SpaceX vs NASA
Who will dominate the new space race?
This is America Uncovered.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Just a heads up!
This episode is sponsored by MOVA globes!
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Space, the final frontier.
There’s a bunch of reasons why people want
to explore outer space.
Besides the green alien women.
What?
No!
The other green alien women.
Yeah, I know she’s a reptile.
But Captain Kirk is a progressive 23rd century
man.
Anyway, humankind wants a future in space.
But it’s also really expensive to get there.
That’s why only three countries on Earth
have
managed to launch humans into space:
Russia, the United States, and much more recently,
China.
Because of the cost involved,
all of these space programs are government-run.
In the US, that program is NASA.
It was founded in 1958.
It’s put a man on the moon.
Launched the Voyager probe into the
furthest regions of our solar system.
And employed 50,000 armed soldiers to
guard the ice wall surrounding the Earth disc.
But now there’s a new challenger
in the space arena—SpaceX.
It’s the first private company taking a
serious crack at getting humans into space.
According to the SpaceX website,
“The company was founded in 2002 to
revolutionize space technology,
with the ultimate goal of enabling people
to live on other planets.”
It was founded by everyone’s favorite
eccentric billionaire, Elon Musk.
SpaceX has launched more than 100 satellites.
Plus a car.
And they plan to send tourists around the
moon in 2018.
Which...I think they missed the deadline on
that one.
But at least Elon Musk is optimistic
about the first Mars ship this year.
To be clear, he hopes to test the Mars ship
this year,
not send it to Mars yet.
He needs another three years for that.
Supposedly.
But even if he misses the deadline,
it’s still extraordinary.
It used to be inconceivable that a private
company
could even enter the space race.
The costs were astronomically high.
But advances in technology,
as well as cutbacks in NASA funding,
have created a new space race:
one between government backed programs like
NASA,
and private companies.
"We want a new space race."
Exactly!
A new space race.
NASCAR on the moon.
At least that’s the space race I want.
But the US government hasn’t made
space exploration a priority in a long time.
In fact, NASA’s budget has been
mostly falling since the 1960s.
In 2004, after the Space Shuttle Columbia
disaster,
President Bush announced that the
space shuttle program,
which had been taking up most of NASA’s
budget,
would end in 2010.
Instead, Bush announced the development of
a
new space vehicle and rockets that could
take people back to the Moon by 2020,
and then to Mars.
This was known as the Constellation program.
But when President Obama took office,
he ordered an independent review of NASA.
It became known as the Augustine Commission.
This is their report.
Their findings were that the Bush era
Constellation program was underfunded and
faced
technical challenges that would cause delays
of at least several years.
That, combined with the Great Recession,
led the Obama administration to scrap that
program entirely.
NASA’s plan to use the moon
as a stepping stone to Mars?
Gone.
It also meant
“effectively canceling a five-year, $9 billion
effort.”
All this meant that after the space shuttle
was retired in 2011,
NASA really wasn’t sending anybody to space.
I mean, sending people to
infinity and beyond is pretty expensive.
I’m not sure it’s worth it.
And in one of those weird twists of fate
that happen from time to time,
without the space shuttle,
NASA began on relying on Russia to get
astronauts into low earth orbit.
“[NASA] has no way of getting its
American astronauts to and from the
[International Space Station]—
or anywhere else in space, for that matter.
So it pays $70.7 million for each
one-way ticket on Russian rockets.
The US government is no longer leading the
space race.
That’s part of the reason why,
according to this Pentagon report from this
year,
the US faces some pretty serious
security risks from Russia and China in space.
Long story short, because the economy has
improved since then, and because those
security risks have become so clear,
the Trump administration has tried to revitalize
NASA,
by boosting its budget,
which will hopefully make NASA
a little less reliant on Russia.
But in the years that NASA was in decline,
Elon Musk’s SpaceX took off.
Literally.
In 2008, SpaceX launched the Falcon 1,
the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket
to reach orbit
From there they made a series of firsts.
In 2009 they made the first
privately developed liquid-fueled rocket
to put a commercial satellite in orbit.
In 2010 they were the first
private company to recover a spacecraft.
In 2012, they were the first
private company to send a spacecraft
to the International Space Station.
Of course, SpaceX didn’t develop in a complete
vacuum.
They had some support from...NASA.
Back in 2006 under President Bush,
NASA began a program to encourage private
companies
to deliver cargo and crew to the International
Space Station.
But this effort really took off during the
Obama administration,
under NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program
Office,
also known as C3PO.
Oh NASA, I see what you did there, you lovable
nerds.
But the point is that, unlike Star Wars,
SpaceX has benefited a lot from C3PO.
They’ve gotten some government funding,
but more importantly,
a lot of government contracts.
SpaceX has gotten so good at what they do,
NASA has hired the company to be a
Commercial Resupply Service, or CRS.
NASA has also signed contracts with
both SpaceX and Boeing to bring US astronauts
to the International Space Station.
Those are due to start in the summer of 2019,
after NASA’s contract with Russia runs out.
In fact, SpaceX just completed its first
unmanned mission to the space station in March.
Of course, SpaceX is still behind NASA in
some ways.
They haven’t put a man on the moon.
They haven’t even tried to fake it.
So far, it’s only been NASA’s Apollo missions
that have put people on the moon.
But the last time that happened was in 1972.
And it will be a trip back to the Moon,
and eventually Mars, that is the key
to the future of human space travel.
So what are NASA’s moon plans now?
NASA is currently planning a
manned flyby of the Moon scheduled for 2023.
Astronauts on board
“will travel farther into the solar system
than humanity has ever traveled before.”
SpaceX is planning something similar.
But with a certain kind of flair a
government backed project couldn’t have.
The mission is called #dearmoon.
And instead of just astronauts,
it will also be taking a team of artists.
In 2023, SpaceX will launch the world's first
private lunar mission with its spacecraft
BFR.
A painter, photographer, musician, film director,
fashion designer.
What will they feel when they see the moon?
When they see Earth in full view?
And what will they create?
Their works will certainly become a legacy
for humankind.
An awe inspiring, global, universal art project
is about to begin.
Wow, it’s both global and universal.
What will this team of artists create,
after they see what the Earth really looks
like from space?
Anyway, SpaceX hopes their artistic projects
will drive up interest and even donations.
These are the kind of feels you’re not getting
from NASA.
Because let’s face it,
the minds at NASA may be brilliant,
but art isn’t rocket science, if you know
what I mean.
So how about Mars, the holy grail of space
travel?
It’s honestly not looking too good for NASA.
While NASA has led the way with a bunch of
unmanned rovers and probes,
currently NASA just doesn’t have the money
to put humans on Mars.
In 2017, NASA’s head of human spaceflight
said,
“I can’t put a date on humans on Mars,
and the reason really is...
at the budget levels we described...
we don’t have the surface systems available
for Mars.”
And NASA has been slammed by
the House Committee on Science, Space and
Technology
for being too vague about its Mars mission
plans
and its failure to deliver a
“detailed plan that clearly defines specific
milestones
and goals necessary for the agency to safely
send a crew to the red planet and bring them
back before 2040.”
Meanwhile, SpaceX has plans for manned Mars
missions by 2024.
Now obviously, as I’ve said,
SpaceX has sometimes over promised, under
delivered.
But while NASA has yet to form a concrete
plan,
SpaceX’s has a much more detailed plan,
including these schematics for a future Mars
base.
Or the latest version of SimCity.
But being a private company actually gives
SpaceX an advantage.
“[SpaceX] will have a ton of data to
figure out how a crewed spacecraft could
best land on the surface.
This is a series of trials too
expensive and risky for NASA to justify—
but not for a private company.”
Meanwhile, SpaceX is looking to eventually
bring these advances in technology to Earth.
Imagine going anywhere in the world in under
an hour,
on a craft that travels 17,000 miles an hour.
That would be amazing.
Except for the jetlag.
Or I guess spaceship lag.
So what do you think?
Is the future of space travel in the hands
of private companies like SpaceX?
Let me know what you think in the comments
below.
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Once again I’m Chris Chappell.
Thanks for watching America Uncovered.
