According to the Space Politics blog, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a candidate for president, had some things to say about current plans by NASA to send astronaut explorers beyond low Earth orbit.
To be it succinctly, Gingrich is opposed to those plans and, as president, would scrap them. Instead he proposes to "privatize" space flight and to institute a series of prize competitions to open up the high frontier of space. As an example, Gingrich made the claim that taking five to 10 percent of NASA's budget for the past 10 years and using it to finance a lunar prize would have placed 20 to 30 people going to or on the moon.
What are space prizes?
Space prize competitions allocates a certain sum of money to be awarded to a group that either demonstrates a desired technology or accomplishes a certain feat related to space travel. The most familiar example of this is the Ansari X Prize that awarded the Scaled Composites company for flying the first piloted space ship in successive sub orbital flights $10 million in 2004. This feat has sparked the development of suborbital space tourism which, while still in development, is scheduled to begin in a number of months.
Are there Other Space Prizes?
The big one currently going on is the Google Lunar X Prize that will award $30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the moon, have it traverse the lunar surface at least 500 meters, and send back video, images, and data to Earth. The deadline for the 26 teams participating is 2015.
Is NASA Currently Doing Prizes?
NASA has a small prize program called Centennial Challenges that awards cash to teams that demonstrate some form of space technology. Thus far competitions to demonstrate lunar regolith excavation, simulated lunar landers, a flexible astronaut glove, and extracting oxygen from lunar soil have been won. Current competitions include power beaming, tethers, a sample return rocket, nano satellites, and a rover capable to operating at night under stored power.
What about Gingrich and Space Prizes?
Gingrich is a long term advocate of space prizes. He is an author of the Mars Prize, which would award a private group $20 billion to send a human to Mars and return him or her safely to the Earth. Gingrich believes that prizes rather than the traditional Apollo project model favored by NASA is a better, more cost effective away to open up space. It is likely that his proposed lunar prize would be financed at several billions of dollars.
What are the Objections to Space Prizes?
Smaller space prizes, especially if privately finances, are not controversial. Prizes on the scale that Gingrich proposes are problematic. Multi-billion dollar prizes, barring the sudden generosity of a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, would have to be financed by the United States government. It is difficult to see how Congress, especially in these difficult times, would appropriate upwards to $20 billion in one fell swoop and then just leave it in an escrow account for a prize winner to collect. Furthermore, competitors in a lunar or Mars prize would have to raise their funds in the private market. Even with a huge prize available (which might be taken away at any time as political whims change) this also may be problematic
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times and The Weekly Standard.
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