Avi Blizovsky
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US President George W. Bush plans to give private industry a greater role in space and encourage new commercial markets, including manned space flights.
In a policy statement published on Thursday, the White House said that a sharp reduction in the commercial launch market has weakened the American space industry. Major changes are needed in the role of government to ensure American access to space and protect security and economic interests.
"The U.S. government must protect the entrepreneurial spirit of the American private sector that offers opportunities to open a new commercial market, including public space flights," he said. The new policy was announced just months after the first private flight took off to the brink of space while the space shuttle program has been stalled since the Columbia disaster. In 2003, in the new policy, Bush ordered the Secretaries of Commerce and Transportation to "encourage, facilitate and promote commercial space flights, including flights staffed."
The policy calls on the government to use US-made launchers and other commercial services wherever possible, and will limit the use of surplus military rockets in space launches. This will allow private companies to compete for supplies for government missions. The document also states that NASA, the agency that brought America to the moon in -1969, will limit its role in the development of space transportation systems to areas where the private market or the security system do not provide the the solution
The policy was approved by President Bush last month and published on the website of the White House Committee on Science and Technology. The document repeats again the goals set by President Bush in his speech a year ago - but they have not been addressed since - to return to the moon by 2020 and launch a manned mission to Mars.
nuclear power
The Pentagon and NASA will share responsibility for ensuring continued US access to space. The Department of Defense will be responsible for all space missions related to the defense of the United States, despite the problems it has had in implementing the expensive ballistic missile defense program. NASA will be responsible for civilian space transportation, but the policy limits its role in development to areas where the security sector or the private sector cannot provide. In particular, the policy states that NASA will work on developing nuclear power for space flights. The document also states that surplus military missiles will be destroyed, or kept for use by military agencies only when their use will be cheaper than private launchers and they will meet additional requirements. Other countries will also be encouraged to limit The use of surplus ballistic missiles, which the policy says will help prevent an arms race, but the White House will consider individually Requests from American companies to use surplus missiles of foreign countries (Russia usually launches commercial satellites with military missiles that undergo conversion for this purpose. A.B.).
Bush's proposal for a manned mission to Mars has been derided by Democrats in Congress and raised concerns by fiscally conservative conservatives that the space program will add to the already growing deficit. And therefore President Bush rarely mentioned the space program in his second election campaign.
In October, the manned spaceship SpaceShip1 took off to the edge of space, twice in about a week, thus setting a new height record for a private flight and picking up a prize worth 10 million dollars designed to encourage commercial flights into space (X-PRIZE). Inspired by the success of the private launch, entrepreneurs such as Virgin founder Richard Branson began to announce a plan to make space flight as routine as a cruise to the Caribbean.
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The knowledge of man and space
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