NASA: The agency to nowhere, says US physicist
President Trump’s new directive towards the future of space exploration is a “game changer,” according to an American physicist.
“NASA has been criticized as being the agency to nowhere,” Michu Kaku told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto on Monday. “Mired in so much red tape, you can circle the moon with all that red tape.
The Trump administration signed the Space Policy Directive – 3 that puts in place new procedures for managing space traffic and minimizing the amount of trash in orbit.
“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space,” Trump said at a White House meeting of the National Space Council.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are investing new resources into their space-exploration programs. The billionaires have talked about developing an infrastructure that drastically cuts the cost of space travel.
“It cost about $10,000 a pound of anything just to orbit around the earth,” he said. “That’s your weight in gold. That’s how much it cost to put you out into of space.”
Kaku said the Silicon Valley billionaires could reduce the cost of space travel by a factor of 10 to $1,000 a pound.
“That can open up outer space to commercialization,” he said.
The physicist says the federal government and private enterprises would join forces to cover the cost of space exploration and travel programs.
“The government would foot part of the bill, but also set the guide rules and the basic agenda,” Kaku said. “But private industry would fill the gap.”
Trump directed the Department of Defense to create a Space Force as the sixth branch of the U.S. military.
“We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal,” he said.
The National Space Council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, has held three formal meetings to establish regulatory reforms to support commercial space ventures and space traffic management.