| That statement about the funding received by SpaceX via Starlink is a revelation to me. I hadn't thought that particular thing through. According to a very cursory search, SpaceX's revenue in 2018 was around $2B. NASA's budget in 2018 was around $20B. A tenfold increase in money flowing through a company would bring its own challenges, but assuming SpaceX navigates those OK then they'll be able to fund massive projects. I wonder what the space exploration landscape would look like if all that happens? Would NASA focus on probes and research, launched from SpaceX vehicles? Thus leaving the launch business to SpaceX, who could concentrate on throwing as many humans out of the gravity well as possible? Would $20B/year allow SpaceX to build bases on the Moon and Mars? I wonder if SpaceX would get into the asteroid mining business, mostly to prevent having to heavy lift quite so much stuff from the bottom of Earth's gravity well. Exciting times! Hopefully this all happens in the next 40 years or so, I'm 45 now and would love to see humanity step out of the cradle for good. |
One they can become the "FCC/FAA of space". The last A is "Administration" of course. This should not be considered depressing, as the scientists and engineers currently on the front line of NASA discoveries are already often associated with other institutions and could easily follow the trend.
Two, they can become the science arm or funding agency for space-related science. This is very close to their actual role. You don't see a ton of commercial submersible traffic, for example, and Earth should definitely be considered fully commercialized and infastructure-supported, and yet NASA still funds, designs, and operates missions for Earth science. So, there's no reason to think that NASA will somehow fade into the background for good. As I've often said, if someone "solves" launch and "solves" telcom over interplanetary distances and "solves" transport of humans and "solves" logistics at a dozen AU, then NASA can finally focus on just instruments, experiments, and science. It's like you've been building your own car and highway and computer every time you want to go to work, and someone comes along with commercial versions. You are more productive.
The third trajectory is liquidation. NASA can become a funding agency like DARPA or NSF, leaning on their past glory to inspire a new generation with fancy-titled grant calls for science experiments at scale.
I personally believe it's a convex combination, and my favorite weights are about 1/5, 3/5, 1/5, meaning they'll focus mostly on deployment of science instruments supported by commercially-designed platforms, technology, etc, and release calls and grants to other institutions to propose science experiments and develop non-profitable technologies that industry will necessarily ignore.
Coincidentally, this is about how they operate on Earth.