With the successful December 2014 launch of NASA’s Lockheed-built Orion spacecraft on a brief 3,600-mile voyage into the skies, the United States has taken the first step in its quest to compete in what has suddenly become a very crowded international space race.
Many countries are working feverishly to gain the lead in the next stage of human space exploration. They hope to mine minerals found on the moon and asteroids, colonize the moon and Mars, develop a viable space tourism industry, and establish a viable military presence in space.
Countries believe that the moon and near-Earth asteroids contain minerals and clean energy resources. A medium-sized asteroid can contain trillions of dollars of gold, platinum, iron, zinc, and aluminum. The nation that cheaply extracts these minerals and transports them to Earth could dominate the global economy.
The moon’s surface contains an abundance of helium-3, an isotope needed for nuclear fusion. Russia’s Energia wants to start "industrial scale delivery" of helium-3 back to Earth by cargo space ships by 2020, a project strongly supported by Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant. Russia's Soyuz, according to Planetary Society Director Bruce Betts, is “one of the most reliable rockets ever” for sending a human being into orbit.
China is also making great strides in manned spaceflight, with several "taikonauts" orbiting the Earth or staying in a small space station.. In 2012 China also successfully landed a moon probe, Jade Rabbit . In late 2014 China launched a l unar module capable of returning to earth, and is quietly moving ahead with plans to colonize the moon.
In late 2014 the European Space Agency landed a small craft on a comet some 300 million miles away. The ESA’s Huygens probe, which was attached to NASA’s Cassini Saturn surveyor, is exploring the solar system’s outer planets. The probe also successfully completed the first landing on Saturn’s moon Titan. In 2013 the India Space Research Organization successfully placed an orbiter around Mars, all for just $74 million. Like its competitors, India hopes to soon land either men or machines on the moon.
The US, which dominated the space world from the 1960s through most of the 20th century, must pursue a much more robust and bold program if it ever hopes to successfully compete against Russia and China in the 21st century. This will require increased funding for the US space program. President Obama’ space policy bill signed into law in October 2010 sidetracked America’s space program, effectively canceling the space shuttle program.
American leaders must recognize the commercial benefits of space exploration and put together a strategic plan to exploit fully space opportunities. The US should continue accelerating the development of the Orion six-person vehicle, which can first serve as a new Shuttle to the International Space Station and later as a crew vehicle for lunar orbit.
The US government must protect the property rights of those entrepreneurial Americans and corporations such as Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, the Hilton Hotel chain and SpaceDev that are entering the space industry to exploit opportunities in fields such as energy development, mining, and even space tourism.
By largely neglecting its once-thriving space mission the US is risking becoming a second-rate nation economically, militarily, and technologically.
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