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10807714 – Jacob Rogers

Dan Roberts
English 2010-77
March 15 2017
The Return to Space
In the past 5 years we have seen an advancement of space exploration technologies

unprecedented since the Apollo missions 50 years ago. It’s a big deal. The biggest reason for this

advancement has been the rise of commercial space companies and the subsequent public

interest that has followed. The problem with space and anything to do with space (companies,

industries, etc.) is it all seems very abstract and expensive. Since the 1960’s Apollo missions

governments have been the leaders and providers in space exploration. But with an initiative by

the United States government in 2004 came the rise of commercial space agencies such as

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. The biggest cited benefit of the privatization of space

travel is it’s cost-effectiveness and rapid innovation. The biggest drawback is that profitability

will be the deciding factor and many long term endeavors will never leave the launchpad. To

many of us who sit at home and hear about a SpaceX rocket landing this is all very distant and

inconsequential. But for those of us who will be working and living in the coming decades we

must seriously look at this industry because it has the potential to make humans an interplanetary

species. It very well might make space a medium just as the ocean is. Here we must decide, are

these next steps to critically define humanity best left in the hands of governments or should the

free market of private companies take the leading role?

When it comes to space exploration there has never really been any market competition.

The government asks for a rocket, the contractor throws together a bid, the government accepts

it, and that rocket is used from then on. The prevailing idea is that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
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This holds true no matter how inefficient because innovation means change and change means

variables and variables means we have a whole lot more places for our very expensive launch

vehicle and payload to blow up. Thus we see space as the exclusive domain of public

organizations. In an article published in Mic, journalist Ian Ferguson defines why commercial

space companies should not be the future of space exploration. He says that the biggest

advantage of government agencies is that “they can afford to be more concerned with results

than with costs” (pp 4). Governments can and do primarily focus on the social utility of a project

rather than the price.

This strength has lead to great engineering feats such as the Saturn V moon rocket, the

International Space Station, and the James Webb space telescope. Governments have also been

the long-term repositories of innovation with extensive records and archives. Ferguson very

effectively argues that private space companies have survived and grown on the shoulders of

agencies such as NASA with extensive investment and open source information. Without

government involvement we would see little if any advancement in space exploration

technologies and humans very likely would be bound to the earth with only a fleeting

understanding of the universe beyond.

Whereas governments have been the stewards of space for the past 50 years the mantle of

responsibility may very well shift to a new entity, the free market. Many parallels can be draw

between space exploration and the early endeavors of Magellan and Columbus. The ocean was a

big empty void that separated what we knew from what we didn’t know. With funding from

governments came devices and giant ships to map the seas. Then came the colonies that built an

infrastructure to connect the two. Then trade arose, and the oceans became a tool rather than a
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barrier. With commercialization came incentive for bigger and better boats with more accurate

maps and more comfortable travel. Space is very much so on the same path.

In the October 2015 edition of the journal Acta Astronautica Reibaldi Giuseppe explains

that for space exploration to flourish it needs the commercial market and for the commercial

market to flourish it needs public support. He beautifully acknowledges that although several

private organizations exist, they must “coordinate their operations… with Space Agencies and

Private Companies, to increase the public awareness, at global level, of the importance of Space

Exploration” (135). Proponents of the free market know that private companies will make space

cheaper and more accessible but the problem is that nobody cares. To that average person space

is a novelty. To companies it is a tool for GPS satellites and internet. For governments it’s a tool

for spy satellites and weapons testing. The biggest benefit that private companies may have on

space is that they will make space cool again.

At 40 miles up traveling at 4000 mph the two boosters of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy

separate from the main stack of the rocket. They flip over and ignite their engines to fly back to

the launch pad. They fall for another 6 minutes when spectators on the ground are hit with the

twin sonic booms of the 16 story pillars igniting their engines and touching down on the launch

pad within seconds of one another. It reads like science. SpaceX among other companies has

made space relevant and interesting again. The fire that once filled our grandparents when

watching men walk on the moon is coming back. The combined efforts of NASA and private

industry has heralded a reopening of space. The hold the planet has had on us for the past 5

decades is loosening. As Giuseppe said, the unity of these two entities will prove the catalyst for

public interest. If space becomes approachable and cool, the public will propel it forward. But

“cool” doesn’t pay the bills, logistically it must make sense.

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The cost of building the international space station was 150 billion dollars. The shuttles

that pieced it together cost roughly $450 million per launch. For comparison the Falcon heavy

with over twice the lifting capacity costs $90 million per launch. This means that the cost of a

new space station would cost around $25 billion. The figures don’t lie, commercial space

agencies are efficient and innovative. With this innovation and price freedom commercial

companies have been able to look further than NASA could for what is possible. Blue Origin’s

goal is to make space tourism and access common. SpaceX’s goal is to colonize mars. These

ideas sound absurd but with billions of dollars of investment and actual hardware being tested

there is little reason to believe it won’t happen. These companies will be one of the biggest

paradigm shifts we will see in our future. They stand to revolutionize our access to space and

redefine the limits humanity has lived within since we first looked up at the stars.

So, if space is accessible and affordable and relevant, what does that mean for the

average person? From the perspective of government, it means the possibility of colonization and

exploration far beyond earth. If the Apollo landings were the Columbus moment, then now is the

Mayflower moment. From the perspective of private industry, it means orbital stations and

mining on other celestial bodies. This rising tide will raise all ships, not just one company or

another. For us it means that we can see a world where space will contain more than satellites.

We will see vacationers and colonists, engineers and geologists all headed off world. Evidence of

such is in NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) proposed in 2013 and planned for the

2020’s. From the official 2014 NASA Emerging Space Report the ARM is a “mission to visit a

large near-Earth asteroid… and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon” (pg 12). This stuff

is already happening. It means industries such as renewable energy and AI will be critical to

advancing humanity. It means that the conveniences of earth will no longer be taken for granted.
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It might just be the swift kick in the pants we need to start moving forward. The Emerging space

report documents extensively how public and private enterprise has joined for this endeavor.

NASA has invested $3.9 billion into 18 companies to advance space exploration technologies

and they have yielded twice that in cost savings for NASA contracts (Emerging 22).

The competition and cooperation between private and public space programs will prove

to be the defining factor in human space exploration for the next 50 years. The partnerships and

precedents we set now will determine what happens in our lifetime. Whether we venture to other

planets and make space as much a part of our world and lives as airplanes and cars are now; or

whether we remain rooted to the earth with fleeting excursions into the unknown. The balance

between these entities cannot be overemphasized Some propose that space be the providence of

governments only, others claim that space will only be accessible with the efficiencies of private

enterprise. Fundamentally though, it will be the interest of the public and how these two

encourage it that will determine what the future of space exploration will be for you and I.
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Works Cited

Ferguson, Ian. “Space Exploration Is Best In Hands of NASA, Not Private Sector.” Mic, Mic
Network Inc., 26 Oct. 2015, mic.com/articles/2267/space-exploration-is-best-in-hands-of-
nasa-not-private-sector#.NI6oMsoMZ.

Reibaldi, Giuseppe, and Max Grimard. “Non-Governmental Organizations Importance and

Future Role in Space Exploration.” Acta Astronautica, vol. 114, 2015, pp. 130–137.,
doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2015.04.023.

United States, Congress, Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space

Transportation. “Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation“ Jan. 2017.
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Audience Assessment

The target audience for my paper is the average young American who has a very cursory
understanding of space exploration and NASA. They have seen in the news and heard from
others about different missions and rocket launches that made headlines briefly. They vaguely
remember the moon landing from history class and the shuttle program from their childhood.
The concept of space is rather ethereal and abstract, and they aren’t quite sure why we have
anything to do with space when we have so many problems here on the ground. They don’t
understand the duality of space exploration with private enterprise and government agencies.
However, this very niche part of the world could stand to rocket what they know as possible far
beyond the borders we’ve lived in for thousands of years.

With a very limited understanding of the background and history of space programs I had
to build my essay from the bottom up with very little taken for granted. I had to paint a basic
picture of the systems for launching rockets and the costs so they had an idea of the figures we’re
working with. This built a perspective. Then I was able to shatter this perspective with the arrival
of commercial space advancements to show how much of an impact they have had. I chose this
tactic because I believe that fundamentally understanding a topic allows for a resolution. The
people that will impact the commercialization of space the most will be the consumers. The
average person. They are the ones that need to understand this new and very important industry.

Using sources that definitively represent the different parties involved I was then able to
start putting the debate into the reader’s hands and let them think about it. This left me free to
explain the implications of the paradigm shift with space exploration and let them decide how
big of a deal it was to them. I really didn’t want to have to tell them why it mattered, I simply
wanted to say what’s going on and let them decide why it mattered. The reason for this is
because that’s exactly why I became so interested in this topic and why so many others like me
have done so as well.