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AT: Counterplan Links to Spending
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- AT: Counterplan Links to Spending
- AT: Permutation
AT: Counterplan Links to Spending[____] [____] Privatizing parts of space exploration would allow the government to cut spending to NASA. Buzzle Online, 6/8/2010,“Will Nasa Space Flights Be Privatized?”, http://www.buzzle.com/articles/will-nasa-space-flights-be-privatized.html Given that the contract was awarded in 2006 – during the Bush administration – it’s interesting that SpaceX is now being used as an example of how President Obama’s proposal of scaling back NASA could work. By privatizing aspects of space flight and exploration, the U.S. government could conceivably cut spending that is currently devoted to NASA and its sub-agencies. Of course, the far more likely outcome is that the U.S. government will fall into the same spending traps that always seem to occur when it begins outsourcing its most important functions to private sector corporate behemoths. Spending will likely spiral out of control while lobbyists and lawmakers become career puppets for the companies that are ultimately controlling decisions at the highest levels of government. From a technological standpoint, however, it’s difficult to argue with the advantages that the private sector could offer in terms of improving space flight. SpaceX recently completed a successful launch of a 154-foot, 735,000 pound rocket from Cape Canaveral, which ended with a payload capsule reaching its target orbit approximately 150 miles above the earth. This test flight was the culmination of nearly four years of testing and development and was highly successful by all accounts. [____] privatization is the only sustainable solution from a cost standpoint. Kevin Fong, co-director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine, University College London, 4/16/2010, “To boldly go to a commercial space age,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/16/nasa-apollo-private-industry-commercial Armstrong's message is that if you have a vision you've got to stick with it, believe in it and resource it properly. True; but it's the resource that is the forcing issue here. In embracing the commercial sector Nasa looks to solve the problem of sustainability, hoping that private contractors can drive down the cost of access to space. If it works this will be a game changer, leaving private industry to do the donkey work of hauling people and payload into low Earth orbit while NASA gets on with the business of developing new, advanced exploration technologies. If the US wishes to continue its human space exploration endeavours in this century it must find a new, more sustainable strategy and commercial providers hold the key to this. The question is not "if" but "when" they should start to rely upon private industry to do some of the things that their national space agency used to. Getting the timing wrong would decimate NASA army of aerospace engineers, leave their astronauts without a ride and irreversibly damage their space exploration capabilities. The direction in which Obama is taking NASA is new, bold and necessary in the long run. The plans lack nothing in the way of vision but risk a great deal in their potential pre-maturity. It is this that Armstrong fears and with good reason. But if Obama can negotiate this risk, and find a rational way to smooth the transition from old to new, then what we will witness is not the end of an era but the birth of a new space age. AT: Counterplan Links to Spending[____] [____] The airline industry proves that incentives to encourage private development of space technology will reduce the cost to the government substantially. Norman Augustine, Chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee (Augustine Commission), October 2009, “Seeking A Human Spaceflight Program Worthy Of A Great Nation”, October 2009, p. 20 In addition, there is now a burgeoning commercial space industry. Given the appropriate incentives, this industry might help overcome a long-standing problem. The cost of admission to a variety of space activities strongly depends on the cost of reaching low-Earth orbit. These costs become even greater when, as is the circumstance today, large sums are paid to develop new launch systems but those systems are used only infrequently. It seems improbable that order-of magnitude reductions in launch costs will be realized until launch rates increase substantially. But this is a “chicken and egg” problem. The early airlines faced a similar barrier, which was finally resolved when the federal government awarded a series of guaranteed contracts for carrying the mail. A corresponding action may be required if space is ever to become broadly accessible. If we craft a space architecture to provide opportunities to industry, creating an assured initial market, there is the potential—not without risk—that the eventual costs to the government could be reduced substantially. Significantly, we are more experienced than we were in 1961, and we are able to build on that experience as we design an exploration program. If, after designing cleverly, building alliances with partners, and engaging commercial providers, the nation cannot afford to fund the effort to pursue the goals it would like to embrace, it should accept the disappointment of setting lesser goals. Whatever space program is ultimately selected, it must be matched with the resources needed for its execution. Here lies NASA’s greatest peril of the past, present, and—absent decisive action—future. These challenging initiatives must be adequately funded, including reserves to account for the unforeseen and unforeseeable. (See Figure 1-3.) AT: Permutation[____] [____] [____] Including government programs trades off with the private investment the counterplan is supposed to promote. Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for CNET, 10/3/2007, “Do we need NASA?” CNET News, http://news.cnet.com/Do-we-need-NASA/2009-11397_3-6211308.html The difference? Critics say it's the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Aviation's youth and adolescence were marked by entrepreneurs and frenetic commercial activity: Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic prize money was put up by a New York hotel owner, and revenue from the airlines funded the development of the famous DC-3. The federal government aided aviation by paying private pilots to deliver air mail. Space, by contrast, until recently has remained the domain of NASA. Burt Rutan, the aerospace engineer famous for building a suborbital rocket plane that won the Ansari X Prize, believes NASA is crowding out private efforts. "Taxpayer-funded NASA should only fund research and not development," Rutan said during a recent panel discussion at the California Institute of Technology. "When you spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build a manned spacecraft, you're...dumbing down a generation of new, young engineers (by saying), 'No, you can't take new approaches, you have to use this old technology.'" 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