The next NASA funding boondoggle

The American government has announced a $104 billion plan for NASA to return to moon exploration by 2018:

Canada could play a prominent role in NASA's plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2018, scientists with the U.S. space agency said Monday as it unveiled a lunar exploration plan expected to cost upwards of $104 billion US.

The country's internationally recognized expertise in underground drilling in extreme environments such as the far north is a specialized skill that the agency will need for its venture, said NASA chief scientist Jim Garvin.

The remote manipulator known as the Canadarm, a fixture on past space shuttle missions that made its deep-space debut in 1981 and is often lauded as Canada's greatest engineering success, is a shining example of Canada's contributions to the U.S. space program.

Garvin, speaking at the 7th annual International Lunar Conference in Toronto, said NASA will once again need Canada's help in setting up a permanent, "Antarctic-like presence" on the moon — a "beachhead in deep space" that could eventually serve as a staging ground for missions to Mars.

"Canada certainly has a lot to bring to the table," said Garvin, noting that NASA hopes one day to make the moon a livable environment and extract any natural resources it might possess.

While I'm eager to see space exploration get underway again, I don't think entrusting the megabureaucracy of NASA is the right way to go. Private entrepreneurs have been making good progress toward non-governmental space travel (admittedly, they've still got a long way to go), and thus far NASA's major contribution has been to hinder and obstruct as much as they could manage.

NASA is now too mired in bureaucracy to be effective at engineering . . . which has shown up tragically in the shuttle program. Getting back to space is going to cost a lot of money, but better that money be raised by private enterprise, who then bear the costs but also reap the rewards of success.