More important, the Columbia Disaster has caused a complete
rethinking of what the purpose of America’s
civil space program should be. If people fly in space, some will eventually die
as did the crews of Challenger and Columbia.
So, should they not die for grander goals than just going around in circles in
low Earth orbit?
With that question in mind, President George W. Bush
announced a total reorientation of the American civil space program in January,
2004. The space shuttle would complete the construction of the International
Space Station and then would be retired in 2010. NASA would be charged with
sending the first explorers beyond low Earth orbit for the first time in
decades, back to the Moon, then on to Mars and beyond.
To accomplish this mission, NASA will build a new vehicle,
the Crewed Exploration Vehicle. Various versions of it would service the
International Space Station during the rest of its functional life, take
astronauts back to the Moon, and then to Mars and beyond.
The shape of future space travel remains, of course,
uncertain. But it seems likely that the private sector, starting with taking
paying tourists into space, will finally fulfill the lost promise that the
space shuttle failed to fulfill decades ago, by lowering the cost of space
travel and increasing its safety and reliability. It is worth noting that Burt
Rutan spent twenty million dollars doing pretty much what the X-15 project
spent a billion and a half in current dollars doing.
How this nascent space launch industry will mesh with NASA
exploration plans is uncertain. NASA seems more open to entrepreneurial space
companies than it has ever been in its lifetime. Will these new private space
vehicles be used to service and resupply the International Space Station as
well as future NASA moon and interplanetary ships? Only the future will tell.