Partnering with the commerical space industry to get back to the moon

Reason Foundation recently published the study, “Why commercial space should lead the U.S. return to the moon,” which details how and why NASA should adapt the public-private partnership approach that it has used successfully for cargo and crew delivery to and from the International Space Station to its current efforts to get back to the moon.

In this post, we address a few basic questions, along with more detailed ones, about the report and efforts to return to the moon.

What are this study’s most important recommendations?

The study, “Why commercial space should lead the U.S. return to the moon,” has three main recommendations:

• NASA’s entire SLS/Orion program, including the new Mobile Launch Platform, the Exploration Upper Stage, and the lunar Gateway, should be terminated due to being hopelessly over budget and lacking prospects for scalability in activity level, and at significant risk of failing to land humans on the moon before China does.
• NASA should replace its sole-source, cost-plus Space Launch System contracts with competitive procurement of commercial launch services under fixed-price public-private partnerships similar to those it is already using for transporting people and cargo to and from the International Space Station and for other moon-related components such as lunar landers, lunar rovers, and space suits. Annual cost savings of at least $5 billion per year should be sufficient for this alternative way forward.
• To carry out this revised approach to NASA’s moon project, the nation’s policy must be more accepting of the risks and possible failure of individual missions, and even to the potential loss of astronauts, as was accepted in the Apollo program and prior missions. NASA’s current risk aversion has slowed progress in space and significantly increased costs.

What would be the best-case outcome if the Reason Foundation study’s recommendations were followed?

If all of the policy recommendations were implemented, post-2030, the United States could have multiple crewed lunar bases, in multiple locations, mining the moon for water and other potentially useful materials for expanding our space capability. We might also see a market for lunar tourism and other private activities, potentially reducing the need for taxpayer dollars to drive not just lunar activity, but also future space exploration.

Why shouldn’t NASA do these projects internally?

NASA never could fully do such projects “internally.” Apollo itself was contracted out via cost-plus contracts to companies like North American/Rockwell, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Grumman, General Dynamics, and many others. NASA, as a government agency, has no industrial capacity, and in a market economy, we should have no desire for it to, given the dreary record of government-run industries. The issue is not whether NASA should issue contracts to the private sector, but the nature of those contracts, and incentives for success or failure.

Aren’t NASA, the US military and American national security interests already too reliant on SpaceX and Elon Musk?

To the degree that this is the case, it’s not clear that it is. This is because SpaceX’s competition has failed to match SpaceX’s boldness and remains less competitive in many areas. SpaceX has single-handedly reduced the cost of getting mass into space by orders of magnitude, with a strong likelihood of such further reductions in the near term, saving American taxpayers billions of dollars for both NASA and Department of Defense programs while enabling new capabilities for both the government and a burgeoning private space sector. 

The Reason Foundation study identifies other commercial launch vehicles that could play key roles in the revised moon program, including Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan, in addition to SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy (and the still-in-testing Starship/Superheavy).

Doesn’t this proposal simply help SpaceX and other big companies and crowd out other startups?

The recommendations in the study would help existing launch providers, including SpaceX, because developing new launch systems would take time that we do not have in the competition with China to get back to the moon. There are also opportunities for innovation in on-orbit vehicles and landers, as well as in areas such as space suits and robotics, which are currently the domain of smaller companies and startups. Beyond that, reducing the cost of getting to the moon will provide opportunities for companies currently building Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space stations to expand their business to bases on the lunar surface, and create entirely new businesses from established players and startups. 

How are taxpayers’ dollars and interests protected with this study’s proposals? How are NASA and taxpayers going to hold private contractors accountable or get their money back if the companies fail to deliver?

Private contractors have already failed to deliver in the sense that the SLS/Orion program is vastly over budget, and years behind schedule, but there haven’t been many calls for clawing back taxpayer funds NASA has sent to Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and others. If there are multiple competitive fixed-price contracts, as we propose in the study, rather than sole-source, no-bid, cost-plus contracts, as with SLS/Orion, taxpayers are likely to get far more value for the money than they currently get with space contractors.

Why should taxpayers care if China takes the lead in these efforts? Why should taxpayers be the ones to pay for these lunar landings and moon developments? 

If taxpayers don’t care who opens the next frontier to humanity, or what values the humans who do that take out into the solar system, and if they are also indifferent to the national-security implications of who dominates cislunar space in coming decades (with national defense implications), then there is no reason for caring. But others see key public interests in those things. The Chinese think long-term, and they have been very aggressive about claiming new territory in the South China Sea. There is reason to believe that if they are the first back to the moon in over half a century, they will abrogate or withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty and claim the moon as their own sovereign territory. This would restrict the ability of the West to utilize vital lunar resources.

Why not let private companies pursue this on their own with their own money?

No one is stopping private companies from spending money. There will likely be opportunities for profitable businesses on the moon in the future. These might include tourism, providing propellant to people going back to Earth, or even construction materials for things that provide value to extraterrestrial markets and perhaps terrestrial ones, as well. But for now, there is almost certainly no return on investment for beating China there by 2030, other than revenue from contracts from a government that wants to see that happen, for the geopolitical reasons discussed above.

The Senate recently provided funding for five more SLS launches. Doesn’t this make much of your study’s plan to shift those efforts to the private sector impossible?

Most of the money for launches recently included in the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ won’t be spent until the out years. Additionally, as demonstrated in other recent cases, Congress can provide something in one bill and take it away in another. The shift away from the status quo and efforts to get back to the moon won’t happen until there is quality leadership and a plan from the executive branch.

How can small rockets like Falcon Heavy get astronauts to the moon?

Falcon Heavy is not a “small” rocket. It has almost as much payload capability (~140,000 pounds when fully expended) as NASA’s Block I SLS. It can launch large components needed for the moon mission into Earth orbit for assembly into the vehicle that takes astronauts to the moon

What’s wrong with NASA using proven technology from prior space programs like Apollo and Shuttle? Isn’t commercial space launch far more risky than proven NASA technology?

The technology from those programs is proven mainly in the sense that it has proven to be very expensive and provides an extremely low flight rate. In terms of reliability, a vehicle that flies as seldom as SLS does is not going to be very reliable, compared to a rocket that has flown hundreds of times, multiple times per month, without failure, as the Falcon family has.

Won’t terminating SLS/Orion delay reaching the moon before China?

Terminating SLS/Orion would not delay efforts if the U.S. uses the resources currently being expended on SLS to instead fund a faster, more cost-effective and frequent way of doing the moon mission. And alternatives like that exist, as the Reason study explains in some detail.

What’s wrong with cost-plus contracts? Space flight is risky.

Cost-plus contracts can be appropriate in situations where there is a significant amount of technology risk, with immature technologies and uncertainty as to how to accomplish the job. But cost-plus contracts also have built-in incentives for the contractors to increase costs because the profit is a function of the contract payments, and larger costs mean bigger profits. Cost-plus contracts are utterly inappropriate for NASA’s efforts to get to the moon or a program that is vaunted as using “proven technology,” which should be very low risk.

What is NASA’s track record with commercial space programs? Are there other NASA programs based on competitive, fixed-price contracts?

With the exception of Artemis I, NASA has used commercial launch providers for the delivery to space of every NASA payload since the Space Shuttle retired, with very few, if any, failures. In so doing, it has saved taxpayers billions of dollars, compared to what the cost would have been had the Shuttle program continued. The Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew programs that deliver cargo and astronauts to and from the International Space Station have been spectacular successes. They have also provided significant cost savings compared to using either the Space Shuttle or Russia’s efforts for those services. Boeing’s Starliner, on its fixed-price contract, has yet to become operational, but the delay and added costs for its mission failures have been absorbed by Boeing, not American taxpayers.

Isn’t assembly and fueling in orbit untried and risky?

We’ve been assembling things in space for over a quarter of a century, with the International Space Station. The kind of space assembly we’re talking about for lunar missions is basically just rendezvous and docking, which we’ve done many dozens of times. The Russians demonstrated propellant transfer in the 1980s. With the planned flight rate of SpaceX’s Starship, which, in addition to being NASA’s lunar lander, SpaceX will use to deliver the new upgraded Starlink satellites, there will be many opportunities in the next year to demonstrate and perfect on-orbit refueling with liquid oxygen and liquid methane. There are no technical showstoppers with the concept.

The post Partnering with the commerical space industry to get back to the moon appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Source: https://reason.org/commentary/partnering-with-the-commerical-space-industry-to-get-back-to-the-moon/