both worlds. This has also helped give them a crucial marketing advantage - and whatever you think of SpaceX and Elon Musk, the salesmanship is unarguable. It's not exactly a conventional approach - a fancy lightshow and inspiring speech delivered by someone with massive levels of social awkwardness - but it works. That is, perhaps, partially why no-one really minds very much when a rocket explodes, along with, of course, the lower cost and the overall prevalence of success.

That marketing strategy too is something NASA must adopt. People love NASA - its rocketry development has been essentially a failure for decades, but its scientific output is phenomenal (and their marketing of the mission results is second to none). But their space launches have been dull and plodding affairs for some considerable time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfVi53slbvM); perhaps relying on the intrinsic excitement of a rocket launch to sell itself. Well, if they'd seen Terminator 4, they'd know that doesn't work. That movie features a giant robot that shoots motorbikes out of its feet and it still manages to be a pretty good cure for insomnia. Bringing in a sense of fun isn't dumbing down, and launching the occasional weird payload on a new rocket does far more for public engagement than any losses caused by not risking an expensive actual mission payload.

One may fairly consider whether NASA should be in the rocketry business at all, or simply purchase them from the private sector. That might work, though I'd rather keep both options open. In any case, you're gonna need public sector oversight and regulation of space exploration, as well as its active participation. Firstly because private companies are commercial and no major space company thus far shown any interest in developing astronomical telescopes or satellites to test the effects of general relativity - and it's in the blue-skies research where the real breakthroughs are made. Secondly, following on from that, they're in it for the commercial gains of asteroid mining, colonisation and the like. I'm fine with this, but it would be a colossal mistake to give them a free hand. A lighter government hand of NASA is needed, but that doesn't mean no hand at all for all space endeavours.

[Wanders off, muttering evil European socialist things about the American political system being almost farcical and things about finally starting to understand why there's an anti-government rhetoric in America...]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3428/1