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"  Popular Mechanics: Does NASA&amp;#039;s investment in private space validate competitions like the Google Lunar X PRIZE? Peter Diamandis: I think so. Contracting with entrepreneurial companies and focusing on core technology is going to be critical to NASA being able to achieve its goals more flexibly, more reliably and much more cheaply. I think we&amp;#039;re going to see incentivized competitions used as a tool to try and get new players and new approaches to areas that are difficult, that we don&amp;#039;t know how to solve. Our goal is constantly to try and stimulate the formation of new companies and new approaches that might normally be considered too risky for government programs. Incentivized competition can take that risk because you only pay the winner, you don&amp;#039;t pay the multiple attempts that fail. PM: The big question after the budget was released seems to be whether this marks the end of human space flight beyond low Earth orbit. Do you think that&amp;#039;s so? PD: It&amp;#039;s not over at all. It&amp;#039;s just beginning. I have no question that what this is going to do is stimulate a significant amount of investment by private individuals. And as NASA really turns over the reins of getting people in low Earth orbit to commercial companies, NASA can focus on what it should be doing\u2014which is investigating the frontier beyond Earth orbit. PM: Does it also open the door for the private sector to begin assuming some of NASA&amp;#039;s other duties, such as basic science and robotic exploration?  PD: I think private industry should offer turnkey, fixed-price services to NASA, whether it&amp;#039;s getting an astronaut to low Earth orbit or getting a science instrument to the lunar surface. What NASA should be doing is setting the scientific agenda\u2014[determining] the right science to do and where should we be going. I also believe you&amp;#039;re going to see private companies reaching out to take tourists around the moon; I think you&amp;#039;re going to see private companies looking at asteroids as places to go to extract resources. I think it&amp;#039;s just the beginning. PM: Many people have been mourning the loss of incentives to attract students to science and engineering. How do you think private space can fill that role?  PD: The most important thing to get students excited about space flight is making it relevant to them. And getting them excited and giving them incentive that it&amp;#039;s something they can do. One of the programs that I&amp;#039;m involved with is Zero Gravity Corporation, and one of the programs that we proposed to NASA is to fly thousands of students, to give them the experience of spaceflight and to allow them to conduct microgravity experiments themselves. PM: Others have argued we&amp;#039;d be unwise to rely on industry&amp;#039;s ability to replicate 50 years of NASA experience. How important do you think that institutional knowledge is?  PD: The institutional knowledge is resident with industry. NASA doesn&amp;#039;t have a facility where they build rockets. It&amp;#039;s a matter of, frankly, taking the handcuffs off of industry and allowing industry to innovate and deliver a turnkey service. PM: If NASA is the primary contractor for commercial companies, will they be at risk of becoming an arm of the agency\u2014or succumbing to the kind of bloat that has plagued the defense department? PD: If private industry does start getting the ability to fly NASA astronauts, then additional customers will come aboard. I put on my Space Adventures hat, where I&amp;#039;m a cofounder and managing director\u2014today I have to go to Russia to give someone a ride to orbit because I can&amp;#039;t contract with NASA. Once private companies are owning and operating the launch vehicles and contracting to NASA, I can now go and contract and become a significant customer to these other companies. It&amp;#039;s exactly what we did with Zero Gravity Corporation. With Zero G we have our 727 airplane, which NASA buys dozens of flights on each year, and that same airplane turns around and offers zero-gravity flights to Northrup Grumman and to private citizens. It becomes a resource that has a broad base of customers.  PM: Ultimately, what path do you think this budget will set us on? PD: The new approach NASA has taken has laid the foundation for the Google, Cisco and Apple computers of space to be born. And, ultimately, lays the foundation for the rest of us to have a chance to get to go to space. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a4986/4344636/>