What if you were given your country's space program?

[jrphilps]

I am a canadian, and if I were put into a position of great influence, I would arrange for a collaborative effort amongst the G20 nations to build a sky ramp near the equator. This is one of the most efficient ways to get the worlds ailing space program off its knees. I would also encourage and fund the construction of more space shuttles (although without all the design gimmicks NASA built into them), which go along with sky ramps like bread and butter.

[jrphilps]

We have a military industrial complex.. We also have a space industrial complex.. Both exist to keep aerospace and defense contractors in business.. Nothing more, nothing less.. Any "exploration" is a by-product of that.. The entire world's space programs are a joke..

Very true. My father and I, who love talking about physics, are both in disbelief at the current state of the space industry. 43 years after we put man on the moon, and we can barely get our sorry butts out of low earth orbit!

If we had our ***** together, we'd be developing fusion power and other technologies much more quickly instead of hemorrhaging funds to maintain semi-useful things in low Earth orbit.. Cut funding for all space ventures for 5 years.. Use those resources for the next 5 years to develop a stable fusion power source.. If we can't do that in 5 years, we may as well be grounded here on Earth for the remainder of our existence..

Agreed. We should be willing to devote at least some money to exploring fringe topics like cold fusion, which have made a comeback in recent years. Evacuated tube transport is also very promising, and we should be willing to set up an experimental rail line between two major citys, just to see how practical it is.

[Streetwind]

Let's see... I would get the DLR. For the uninitiated, that is Germany's space agency stand-in.

Summing up info found on wikipedia, the DLR is a scientific organisation that has been tasked with also fulfilling the role of national space agency by the German government. For this purpose it has a yearly budget of around 1.2-1.5 billion Euro, two thirds of which is Germany's contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA). Another 20% it gets to spend on space program related things. The rest goes towards managing several non-space research projects for the government on the side, mostly centered around traffic, transport, energy and security.

Historically, its achievements include a small series of manned missions, such as two SpaceLab missions on US shuttles (which were fully paid for, staffed and conducted by the DLR, not NASA) and four missions to former Russian space station MIR. More recently, the DLR is responsible for maintaining ESA's Columbus laboratory, a highly advanced science module on the ISS, via its ground control station situated in Germany. The DLR's current strength lies in highly sophisticated sensor and detector technology, particularly for orbiters and probes. A good amount of research is being done on monitoring environmental health and pollution of our good mother Earth. The DLR maintains around 7,400 employees, including ten active astronauts.

So what would I do with a space agency that is actually a research institute with a fancy hat and a somewhat "paltry" yearly space budget of maybe 300 million Euro to work with? Not an easy question to answer. It would of course be easier if I could also control what ESA does with the lion's share of the German budget, but technically that's a different space agency.

Due to the considerable expertise in orbital sensor tech, it would make sense to push for unmanned exploration probes to outer solar system bodies. Budget constraints would make this impossible to mount on my own though, so I would need the cooperation of the ESA and/or other spacefaring countries.

However the DLR as a research institute could also focus on enabling or assisting the development of key technologies. Vastly reducing the cost to orbit is a goal I think should be a major focus. The launch vehicles we have today are sufficient in terms of lifting prowess; there's little need to build more of the same just because you want to be able to say you have them (see: SLS). They are, however, way too expensive. And if you went and reduced the cost while maintaining current capabilities, you'd open up space access to a large number of private and public contractors which previously simply couldn't afford it. And the established players would gain the benefits as well - just imagine what your local space agency could do on the same budget if launching something was cheaper. Through that alone, you would increase the volume of launches to the point where existing spaceports would be brought to capacity, and mass production of rocket parts actually becomes economically feasible. Both of these factors further reduce launch costs as synergistic effects.

I think it might also potentially be a smart move to enter a partnership with Planetary Resources. The premise looks farfetched at first, but once you actually look into it, the technology they require to pull it off actually already exists today - which to say the least shocked me when I realized it. I would at the very least order a careful evaluation of such a move. Being able to generate any sort of actual income from a space program is a completely unique proposition, which could vastly expand available funding. And then there's having first dibs on rare resources and the outlook of setting up an orbital fuel depot that could assist space exploration in a previously unprecedented manner. A very ambitious project, sure, but also a potential key turning point if it works out.

And something I would really like to do... I'd fund a prize pot similar to the X-Prize, with the goal being to develop a manned space station capable of creating artificial gravity (assuming through rotation, but allowing any means that science can deliver). The ISS is currently giving us a great deal of data on life in a zero-g environment, but there are other factors to consider when it comes to life in space. For example, the separation of effects from zero-g and other potential problem sources, such as radiation and artificial environments. The most logical thing to do then is to have a space station capable of artificial gravity, and use it as a "control group" to contrast the results against the available data from zero-g envrionments. Further research could be going into low-gravity environments, such as those found on moon and mars. A spinning station could easily adapt its rotation to simulate the gravity on just about any planet in the solar system.

The pot would probably be split, with an initial "first step" goal of designing and concept proofing the station. The winner(s) could then use the funds won to pay for actually launching the station, with the goal of winning the second part of the pot for being the first to actually put it into orbit. Obviously, a space station designed for at least medium term operation (even a small one) is not cheap, and not in any way comparable to the suborbital flight motivated by the X-Prize. The pot would have to be significantly bigger. However, it could be incrementally funded over several years, as it would take competitors quite a while to actually produce results.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Streetwind

[thunderstar]

im bolivian, and my country just launched its first satellite, well actually china launched it but nevertheless it made people very interested in space exploration, you could see people in universities applying for the newly created space agency, a lot of people also started to study physics or physics related stuff, i know we're lightyears to actually launch or first satellite, and even beyond of that before a manned launch but we still have hope.

if my country's space program we're in my hands, i would inmmediatly put my engineers to desing rockets, for manned and unmanned missions, capsules and even landers, and ultimately build them, sadly doesn't seem very possible because aerospace companies in Bolivia are practically nonexistent

[Kinglet]

I'm german. Derp.

[Exoscientist]

After Antares test launch, Orbital aims for space station.

BY STEPHEN CLARK

SPACEFLIGHT NOW

Posted: April 26, 2013

Sunday's flight was the culmination of a six-year, $300 million effort to design, build and test the Antares booster, which can loft medium-class satellites into orbit and is contracted by NASA to launch nine more times on cargo deliveries to the space station.

http://spaceflightnow.com/antares/demo/130426cygnus/

A medium class launcher by the usual fully government-financed approach would cost in the multi-billions of dollars range. For instance the Ariane 6 is expected to cost in the range of $5 billion. And that's just the initial estimate. Quite likely just as with NASA fully government-financed projects, there will be significant cost overruns here as well.

That both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences were each able to develop their launchers at a 90% cost savings by following the commercial space approach is important. It means any industrialized nation could afford to develop their own independent orbital launch system via commercial space. There would not need to be this constant wrangling within the ESA among France and Germany and Italy about which approach to take. They could each decide to take their own approach.

Which space agency will be next to make the great leap to commercial space?

Bob Clark