Obama Mulls Outsourcing NASA's Next-Gen Shuttle

(Jan. 21) -- President Barack Obama will soon have to make the ultimate outsourcing decision: Should NASA farm out the job of carrying astronauts to space?

Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, U.S. astronauts have blasted off on government rockets. Now Obama is mulling whether NASA crews should instead hitch a ride into orbit aboard space taxis designed and operated by private companies.

One leading contender is a spaceship being developed by an entrepreneur who made his fortune off PayPal, the online payment system.

Relying on for-profit vehicles "would be a real paradigm change, not just for NASA, but for the American public," says Marcia Smith, founder of SpacePolicyOnline.com and a former Library of Congress space analyst. "It would be more like United Airlines. ... It's not like you're waving the American flag and saying, 'This is something America can do!'"

NASA is already hard at work building its own new rocket and space capsule, which are supposed to replace the antiquated space shuttles. The space agency has sunk billions of dollars into the new spacecraft since 2004, only to see them fall at least three years behind schedule.

NASA badly needs a new bus to space, because the shuttles will retire this year or next. After that, astronauts will have to tag along on Russian spaceships until a new U.S. vehicle is available.

The idea of depending on commercial space taxis -- none of which has flown yet -- has caused a rift in the space community. On one side is the expert panel that the White House convened to help decide NASA's future. The panel thinks private spaceships might cost less and be ready more quickly than a government craft.

"The whole point ... is to free (NASA) to do new things," says panel member Jeff Greason, who said he was speaking only for himself. "I want NASA to go out and explore."

But others have blasted the idea, which also faces opposition in Congress.

The companies claiming they'll be able to take humans to space "have three rockets that have explored nothing but the bottom of the ocean," says one congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Are you really going to put America's heroes on such unsafe rockets?"

Dumping the rocket NASA is designing in favor of "one based on nothing more than unsubstantiated claims would seem a poor choice," NASA's independent safety advisers said in a report issued last week.

The advisers noted that NASA has only just begun the process of writing safety rules for privately developed spacecraft, so it's too soon to say whether any of them could be entrusted with astronauts' lives.

"We are awaiting direction from the White House and are continuing with the program of record until we are directed otherwise," said NASA spokeswoman Ashley Edwards.

Space experts expect Obama's decision to be revealed in his proposal for the 2011 federal budget, due out within the next few weeks.

One former astronaut says the logo painted on the side of the spaceship is not the key issue.

"More important are the safety checks and balances," says Scott Parazynski, who left NASA in 2009. The private spaceship is "something we're going to have to learn to live with. ... Commercial is ultimately the way to go for low-Earth orbit access."

The company that's furthest along in developing an astronaut taxi says its ship was designed to meet any safety requirements that NASA might set.

"We think we can be safe and we want to be safe," says Ken Bowersox, a former NASA astronaut who heads the astronaut safety office at SpaceX. The company was founded by multimillionaire PayPal founder Elon Musk.

SpaceX plans to launch its new spaceship and rocket into orbit for the first time as early as March. At least four other companies are also interested in developing a spaceship.

Contracting out manned space flight may save money. But it could also damage the nation's prestige, says Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at the Naval War College.

"We're doing it because we haven't had the political will to properly fund this program," Johnson-Freese says. "We have no choice."