| Panel says to privitize space exploration { June 17 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Panel--Private-Sector-Should-Play-Larger-Role-in-Space-Exploration&story_id=25440&category=innv,scncehttp://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Panel--Private-Sector-Should-Play-Larger-Role-in-Space-Exploration&story_id=25440&category=innv,scnce
Panel: Private Sector Should Play Larger Role in Space Exploration
By Syndication June 17, 2004 11:51AM
A non-partisan commission of space experts recommended that the U.S. turn over responsibility for routine space activities to private organizations, freeing a restructured NASA to focus on advanced projects and exploration.
The private sector should take the "primary role" in U.S. space exploration, paving the way for a restructuring of the country's space agency, an advisory panel said Wednesday. U.S. President George W. Bush put in place the panel to come up with recommendations on how to realize his ambitious plans to send an astronaut to the moon as early as 2015 and explore human missions to Mars.
"In NASA decisions, the preferred choice for operational activities must be completely awarded contracts with private and non-profit organizations, and NASA's role must be limited to only those areas where there is irrefutable demonstration that only government can perform the proposed activity," the report said.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been in the hot seat since the Columbia space shuttle disaster last year. A panel found that a small piece of foam that struck the shuttle's wing upon launch, breaking a hole in the shuttle's protective skin, was partially to blame for the accident, and has since recommended that NASA make a number of changes to the space programme to make it safer.
In January, Bush proposed the launch of a manned mission to the moon as early as 2015 and the establishment of a permanent base there, which in the future would serve as a launching pad to send astronauts to Mars. Other missions to "worlds beyond" are also on the horizon, Bush said in the speech at the U.S. space agency NASA's headquarters in Washington.
The report from the President's Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy comes just days before a team made up of an American mega-investor and an aviation legend intends to make aviation history this month with the first non-governmental manned spaceflight.
Investor and philanthropist Paul Allen, who founded Microsoft Corp . with Bill Gates, provided the money for the project and aircraft designer Bert Rutan made the SpaceShipOne rocket plane for the suborbital flight, which is planned for June 21.
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