I was among the millions of baby boomers that grew up in the
60s and early 70s when the American astronauts were the real-
life embodiments of Buck Rogers and NASA held the promise
to lead mankind to the "final frontier" of Star Trek.
As with everyone that is old enough to remember July 20, 1969,
the memories of the grainy black and white broadcast of Neil
Armstrong walking on the moon is something I will never
forget.
Most of my friends and I dreamed of being astronauts. We knew
all of the details about the planets and solar system and were
sure by the time we were grown-ups, people would be living on
the moon and Mars. We wanted to live on the moon or Mars
too.
Unfortunately, those heady days of yesteryear are long gone.
After the final pair of astronauts blasted off from the moon's
surface in 1972, the nation's fascination with the space program
waned. Sure, the Voyager missions to the outer solar system,
the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Pathfinder held the
nation's attention for a few minutes, but in the 24 years since the
first Space Shuttle lifted off, America's space program has, for
the most part, drifted aimlessly.
The International Space Station sounded like a good idea at the
time, but just what do they do on the space station? I know they
made a pretty good IMAX film up there, but other than that;
does it really serve any purpose other than providing a reason to
keep the space program going?
The Space Shuttle was presented to the public as a vehicle that
would be launched into space and return to Earth again and
again, with a frequency much, much greater than four or five per
year. The shuttle was supposed to be a lot more like a 737 than
a Saturn V. However, the complexity of the vehicle and the
enormous costs of each launch have prevented the shuttle from
being your everyday space vehicle.
The shuttle program suffered a major blow with the Challenger
disaster of 1986 and another with the tragic loss of the shuttle
Columbia and its crew in 2003. After Columbia, NASA
grounded the shuttle fleet (now consisting of just three
spacecraft) and spent over two years analyzing and "fixing" the
problem of the foam insulation breaking off the external fuel
tank. The impact of foam pieces with the orbiter had been
determined to be the cause of the breakup of the vehicle upon
reentry.
Unfortunately, the two years of analysis and repairs don't seem
to have done much good as foam again broke off the external
tank during the recent launch of the Discovery and the fleet has
once again been grounded. Apparently making insulation adhere
to a steel tank IS rocket science.
It is time to seriously reevaluate America's manned space
program. The shuttle is inherently flawed and expensive to
operate. Worse, there seems to be no compelling reason to keep
flying the shuttle at all. There are better ways to launch satellites
and there are serious questions about the usefulness and benefits
of the space station.
Much has been spent and 14 lives lost for so little benefit in the
years since the moon landings.
In early 2004, the President announced an ambitious goal of
returning men (and presumably women) to the moon by 2020
and a shift of NASA's focus away from the shuttle and space
station. That announcement didn't exactly generate a surge in
public enthusiasm for space flight although I believe it is the
correct strategy if we are to continue manned exploration of
space.
Maybe moon missions would again capture the nation's
attention, but the goals of manned space flight, whether
performed with the Space Shuttle or other vehicle, must be more
clearly defined and cannot continue to be little more than grand
experiments with little apparent return.
Mankind has always had the need to explore and while there are
ample problems to be dealt with here on terra firma, I believe it
is the ultimate destiny of mankind to venture away from the
Earth.
In July of 1969, few would have imagined that the U. S. space
program would be languishing as it is today and that no one
would have walked on the moon in over 30 years. The question
now is whether man will walk on the moon in the next 30 years
and if so, what will be the cost and will that cost be worth it.
Jan A. Larson publishes a weekly commentary, "What is the
Deal?" at the Pie of Knowledge
(http://www.pieofknowledge.com). His work also appears on
NewsBull (http://www.newsbull.com), OpinionEditorials
(http://www.opinioneditorials.com), American Daily
(http://www.americandaily.com), ChronWatch
(http://www.chronwatch.com) and The Conservative Voice
(http://www.theconservativevoice.com).
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