I have studied the space program for many years. I used to write a newsletter on private space, back when it was still a bizarre concept.

The truth is, both the Space Station and the Space Shuttle cost far more to develop and deploy than they had to. Systems that would have accomplished the same goals for far less money were proposed to NASA and discarded.

The Space Station program discarded "simple" design solutions for an orbital facility in order to deliberately push high-tech concepts. Stretching the technology became the order of the day. Why?

Here's the hard fact: the purpose of the government funding of the space program is to



a. purchase votes in order to keep the government (including NASA) in power and

b. make the NASA bureaucratic fiefdom as large as possible.



Period.

That's it.

Sorry.

Not to explore space. Not to see what Mars looks like. Not to put man in orbit. Not to boldly go where no man has gone before.

There may be some auxiliary political purposes, like the Moon Race which was designed to beat the Russians, but those are special cases.

In fact, this is the purpose of ALL government spending*, down to the last little cheese subsidy. Get people to vote for you, get people to see you as essential, so you can stay in power. But we're talking NASA.

NASA facilities were located for political purposes. Functions that could easily be handled in a single location were spread around. Space Shuttle construction was spread to as many congressional districts as possible. Difficult technological solutions were deliberately chosen over simple concepts to feed the vast NASA infrastructure of scientists and engineers. Look at the Senators and Congressmen who fight for the space program. Are they space enthusiasts (some actually are), or do they just have a big space facility in their district (most cases.)

Again, solutions could have been found for manned orbital access and manned orbital facilities that were far cheaper than what the U.S. space program finally went with. I saw many of these proposals myself. And of course, look at what the Russians accomplished on the cheap.

It's a long, sordid history, and NASA was not entirely to blame for directions that were taken. As one example, the unnecessarily huge size of the Shuttle was partially dictated by military requirements that later never materialized.

The direction we go from now has to take these political truths into account. My hope is that private alternatives will be found (then the hard fact will be "the purpose of a space program is to make a buck.") Many people are working on private CATS, and we shouldn't count them out yet. Otherwise, we keep working within NASA, and hope for the best.

* "There he goes again, with his Absolutes." Okay. I challenge anyone to find a single exception in Federal spending programs.