space race:
Two weeks ago, we saw the Japanese National Space Development Agency (NSDA) test a new reusable space shuttle design. You can bet your bottom dollar that NASA and Boeing have also working on a new reusable shuttle. In addition, BBC World reports today on the European Space Agency (ESA) has its own shuttle plans. The ESA imagines that it will only cost $50 million… cute! The new Wembley Stadium will cost more than $1 billion!! (and that isn’t even going to the moon).
What's going on here? Neither Europe nor Japan have a space program that even begins to compare to that of the United States, so it would seem unlikely that they intend to use these spacecraft for themselves. Perhaps they want to market their craft to NASA? I seriously doubt if NASA would purchase shuttles from either of the two when they have their own plans for the future of space flight. Even if it did, they would most likely only buy from one source, in which event one of the two would lose out, and lose big (all their spending would be down the drain).
If the shuttles were intended to be used for the international space station, having more than one shuttle design would complicate things considerably. Each shuttle design would have unique flight control systems. Given the rigorous training that pilots undergo just to be able to fly one type of shuttle, it seems highly unlikely that pilots trained by NASA, the ESA, or the NSDA would be able to fly each other's craft.
So where am I going with this? Well, it's just a reminder that we need standards. Standards just like those established for the web. I am doubtful that Europe or Japan could pursue their own space program, in fact, the whole idea of the International Space station is to reduce the cost of space exploration for any one country, by divying things up between a group of countries. Introducing differing types of space shuttle will only complicate, and inflict extra costs. In the meantime, these agencies would be better off working together on a single design - working apart, and on their own designs means that at the end of the day when one design is chosen (hopefully) over the others, the parties whose design wasn't chosen, will have wasted a great deal of time and resources. Money that should be spent, in the case of Europe, on defense.
