June Javelosa reports that former President, Barack Obama is a big advocate of science. During his term, he was a vocal supporter of the burgeoning commercial space industry and supported private and government efforts to send humans to Mars? by 2030.
Under Obama, the future of space exploration was bright. So where do all these new policies and initiatives supporting distant space exploration stand under the new administration? Based on a report by Politico, it looks like it is back to the Moon. In the report, the new administration advisers expressed support for sending humans back to the Moon, almost five decades after the U.S. managed to achieve this great feat. The focus, they said, should be the large-scale economic development of the Moon, which means limiting space exploration to the area between our planet and the Moon, called the cislunar region.
The direction the administration follows is a more entrepreneurial approach to space, and they are pretty aggressive about it. There is a strong focus on leveraging space to create new industries and jobs, with the goal of creating a lucrative space economy.
The new team approach is centered on privatizing the whole endeavor, calling it the biggest and most public privatization effort America has ever conducted. Following this, they are targeting private companies to shuttle civilian astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and have NASA do the other things they do best.
While the plans promote commercial space flight (in fact, they are likely to benefit from it), the feasibility of the timeline raises concerns. Two of the biggest private spaceflight companies are barely ready to achieve this goal. Jeff Bezos Blue Origin rockets, scheduled to bring astronauts into space next year, are far from perfect and are already suffering delays. And Elon Musk SpaceX is still reeling from two consecutive rocket explosions...but that is progress nonetheless.
The new U.S. lunar land-rights declaration paves the way ...
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