The year was 1958. It was the middle of the Cold War, and the Soviet Union, which had just successfully launched the first man-made object to orbit the Earth, was making great strides in its space program. The idea of rockets being able to reach anywhere on the planet was a frightening idea for the American people and the government. America had achieved the goal of becoming a world superpower during World War II and aimed to keep that spot in dire times. Then-President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law in July. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded and opened that October. The Space Act itself explains that it will share its technology with other branches of the government which means if and when NASA created rockets capable of orbiting the Earth, the military could also use these rockets and could, for instance, put atomic bombs in the nose cones. NASA was founded with the goal of the protection of the American people from the Soviet Union and because of that, it is fundamentally flawed as a functioning space program. Whether or not America is at war, NASA will always be overseen by the government and therefore will always have the nation’s security at heart, and not exploration. Space exploration should be independent of any government and should not be done with ulterior motives. The exploration of space is an advancement of the human race itself and should be treated as such. The private space industry has flourished in the past few years with the emergence of companies like Elon Musk’s Space X and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and while these companies must operate under laws to protect the people that ride their vehicles, every other aspect of the company would be purely for exploration. Private industry will not only cut out the problem of government funding but also remove the idea of exploration for political gain. Because of this, all manned space exploration should be done by private industry and not a federal government.
The Cold War itself was based on the idea of the nuclear bomb. After World War II, the world had seen the destruction it could cause. Armies were no longer needed for great wars, so instead of warfare the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in an unstable balance of peace, and a little push could send the world into its first nuclear war. The fear of the bomb is what kept the countries at odds and the Space Race was a demonstration of the technological advancements each country had made. With grand ideas of testing nuclear bombs on the Moon so that everyone on Earth could witness the destruction, outer space had become the new theater of war. When national security and the ego of the country was at stake, the amount of money the United States was willing to throw at NASA was vast and enabled all these ideas to flourish for the eventual Moon missions to happen on such short timescales. Between the creation of NASA in 1958 and Armstrong’s first boot print on the Moon in 1969 as only 11 years. But NASA was not without its flaws.
America didn’t launch a manned mission until 1960, when the first Mercury spacecraft carried Alan Shepard past our atmosphere becoming the second human and first American to fly in space. One year later, President Kennedy made his famous speech in which he ordered the nation to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. On January 27, 1967, tragedy struck when three astronauts: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were performing a simulation in the Apollo 1 spacecraft while on the launch pad and a fire started. The door to the capsule opened inward and was held closed by latches that had to be ratcheted open. The entire crew cabin was made of flammable material and the atmosphere in the cabin was composed 100% of oxygen. The pressure was greater in the cockpit than outside and the astronauts were not able to get out. They died of asphyxiation. If a private spaceflight company were to not consider the possibility of a fire in the cockpit and killed three astronauts, the company would go bankrupt. Only a government program could make a mistake like this and persevere. NASA was necessary for getting men to the Moon and sparking space exploration, but can no longer be the sole agency by which this exploration is conducted. The Apollo program continued operation and by 1969, just 8 years after President Kennedy ordered America to land a man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their first historic steps and the Space Race was over. NASA made 6 more missions to the Moon. The Soviet Union ceased all construction of their manned Moon mission and to this day no other country has set foot on the Moon. 1972 saw the end of the Apollo Missions and NASA went on to ponder the creation of habitable space stations in Earth and Lunar orbit for intense study of the environment. The amount of taxpayer money that went into the construction of these grand vehicles was unprecedented and only occurred because of the competition from the Soviet Union. Innovation on that timescale would never happen again for 50 years
As early as 1967, NASA was discussing plans for new spacecraft after the Apollo missions ended. After the success of the Moon program, they began to think about how to keep a permanent human presence in orbit around the Earth and the Moon as well as a planned manned Mars expedition. In 1970 Then-President Nixon made it clear that funding on the order of Apollo was not going to be feasible. After the Cold War ended, the government was no longer going to fund NASA the way it used to. If NASA’s technology was no longer being used to prove a point or win a war, it would no longer get the attention it did before. Any program that followed Apollo would be severely undercut in its ability to accomplish the same number of amazing milestones on the timescales that the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions did. The best way to save costs was to make a fully reusable spacecraft that could shuttle people and equipment to and from low Earth orbit. NASA wanted this Space Shuttle to help make the first International Space Station (ISS) and the Department of Defense wanted it so that spy satellites and other military equipment could be thrust into orbit for minimal costs. NASA would only be able to keep up the momentum from the Apollo program if the White House approved the Space Shuttle idea in 1971 and they knew the White House would only approve if the DOD’s demands were met. The Shuttle was the first space project subjected to formal economic analysis. Keeping a balance between NASA’s relatively small budget and the DOD’s grand idea for a new launch vehicle would prove to be tricky. If the federal government was not connected to the space program, NASA could have made whatever Shuttle would fit their wants and wouldn’t need to be approved by the White House. Nixon said this of the shuttle program: “Men are flying in space now and will continue to fly in space, and we’d best be a part of it.” The shuttle program would be approved in 1972 and the first shuttle, Columbia (which would launch 5 times in a row), would launch in 1981, just 20 years after the first manned space flight.
The Space Shuttle was comprised of three parts. The Orbiter (the plane) carried the crew and payload. The Orbiter had three engines which were fueled by a large External Tank that sat directly on the underbelly of the shuttle. The help the spacecraft off the ground, two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB’s) sat on either side of the External Tank. The launch of a Space Shuttle would include the firing of the SRB’s and three main shuttle engines to lift off the ground, followed by the separation of the SRB’s (which would then land in the ocean and be recovered) from the External Tank when fuel ran out. The Orbiter and External Tank would then carry the craft nearly to orbit until the External Tank ran out of the fuel. The External Tank would be jettisoned and would land in the ocean and the Orbiter would use smaller onboard thrusters to send it into orbit. It would de-orbit using those same thrusters and glide through the atmosphere back to Earth. Because of the temperatures achieved when re-entering the atmosphere, the belly of the shuttle was laced with tiles that should withstand the heat and land safely.
The second Space Shuttle orbiter in the fleet, Challenger, would fly for the first time in 1983. Flight 51-L of the Challenger was supposed to launch in July of 1985, but the launch was postponed to November for changes in the payload and was postponed yet again to January 22, 1986. Because of multiple problems with the Board and unacceptable weather conditions, the launch was rescheduled three times and scrubbed once from the planned date of the 22nd to the 28th of January. It was 36 degrees that morning, 15 degrees colder than any previous Shuttle launch. Seconds after the launch 9 distinctive puffs of black smoke were seen in the recorded video. The Challenger Mission Report says:
The black color and dense composition of the smoke puffs suggest that the grease, joint insulation and rubber O-rings in the joint seal were being burned and eroded by the hot propellant gases. Solid Rocket Boosters were increasing their thrust when the first flickering flame appeared… it grew into a continuous, well-defined plume. Telemetered changes in the hydrogen tank pressurization confirmed the leak.
73 seconds after the launch, the American public watch the Challenger explode. This flight was a special one because the first civilian, a New Hampshire teacher, was onboard. It was televised live in classrooms and living rooms across the nation.
There was nothing that could have been done to save the crew after the engines started. When stacking the SRB’s during construction, joints are sealed by two rubber O-rings. O-ring compression is dictated by the gap it fills and according to the Challenger report:
Should pressure actuation be delayed to the extent that the gap has opened considerably, the possibility exists that the rocket’s combustion gases will blow by the O-ring and damage or destroy the seals. While on the (launch) pad for 38 days, STS 51-L was exposed to seven inches of rain. Analysis and test conducted show that water will freeze under the environmental conditions experienced prior to the 51-L launch and could unseat the secondary O-ring. With ice present (in the tests following the disaster), there were conditions under which the O-ring failed to seal. A combustion gas leak through the right Solid Rocket Motor aft field joint initiated at or shortly after ignition eventually weakened and/or penetrated the External Tank initiating vehicle structural breakup and loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger during STS Mission 51-L.
Though the processes that destroyed the Challenger and her crew were not sabotaged, there were things that NASA could have done. Five engineers with the SRB contractor had been so concerned about the O-rings prior to launch that they recommended NASA not launch the shuttle in temperatures below 53 degrees. One of those engineers claimed that the data was clear but “politics and pressure interfered.” It was brought to light that previous rockets used during the Cold War were going to be maintained and launch secret satellites for the Air Force. This prospect was canceled, and the money was diverted to the Space Shuttle program to be the sole rocket on which payloads from the DOD and other military organizations were launched. It was promised that NASA could launch a Shuttle under any conditions, any time, for the military. Mission 51-L was canceled 6 different times and NASA was under pressure to launch the rocket. NASA ignored the pleas of the engineers who said that the Shuttle could not and had never been tested to launch under the extreme cold of that January morning and launched the Shuttle anyways, compromising the millions of dollars used to make the Shuttle and the lives of the 7 astronauts onboard. Because of these federal pressures that would not exist if NASA was a private organization, the Space Shuttle Challenger and her crew were lost, and NASA’s less than perfect track record was broken in the eyes of many. The Shuttle program was put on hold for two years after the tragedy for modifications to the spacecraft. Though unfortunately, Challenger would not be the last Space Shuttle lost.
STS-107 was a Space Shuttle Columbia science mission and launched from Cape Canaveral on January 16, 2003. About 81 seconds into the launch a large piece of insulating foam broke off from the External Tank and impacted the belly of the Space Shuttle where sensitive heat shielding tiles lay. It struck the left wing of the Orbiter. The event was not detected by the crew or ground support until the next day after the launch video recordings were reviewed. The 16-day mission concluded with no apparent effect from the impact. The Shuttle re-entered the atmosphere after the mission was completed and the breach in the hull from the insulating foam allowed the superheated air to penetrate the hole, widening it. This effectively burned away the wing and compromised the integrity of the spacecraft. This was unknown to the Columbia crew and the ground because contact with the spacecraft is jammed while re-entering the atmosphere. The increasing aerodynamic forces eventually destroyed the wing and the spacecraft broke up over Texas. The crew was lost. Space Shuttle missions regularly insulated foam blocks break off, so the Administration had seen this phenomenon occur in successful missions. NASA stated in the Accident Report that it was not feasible for two of the crew members to perform a spacewalk to look at the damaged portion of the spacecraft, though previous Shuttle Astronauts disagreed. Had this no-risk spacewalk been done and serious damage was detected, it is possible that the astronauts could have jury-rigged a repair or NASA could have launched the Shuttle Atlantis which was already on a launchpad to save the crew and abandon the Shuttle in orbit. It is believed that NASA could have sent these Astronauts on a spacewalk but didn’t because of the prior instances on which foam has struck the Shuttles without considerable damage. It is very possible that NASA disregarded the idea and believed it to not be integral to mission success. The Accident Report says:
While it would be inaccurate to say that NASA managed the Space Shuttle Program at the time of the Columbia accident in the same manner it did prior to Challenger, there are unfortunate similarities between the agency’s performance and safety practices in both periods. The (Challenger) accident ended Air Force and intelligence community reliance on the Shuttle to launch national security payloads. By the eve of the Columbia accident, institutional practices that were in effect at the time of the Challenger accident – such as inadequate concern over deviation from expected performance, a silent safety program, and schedule pressure – had returned to NASA.
The Report shows that NASA was unfit, even after the changes from the Challenger disaster to fly these “operational” spacecraft. NASA didn’t have another accident and decommissioned the Shuttle Program in 2011. Since then NASA has not launched a single man into space. With the absence of the Shuttle, a new rocket is currently in development, but it faces competition from a surprising place: the American people.
Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and owner of Tesla Motors, founded Space Exploration Technologies, otherwise known as SpaceX. He believes that humanity needs to establish a base on Mars and that idea was founded in a new way of looking at a fully reusable spacecraft. His idea was – unlike NASA which had private companies such as Boeing build separate parts of their rockets – SpaceX would build every section and every part of their own rockets so that they fully understood the risk of failure of each part. In 2006, NASA assigned SpaceX to demonstrate delivery and return of cargo to the ISS. In 2010 SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sent its capsule, Dragon, into orbit and successfully re-entered the atmosphere and landed in the ocean. Something no commercial space flight company had ever done. In 2012 SpaceX’s Falcon 9 sent supplies to the ISS, the first time a commercial company has done that, and landed its Dragon capsule days later in a flawless demonstration of the ability of these rockets. In 2016 SpaceX landed their rocket both on solid land and in the ocean, proving full reusability in the system. Though none of SpaceX’s flights have been manned, the company is shooting for the first manned test of the Dragon as early as later this year. Though SpaceX is the leader in commercial space flight, there are other competitors such as Jeff Bezos’ (founder of Amazon.com) Blue Origin which has performed flawless suborbital test flights with full reusability and recovery of all parts. What has resulted is a brand-new Space Race. Not against warring nations or conflicting ideals but for contracts and milestones. SpaceX has been able to develop amazing rockets to do launch at a fraction of the cost that NASA could ever have done on timetables comparable to the development of the Moon missions during the height of the Cold War. This new Space Race is healthy, like any other business SpaceX needs competition to thrive and so do the other companies. Elon Musk plans to get his rockets to Mars by 2022 and people on the surface by 2024 with his Starship fleet of fully reusable rockets. NASA plans for their new Space Launch System (SLS) to send people back to the Moon by 2022, though SLS is not a reusable spacecraft and will have to build new each time it launches.
The commercial space flight business isn’t without its flaws. SpaceX has destroyed a few rockets while in development, and some booster landings have not been successful. These flaws came only with design and not managerial oversight. When SpaceX does finally put its first men into space it will most certainly make sure their rocket is working perfectly. Unlike NASA, loss of life from a commercial space flight company will likely result in the closing of the company, as it is much less likely to get contracts. According to a recent poll by Pew Research Center, most Americans believe it essential that the U.S. continue to be a world leader in space exploration and that NASA must be involved with it, though sending Astronauts back to the Moon or Mars are at the bottom of the list of things they should focus on. 63% believe monitoring key parts of the Earth’s climate system and monitoring asteroid that could hit Earth are the most important things for NASA to focus on. While NASA should always launch rockets, they should do so purely for the benefit of the American people whether that means climate analyzing satellites or spy missions. Exploration of space in the near future should only be done by private companies without federal oversight where the protection of the crew and the space vehicle is of utmost importance. The development of laws for private space travel is behind the innovations made by these companies but SpaceX has so far proven its worth. Once laws are in place, private spaceflight will dominate the colonization of space, leading to the mining of asteroids for minerals, the landing and colonization of other bodies, and the economic boom from these endeavors will change the world forever.