Back into Space
December 20th, 2006
The last time a human being walked on the Moon was in 1972. Close to half of the U.S. population has been born since then. It therefore falls to people over the age of 50 to recall the incredible excitement and sense of discovery and adventure that was the NASA Space program up to that year. There were few things in my lifetime that both excited and united humanity as much as the first 15 years of space exploration that started with Sputnik in 1957. I remember the day when John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth and how there were transistor radios everywhere at school, and even the teachers devoted time during class for us to listen in on the news reports of this journey. I remember when Neal Armstrong first set foot on the Moon. The whole world was watching as a member of our species did something that had never been done before.
Discussions of space exploration are now back in the news. Recently, in just a matter of days NASA announced first that it was firming up plans for America’s return to the Moon and then, days later, the startling discovery that water had flowed on the surface of Mars within the past seven years. Days later a crew went into space to work at and on the space station. It was kind of triple hit of space news that brought back to mind the great adventure of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Sure the space shuttles of the past decades have been exciting, but they have not captured the attention and imagination of all of us here on earth the way the early first two decades of space exploration did.
It is now time to start moving toward another major space exploration effort. We need to create the vision, set the goals and mobilize the national will to again leave the gravitation pull of our planet. The United States needs to assume leadership of this effort and at the same time realize that it is a perfect vehicle for a unified global effort. This time there is no ‘space race’ with the Soviet Union to goad us on. We need to lead the way, create a vision, create an international cooperative entity and mobilize for the effort. The United States has lost a lot of respect around the world due to its invasion of Iraq. A new space initiative can provide us with the needed vehicle to reestablish a leadership position that taps into the wonder, vision and possibilities of this new adventure. Take a position of leadership and ask the world to join us.
One of the speeches I give that always provokes a responsive discussion is called “Leading with Vision, Being Slightly Ahead of the Curveâ€. One of the examples I use is John F. Kennedy saying in 1961 that before the decade is out, America will put a man on the Moon and bring him safely back to Earth. This was said even before Glenn had orbited Earth. Making such a bold statement was unheard of; people didn’t know if it was possible or not. Eight years later, six months before the end of the decade, we did exactly what President Kennedy challenged the country to do. Set the vision, break it down into steps and improve on each accomplishment. The entire country was mobilized, technology and materials we take for granted today were created during this amazing time. Granted, once we got there, we lost our way and ended up hitting golf balls, but that was because we had only the vision to get there and safely return. No one had created a vision to take us beyond what we had accomplished.
We may well need new leadership to mobilize us around a new vision. We will need to spend a lot of money. There is always the discussion around whether money should be spent on space exploration or solving the problems here on Earth. I truly believe that a new American lead program to put an outpost on the Moon and journey to Mars will bring humanity together in a way that nothing else can. That starts to solve problems. Certainly scientific advances will occur that will have benefit on Earth. As for cost, the current annual budget of NASA is the equivalent of slightly less than two months of military expenditures in Iraq. In the long run, which do you think will add the most to humanity, policing a civil war or exploring space?
If we can develop the political will, if we can see space exploration as a way to again create visionary leadership, if we can make it a globally inclusive effort, we can find a way to fund it and can challenge the scientific world to make it a reality. The questions should not be about if, but about how and when.
December 20th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Putting aside the amount of money our country spends on space activities, I’ve always wondered if the money isn’t best spent on putting non-living things in space (like telescopes) over putting up one of our own. I don’t have the data but I would wonder if the benefits of having a human part of the equation out weigh the costs. Since dollars are limited and unanswered questions are unlimited, I’d would think for the foreseeable future we are better off allocating the scarce resources toward the presumably much less expensive unmanned missions. Just a thought.
December 20th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
“The United States has lost a lot of respect around the world due to its invasion of Iraq. A new space initiative can provide us with the needed vehicle to reestablish a leadership position that taps into the wonder, vision and possibilities of this new adventure. Take a position of leadership and ask the world to join us.”
Sounds like a very expensive PR campaign. What’s the end-game? Colonize the Moon or Mars, so we can wreck those places after we have moved everyone from Earth there? I know we are spending more on the war than on NASA, but that does not make for a good argument to do something.
December 21st, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Wesley-
For the past 20 years we have had major unmanned explorations of space. Its where we have been getting all the pretty pictures. It is when humans go into outerspace that there is excitment and a sense of adventure and yes danger. I think we should do both. There is an incredible amount of effort going into reuseable spacecraft and parts so that the wastefulness of the early space program is not repeated.
David
December 21st, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Dave-
The logic of your argument would also work relative to Christopher Columbus. Yup, the Europeans messed up America, at least from the Native American point of view, but the New World was discovered. I take the position that humanity must always be exploring, both the world we know, to learn deeper secrets, and the world we don’t know to learn. Humanity seems to need to be outward bound in its adventure and need for discovery. Space is what is left, and there seems to be an infinite amount of it.
David
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:56 am
I was involved in both manned & unmanned space projects for 18 years, including Apollo, Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Mars Mariner 9, Landsat. I did then and do now think that the unmanned projects provided many times more science return for the effort and money expended than did the Apollo Project. At the same time, I want to express my appreciation for courage and high competence of the astronauts as well as for the hard and intelligent work of the thousands of those behind the scenes that made any of those missions possible. However, I think that Apollo and any other manned mission was and will be an essentially a PR project of political ambition. At 82, I am still thrilled by the findings of deep space missions. I DO NOT think another lunar landing will add much, if anything to human knowledge.
December 22nd, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Today’s WSJ made a short reference to cuts that NASA made in its science programs to be able to fund the “white elephant” space station and the Mars and lunar programs. I’m not sure it’s clear we can do both and we have to pick one or the other I’d say focus on those projects that we get the biggest human being aiding bang for the buck. I love the concept of people in space as much as the next guy but am concerned about the programs that aren’t funded because of it. Sure it’d be great if NASA had more funding. But the reality is that they don’t, hence the discussion of priorities. Furthermore it appears that private industry may take up some slack of putting people in space with space tourism. No they are not going to the moon but perhaps one day they will. I don’t see private industry funding unmanned probes to comets.
December 24th, 2006 at 8:10 am
Columbus was an astronaut? Yes, I suppose that argument could be applied, native Americans got an unbelievably raw deal. And for the record, Columbus did not discover a thing. But it’s still a far cry from the Earth being in a perilous state due to the effects on the environment. The other major difference is, “we” know the current situation of planet Earth, hence something can still be done (hopefully). Shifting focus to colonizing other planets feels a little like cutting and running. In other words, I think “we” have lost the right to explore space the way you describe, until we fix things here.
December 30th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Interesting post of which many sparks of discussion will surely fly, and have already.
I am a firm believer in history repeating itself, even when we strive to prevent it.
As you say, we went to the moon but what did we really accomplish there? In effect, it was an effort to say we did it.
So now we’re going back. Why? To say we did it AGAIN? I’d like to see more discussion (from the government and NASA) as to why we need to establish ourselves on the moon. Currently, we haven’t heard enough of a plan to justify the cost.
It seems the goals are a bit short sighted, much like our efforts in Iraq turned out to be. We go there, overthrow the government… but then what?
In addition, you suggest a global effort. We did that with the space station and it turned out horribly. Not the effort itself, but the political and financial contributions of our “partners”. Russia had a significant interest in the ISS, but then couldn’t fund their share, and still can’t. So the US is stuck pulling the weight of other countries who, had strong ambitions but weak funding.
If we can justify going back to the moon, I say go for it. I also say that if we can’t fund the mission ourselves, we wait till we can.
-Grant
December 31st, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Earler today I was reading Alvin Toffler’s latest book “Revolutionary Wealth” and in a short chapeter about the benefits of space exploration he stated these statistics:
-every dollar invested in NASA addis nine dollars to U.S. GNP
-a great amount of our connectedness, ATMs, Internet,etc is due to satellites, a result of the space race
-recent advances in heart pump technology is derived from space shuttle fuel-pump technology
-GPS technology and such things as Google maps all came from the space exploration effort
Now while it can be debated that some of this would occur without manned space flight, it still is indisputable that the decades long effort to explore space has lead directly or indirectly to many wonderful things on earth that humans use and need every day.
Finally, I personally feel that manned space flight, to some degree instills a necessary sense of adventure in humanity and underscores the fact that we are on this fragile planet together.
I think it safe to say that the first photo taken of earth from space helped initiate the environmental movement. Everyone knows the ‘earth rise’ photograph, showing earth is all its fragile beauty.