Laughing Wolf thinks that there may be a method to Dubya's madness in not mentioning private enterprise in tonight's speech (beyond the fact that he gave the speech at NASA HQ). Here's hoping he's right, but even if it isn't the president's intent, it may be the effect, which is just as good if it works out.

Perhaps Laughing Wolf is on to something. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but one thing I did not hear in the speech is a directive to NASA to build and fly new launch vehicles. The apparent intent is to fly the CEV on existing Delta and/or Atlas vehicles. But no one is explicitly ruling out using other vehicles to launch the requisite preliminary robotic missions. I suspect George Bush would much rather procure those vehicles from a nice American firm than fork out dollars to buy Mr. Chirac's Ariane. O'Keefe apparently said something along those lines in his new conference this afternoon. (Of course, those firms might turn out to be Boeing and Lockheed, but, there you go.)

And, as has been pointed out elswhere, the cancellation of some number of scientific missions might present an opportunity for the private sector to provide launch services and vehicles, if the cancelled missions can find alternative funding.

I'm not certain I agree 100%, though, that the multipurpose nature of the CEV will take it down the same sad road as the Shuttle. I'm guessing we are looking at a segmented vehicle, with parts of the stack staying on the ground when they're not needed for the mission. I.e., the piece that lands on the Moon won't fly on missions to ferry crew and cargo to LEO. And if you bring crews from the Moon back to LEO, there's no reason to fly the reentry piece of the stack on the LEO-Moon trips.

Sure will be nice to see some actual plans, though.

Actually, there are quite a few hints that private enterprise will be involved. For instance, from the summary at whitehouse.gov:

D. International and Commercial Participation

Pursue opportunities for international participation to support U.S. space exploration goals; and

Pursue commercial opportunities for providing transportation and other services supporting the International Space Station and exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/space/renewed_spirit.html

From this, it sounds to me like the basic plan is: A) Get NASA out of the space truck and space station maintenance business; B) Use the money spent on that to shift NASA to deep space and moon exploration; C) Encourage private industry to develop technology to service the space station and do other commercially exploitable tasks, including involvement in deep space exploration.

Isn't that pretty much what you're hoping for, Rand?

I recommend that document, btw. It also makes it clear that this is not really a 'moon - mars' mission. It's just being emphasized that way to give it a 'hook'. The real transformation is all about having NASA focus on deep space exploration. According to this document, all of the exploratory missions including telescopes and other robotic missions will be the new focus. Sending people to the moon is just one concrete goal people can get their heads around. But it's really more about the vision of NASA, and not the specific destination of the Moon.

Here's a budget chart for NASA until FY20 that makes this pretty clear: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54873main_budget_chart_14jan04.pdf

Note that the Crew Exploration vehicle is only a small part of this. A better description of this plan would be, "Move shuttle funds into exploration, including robots, telescopes, and manned missions."

Actually, there are quite a few hints that private enterprise will be involved. For instance, from the summary at whitehouse.gov:

D. International and Commercial Participation

Pursue opportunities for international participation to support U.S. space exploration goals; and

Pursue commercial opportunities for providing transportation and other services supporting the International Space Station and exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/space/renewed_spirit.html

From this, it sounds to me like the basic plan is: A) Get NASA out of the space truck and space station maintenance business; B) Use the money spent on that to shift NASA to deep space and moon exploration; C) Encourage private industry to develop technology to service the space station and do other commercially exploitable tasks, including involvement in deep space exploration.

Isn't that pretty much what you're hoping for, Rand?

I recommend that document, btw. It also makes it clear that this is not really a 'moon - mars' mission. It's just being emphasized that way to give it a 'hook'. The real transformation is all about having NASA focus on deep space exploration. According to this document, all of the exploratory missions including telescopes and other robotic missions will be the new focus. Sending people to the moon is just one concrete goal people can get their heads around. But it's really more about the vision of NASA, and not the specific destination of the Moon.

Here's a budget chart for NASA until FY20 that makes this pretty clear: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54873main_budget_chart_14jan04.pdf

Note that the Crew Exploration vehicle is only a small part of this. A better description of this plan would be, "Move shuttle funds into exploration, including robots, telescopes, and manned missions."

Wolf has a good point about commercial efforts possibly beating big NASA efforts to the punch. The flaw is that at that future time Bush or someone with his same philosophy needs to be President at that time to shall we say "encourage" NASA to utilize the NIH solution. If Hillary is President 2008-12, well...

Just above the paragraph cited by Dan, we find this:

# Separate to the maximum practical extent crew from cargo transportation to the International Space Station and for launching exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit

That may seem obvious given the planned retirement of the shuttle, but this statement recognizies one of the fundamental issues with the shuttle. That recognition won't be highlighted to the media ("Oh, the Shuttle? Bad design, that."), but it is good to see it here.

Then, there's this:

* Acquire cargo transportation as soon as practical and affordable to support missions to and from the International Space Station; and
* Acquire crew transportation to and from the International Space Station, as required, after the Space Shuttle is retired from service.

"Acquire" is vague, but it allows for the possibility of buying launches from private vendors. It also allows for traditional acquisition methods, or for buying launches from the Russians.