We may be on the edge of an earthquake in NASA and in the space community.

James Bridenstine, NASA’s head, has said that we will send humans into orbit around the moon by 2020. To get us there, there’s a possibility that NASA won’t use its own rocket. Instead, it may buy rocket launches from private companies like United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. And the new White House budget has backed that notion up with its allocations of funding. 

What’s more, it’s been suggested that we send an exploratory probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa, a probe that’s been in the works for roughly six years. But that  we don’t do it using a NASA rocket. Instead, it’s been suggested that we buy a rocket launch from the lowest cost, highest quality private provider. From a company like SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, or possibly from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Eric Berger of Ars Technica estimates that buying a rocket launch from a private company would save us close to a billion dollars–$700,000,000 to be specific. Per launch. And instead of a mission for the distant future, we’d be able to get to Europa whenever our probe—the Europa Clipper–is ready to go.

The Space Development Steering Committee’s chair, author Howard Bloom, has a suggestion. Don’t just circle the moon, something we already did in 1968. Base our entire moon program on private rockets. Land the components for a permanent settlement on the moon. Then land humans. Not in 2030, but in 2021. Use Robert Bigelow’s ready-to-go inflatable moon base. Use Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket. And, when it’s ready, use use Elon Musk’s 100-passenger Starship. The Starship is designed in three versions—one to carry humans, one to carry cargo, and one to carry fuel. Humans, cargo, and fuel are the very things we will need to plant the first permanent outpost on the moon. Then use the billions of dollars you save by relying on private rockets to build the power supply, rovers, robots, and other components you need to establish a comfy, permanent village on the moon.

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Why is James Bridenstine’s suggestion of private rockets instead of NASA rockets the edge of an earthquake? Congress has turned our national space agency, NASA, into an anti-space agency. Orders from Congress have kept Americans from going to space on American rockets since 2011. For eight years, we have hitched rides on Russian Soyuz rockets. And we’ve paid Russia roughly $4 billion for tickets to space. In other words, we have made the Russians the global leaders in launching humans to space. 

Well, not exactly we. Congress has made the Russians the leaders in launching men and women into space.

How in the world has Congress frozen us out of space? Specifically, human space? In 2010 NASA was forced by Congress and the Senate to commit roughly $2 billion a year to a rocket that was supposed to fly in 2016, but that is not actually going to take off until 2021 or later. It’s called the Space Launch System, a rocket conceived by Senator Richard Shelby and a host of lobbyists and collaborators in Congress and the Senate. Its purpose? To provide jobs in Shelby’s home state, Alabama. That Space Launch System, sometimes derisively called the Senate Launch System, has never flown. If it ever does, it will cost between $1 billion and $2 billion per flight. More than any nation can afford for a full-scale space program. Two billion dollars is the cost of 22 launches of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Yes, 22 launches.

Until now all of our moon plans and our plans for Europa have been forced  to use this SLS, the rocket that does not yet exist and that is too expensive to fly. This puts all our moon and Europa missions off into the distant future and makes the moon plan more expensive than any nation on earth can afford. Bridenstine is edging toward breaking that log jam. SpaceX already has a heavy lift rocket flying—the Falcon Heavy. And SpaceX has another even bigger launch system up its sleeve—the BFR and the 100-passenger space ship that the BFR will launch, the Starship. The Starship prototype is due to begin taking off and landing within a month. On the other hand, NASA’s Space Launch System is scheduled for some time between 2021 and never.

What has nudged Bridenstine toward this earth-shuddering path? The president needs a show of his powers before the 2020 election. He wants Americans to land on the moon. He has put vice president Mike Pence in charge of achieving this. It appears that Pence and Bridenstine are slowly but surely realizing that a hugely expensive Frankenrocket, the Space Launch System, is gumming up the works. And they may be realizing that there are rockets ready to launch manned human projects now, today.  

The Space Development Steering Committee’s Bloom says, “We hope that Pence and Bridenstine realize something else. It is not enough to orbit the moon and look helplessly at its surface a hundred miles below you. We need to do something that’s never been done before. We need to set up housekeeping on the moon. We need to plant a real estate development.” Concludes Bloom, “If it helps to get the budget shifts this would take, perhaps we could call the first moon village  Trumptown”.