July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong has just become the first man to step on the moon, and NASA has made history yet again. August, 1975. Viking I has landed on Mars. It has become the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars. These are just some snapshots from the long history of the National Aeronau tics and Space Administration (NASA), among the most well known names in the field of space. Their list of achievements, combined with the allure of exploring the unknown, has made NASA a household name. Even today, NASA continues its long history of innovation, most notably with the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter currently on Mars. Meanwhile, howev er, the space industry has become more and more crowded. As names such as SpaceX have risen to prominence, many ask, do we still need NASA? The answer is yes, for reasons stretching from small technicalities to the foundation of the United States’ space program.
To begin understanding what space innovation looks like today in the United States, we must first consider the rise of commercial space companies. On May 30, 2020, the commercial space industry made what was arguably its most public debut. SpaceX, the poster child of the private space sector, launched two astronauts into space, marking the first time that humans reached space through a non-governmental organization. But did SpaceX really do it on their own? Not quite, which brings us to our first reason for maintaining NASA: budgets. While SpaceX (and other space companies in the U.S.) are all respect able, multi-billion-dollar enterprises, they pale in comparison to NASA’s budget and resources. NASA spends tens of billions of dollars on hundreds of projects every year, while SpaceX only spends a few million.
This has not been a secret—NASA covered nearly half the development costs of the Falcon 9 rocket, and helped pull the company out of bankruptcy with a multi-billion dollar contract to carry cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). Even today, much of SpaceX’s budget comes from the U.S. govern ment in return for the company launching NASA spacecrafts and flying payloads. This means that while private space companies do have ways of making money, they are still financially reliable on larger organizations such as NASA.
Our second reason for maintaining NASA is that while pri vate companies are for-profit corporations, NASA is a govern ment-funded agency. This means that although companies such as SpaceX must try to return a profit, NASA can make discov eries simply for the sake of scientific research. These goals may seem similar at the surface level, especially since the two have worked closely together on similar projects, but they are not. There is no for-profit aspect of sending a spacecraft out of the solar system carrying some records of human civilization (Voy ager I and II). Nor is there a profit motive for putting a lander on Pluto or for photographing Saturn. These are all projects that only a non-profit organization such as NASA can execute. For instance, while half of NASA’s budget deals with human spaceflight, almost a third of it goes to scientific research, such as planetary science, Earth science, astrophysics, and heliophys ics. These branches of science are essential to today’s world but often neglected by for-profit companies.
Lastly, investment in space requires long-term, reliable development. SpaceX answers only to Elon Musk and its board of directors and has its own goals that don’t necessarily match the public’s interests. Meanwhile, as a government agency, NASA is subject to oversight and can pursue scientific discoveries for the sake of the public rather than furthering its own inter ests. Consider NASA’s GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) project. GRACE helps inform us on how Earth’s gravity changes over time. And while this may not sound useful, GRACE is critical for use in our national infrastructure system. In addition, it measures sea level rise and supports agriculture by assessing groundwater levels.
To conclude, although the commercial space age may have ar rived, it is still necessary to maintain NASA. Not only does NASA support private companies such as SpaceX, it also conducts re search that fundamentally impacts and supports our infrastruc ture and agriculture systems. NASA is also free to develop proj ects that would not necessarily turn a profit. However, this is not to say that private companies should have no place in America’s space industry. In fact, NASA still relies on SpaceX to transport payload to the International Space Station, and without SpaceX, NASA would still be buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get to space. Therefore, the future of space should include both private and government organizations co-existing and serving their requisite roles to further human understanding of the vast unknown beyond our planet.