The grand era of exclusively federally-funded space exploration is over. Nasa must now boldly go into public-private partnership
On Tuesday 17 April, Space Shuttle Discovery took to the air one last time, piggy-backing aboard a modified jumbo jet. She touched down at Washington Dulles Airport, on the final leg of her last mission, which, when complete, will see her installed as a museum exhibit at the Air and Space Museum in Virginia.
This is the epilogue to the space shuttle story: a 30-year programme of human space exploration that drew to a close last summer as Atlantis and the crew of STS 135 taxied to a halt on the tarmac at Kennedy Space Center.
With an eye on the future, Nasa has set a new course – one that has seen it abandon the shuttle now that construction of the International Space Station is complete. Its new focus is on the goal of sustainability in human space exploration. Much of Nasa's current strategy is now about developing the role of the private sector in human space flight operations – in the hope that access to low Earth orbit can be managed more cheaply and efficiently by commercial providers. In theory, that would free up Nasa to advance with exploration beyond the Earth's orbit and make advances in technology.
In this strategy, there is no clearly defined destination: the Moon, Mars or even a near-Earth asteroid are all listed as potential objectives. This, on the face of it, lacks the clarity of vision associated with specific goals – such as, say, a return to the Moon or a mission to Mars. And the criticism that there is no mission to drive technological development or direct operational activities is fair, to a degree.
Nasa works best when it is goal-orientated and going somewhere specific. Institutionally, it has an engineering culture mobilised by tightly defined requirements derived from those mission goals.
And yet, Nasa's strategy of embracing the private providers is no less bold than shooting for the Moon or Mars. In a sense, its sights are set on a destination: the future – one in which human space exploration can continue in an economically sustainable fashion.
At the end of this month, Space X – a commercial outfit founded and run by dotcom billionaire Elon Musk – hopes to launch an unmanned Dragon Capsule aboard one of its Falcon 9 launchers, and rendezvous that with the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule is capable of supporting a human crew of up to seven astronauts; if the tests are successful, Space X look set to play a sizeable role in the future of human space flight.
Some have suggested that the end of the shuttle programme, and the absence of a vehicle presently to succeed it, signal the beginning of the end for the United States's pre-eminence in space. There is no real evidence that this is the case. Despite the current squeeze, Nasa's budget is still greater than that of the rest of the world's space-faring nations combined.
Managing the shift from federally-run programmes to public-private partnerships may seem prosaic for an agency so used to striking out for the stars. But it will be among the most difficult and risk-laden tasks that Nasa has ever tried to accomplish. But if low Earth orbit can be secured in this way and if payload costs can be significantly reduced by engaging the likes of Space X, then we may see Nasa emerge from this challenging period of transition renewed, with both the confidence and capability to set its sights on a destination – to boldly go, once more.