Policy Spotlight: Space Exploration

When you ask voters of all parties and ideologies for a list of the policy areas most important to them, chances are that “space exploration” won’t make the cut. National security, the economy, jobs—all common answers. But even climate change, which regularly gets scorn for how few people in the general population rate it as a top concern, at least gets listed in surveys. To my knowledge, space policy isn’t so lucky; respondents naming that option will likely have their answer lumped into the category of “other”.

But people should care. Space exploration, and the various complications involved, may not be immediate concerns like the unemployment rate or GDP growth, but they are issues looming on the horizon. Meteors of the kind that wiped out the dinosaurs are an ever-present danger, and could easily wipe out humanity. The Yellowstone supervolcano, too, could erupt at any time, and the explosion, though it might not wipe out all human life on the planet, would put a major damper on things, especially here in North America. Statistically, every year humanity spends concentrated on a single planet, the risk of some kind of species-ending event increases exponentially.

So space exploration is far more than simply a luxury for scientists and those who want to build their vacation home on Mars. Our survival may someday depend on it. And while I wouldn’t prioritize funding for space elevators over modernizing the aging Navy fleet, I would consider both to be in the national interest and of high priority (generally speaking).

Which brings us to the appropriate level of government involvement in space exploration. The natural conservative response to space policy should be obvious: Little if any direct government involvement or subsidies, with innovations and explorations led by private enterprises, and the success or failure of those attempts determined by the free market. And that strategy is, overall, a good one. But there is a role for the federal government to play, especially at this early stage.

The current status of the space program exhibits the importance of both the privatization of some key functions of space travel, as well as some government involvement, at least in a limited capacity. SpaceX is the most famous company currently involved in the private space exploration business, and its successes and failures offer opportunities for both innovation and the rise of alternative companies, should SpaceX continue to struggle with explosions and malfunctions of its rockets on the launchpad.

But those same difficulties also prove that, for now, the government has an active role to play—NASA, since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program and the cancellation of its successor program Constellation, has had to rely entirely on Russia to transport astronauts, as well as for most missions to resupply the space station. This, obviously, is both risky and embarrassing for the nation that was the first to land a man on the moon.

Space exploration and development is such a gigantic undertaking that government missions, as well as grants to private companies, are almost essential to begin the process if we are ever to establish any sort of colony on the Moon or Mars, let alone leave the Solar System. Such projects are far beyond what even the largest space-related companies could achieve by themselves.

The level of government support could, indeed should, be gradually scaled back as technologies and the ability of private entities to venture into space improve (as well as profitability—the simple fact is that such research & development would only cost many companies money, and therefore most have little incentive to proceed). And by refocusing NASA’s mission on space exploration and study specifically, and away from liberal objects of interest such as climate change, such an investment need not be as dramatic and costly as it sounds.

Space exploration is in both the national strategic interest (location of resources) and in the interest of humanity as a whole. But the current U.S. space policy has stagnated and degraded to the point where we can no longer even send an astronaut into Earth orbit without help from the Russians. Something has to change, and fast.