RSS Feed MenuCharles Krauthammer’s piece yesterday about the budget cuts for America’s manned space programs had me in a nostalgic mood.
When I was a boy a picture of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon with the American flag next to him hung above my bed. On T.V. in the original Star Trek, which my father and I watched religiously, James T. Kirk is a “New Frontiersman, a Kennedyesque swashbuckler inhabiting cutting edge technological marvels. Later, manned space flight was Skylab, the Shuttle and the Space Station. It became routine and people lost interest. But at all times, America led. After the shock of Sputnik, Kennedy swore we would not surrender space to tyranny. From the mid-1960’s we never did.
For 50 years American exploits in space towered above those of any other nation. Now we will go, hat in hand, to the Russians and Chinese. Not since the Chinese Emperor decided to scrap the mightiest fleet in the world has a leader of a nation so cavalierly thrown away a priceless advantage.
Within 50 years wiser sovereigns like Henry the Navigator and Isabella of Spain stole a march on China, with fleets far smaller and less impressive than he who had the Mandate of Heaven had thrown away. Within a little more than hundred years, the tiny nation of Portugal would have a foothold on Chinese soil they would not relinquish until Bill Clinton was President of a country that did not exist at Macau’s founding.
I hope this retreat does not have the repercussions for America that that decision did for China.
sinz54 // Feb 13, 2010 at 9:18 am
We conservatives need to be consistent about Big Government.
Since World War II, we conservatives always backed whatever Government programs were needed to keep us safe from enemy attack. Government has a role in using space for military and intelligence-gathering applications. None of that is adversely affected by Obama’s policy, since all of that employs unmanned satellites.
Government also has a role in exploring deep space. So far at least, neither China nor Russia has planned to send humans to Mars, so we don’t have to worry about that.
But the sending of humans into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), just like airline travel, is something the Government pioneered but eventually has to get out of the way.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the U.S. Government had the wisdom NOT to create a government national airline like some European countries did. Instead, it got out of the way and let private airlines take over the skies for commercial transport. That was the right answer.
And Obama is employing the same logic today for near earth orbit: Get the government out of the way and let commercial companies take over. We conservatives should applaud that move; it’s consistent with our own principles. (Would the USSR, committed to communism, have allowed entrepreneurs to go into space?)
And commercial companies are nearly ready. Look at SpaceX Corporation, a startup company that began in 2002. Their Falcon 9 Heavy booster is 180 feet tall and can lift 28 metric tons of payload to LEO. This can include their Dragon spacecraft, designed specifically to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has already selected this combination to keep the ISS going after the Shuttle retires. So there you have it, a brand new commercial company has built the spaceship to succeed the Shuttle.
Let’s stop shedding crocodile tears over past space mission glories. The entire reason that JFK put men on the moon was to show the world that American technology was better than Soviet technology. Back then, the USSR was our enemy. Today, our enemy is radical Islam. But the world isn’t going to be impressed that we can launch better rockets than Muslims.
If we want to embarrass the Muslims the way that the Apollo moon landings embarrassed the Soviets, a much better way is to develop alternatives to Middle East oil.
oldgal // Feb 13, 2010 at 10:22 am
I agree with Sinz54. You should visit the NASA website before assuming we are giving up leadership in space exploration. NASA is doing stuff even the comic books couldn’t dream up when I was a kid – since NASA can’t advertise and the media are not the least bit interested, you won’t know about it unless you go look. If you are reliant on the news media for information, you aren’t going to know what is really happening on many fronts.
mlindroo // Feb 13, 2010 at 11:39 am
Krauthammer wrote:
“For the first time since John Glenn flew in 1962, the U.S. will have no access of its own for humans into space”
Incorrect. There were no manned NASA missions at all between 1976-1980 after the Apollo project was canceled.
In contrast, American astronauts will still maintain a permanent presence on the International Space Station (ISS) this decade. If NASA wants to purchase fewer Soyuz seats from the Russians, it can start preparing for future deep space missions by extending crew tours on ISS to one or more years…
“And how do you get there without the stepping stones of Ares and Orion? If we can’t afford an Ares rocket to get us into orbit and to the moon, how long will it take to develop a revolutionary new propulsion system that will take us not a quarter-million miles but 35 million miles?”
Ares/Orion is basically just the expendable Apollo/Saturn vehicle with lots of Shuttle technology. NASA would only be able to afford the program by shifting even more money from unmanned space projects (space science, aeronautics, Earth observation).
—
Each Apollo mission cost HALF A BILLION dollars at current rates and Ares would be as expensive. Developing a reusable space transfer vehicle permanently based in space & new propulsion is not trivial, but it appears to be the only sustainable option if we want to send astronauts to other planets. —
Rational space enthusiasts (particularly Republican/libertarian ones!) should applaud Obama’s latest move. The Shuttle and International Space Station have proved to be costly underachievers and neither lived up to the NASA hype. Not necessarily because of poor management by NASA, mind you — the main problem has always been lack of political support which leads to unexpected budget cuts and later redesign work to save money. A smaller manned space program with significant commercial participation ought to be less exposed to shifting political winds in Washington.
MARCU$
teabag // Feb 13, 2010 at 11:43 am
In case you had not noticed, after 8 years of fiscal conservatism we are BROKE.
We just can’t afford all this stuff. close down NASA or turn it over to the private sector to run and fund. There is no need for my tax dollars to be spent sending people on missions with no real purpose.
The Bush return to the moon thing was a joke, I am pleased that it has been scrapped, no do the same to the rest.
hormelmeatco // Feb 13, 2010 at 1:00 pm
“Not since the Chinese Emperor decided to scrap the mightiest fleet in the world has a leader of a nation so cavalierly thrown away a priceless advantage.”
The allure of empire-building is just too strong, isn’t it?
sinz54 // Feb 13, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Krauthammer: “Not since the Chinese Emperor decided to scrap the mightiest fleet in the world has a leader of a nation so cavalierly thrown away a priceless advantage.”
When it comes to getting into Low Earth Orbit, NASA doesn’t have “a priceless advantage” anymore. The Europeans and even private entrepreneurs here in America can do it cheaper.
As for Mars, let’s remember what Napoleon said: “If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna.”
That means: If we want to go to Mars as a long-term goal, what’s the point in NASA shuttling to Low Earth Orbit, or going back to the Moon?
If we start to go to Mars, then go to Mars.
balconesfault // Feb 13, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Huh. Sounds like a guns and butter kind of thing, to me. We just spent a trillion or so in the last decade occupying countries in the Middle East. Russia and China didn’t.
Fun fact. China and Russia’s combined annual defense expenditures through the 00’s was about half our annual spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Not half our defense budget – half of the special appropriations each year to keep those conflicts going.
nancyanny // Feb 13, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Marcu$ is correct on all accounts. Thanks for that insight, M.
sinz54 // Feb 13, 2010 at 2:06 pm
balconesfault: We just spent a trillion or so in the last decade occupying countries in the Middle East. Russia and China didn’t.
Russia had fought its own Afghanistan war in the 1980s.
balconesfault // Feb 13, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Russia had fought its own Afghanistan war in the 1980s.
Actually, the Soviet Union fought its own Afghanistan war in the 1980s. Which helped pave the way for there being no more Soviet Union.
mlindroo // Feb 13, 2010 at 3:50 pm
> We just can’t afford all this stuff. close down NASA or turn it over to the private sector to run and fund.
Note that human spaceflight is the only expensive, controversial part, though. The other NASA activities (unmanned space science and aeronautics) pretty much stand on their own merits, but they only account for perhaps one-third of the annual budget. And if the Space Shuttle, Space Station or Constellation/Ares “flagship” projects exceed their budget, NASA usually transfers funds from unmanned space…
—
The existing American and Russian manned spaceflight program is essentially a Cold War relic. I still think mankind should keep sending humans into space, but it is difficult to justify expensive projects that produce comparatively little useful science.
MARCU$
mlindroo // Feb 13, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Sinz54 wrote:
> When it comes to getting into Low Earth Orbit, NASA doesn’t have “a priceless advantage” anymore.
> The Europeans and even private entrepreneurs here in America can do it cheaper.
As an aside, the lack of U.S. competitiveness seems to be mostly due to institutional reasons.
A decade ago Boeing and Lockheed-Martin were hoping that their new “Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles” (Delta IV and Atlas V, respectively) would capture a significant part of the commercial launch market. My impression is these are fine, reliable rockets but the Department of Defense is the main customer, and the DoD demands preferential treatment vis-a-vis commercial customers. Military requirements also increase the cost of the rocket e.g. because of mission specific tailoring (the Delta IV heavy is almost as expensive as the old Titan IV for this reason). Boeing and LockMart don’t really care, though, since they have a monopoly on the lucrative U.S. gov’t launch market and it is difficult to justify spending money on capturing the international commercial satellite launch market.
I am not yet convinced SpaceX will become a smashing commercial success… There is not a lot of traditional market demand for traditional expendable launch vehicles, which always need fairly extensive verification and quality assurance before launch as the payload is highly valuable. This drives up the cost of a launch. It’s difficult to “cut corners” even if you recover parts of the rocket as SpaceX seems to be planning, and the competition (France’s Arianespace + Russian quasi-commercial ventures) has been around for a long time.
MARCU$
BoolaBoola // Feb 13, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Who cares? Space is a used-up prospecting ground. Let the others explore space; we’ll explore materials science, oceans, nanotechnology, bioscience, green-energy.
Carney // Feb 13, 2010 at 11:10 pm
To learn more about this issue I enthusiastically recommend Dr. Robert Zubrin, former space program rocket scientist and nuclear engineer. His books “The Case for Mars” and “Entering Space” are fascinating, exciting, educational, and inspiring.
If you see the documentary “The Mars Underground” on the Discovery Channel or one of its sister channels such as (Discovery) Science, watch it! It’s also on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3REZZWeWcU
The “Mars Direct” plan he (and the Mars Society inspired by his vision) promotes has been endorsed or praised by luminaries such as Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, and “Buzz” Aldrin. It’s been formally costed by NASA at costing $50 billion over ten years, well within NASA’s sub-$20 billion annual budget, especially once the Space Shuttle is retired. It’s a simple, practical, no-frills approach that uses proven, conventional Apollo and Shuttle* technology and would take only a decade to accomplish, without waiting decades and spending fortunes on exotic propulsion or unneeded space stations and lunar bases.
*It also avoids the pitfalls of the current Shuttle system by placing its astronauts on TOP of the Shuttle stack, rather than on the side where foam chunks can fall on their orbiter, and dispenses with an orbiter altogether so as to make re-entry safer.
Mars is an exciting destination. With all the elements necessary for industry and agriculture in abundance, it beckons as a second homeworld for humanity in a way the Moon never can. With the pragmatism, technological advancement, and personal freedom its labor shortage will create, it will do for our sclerotic, bureaucratized society what America did for the Old World. We can expand, grow, advance, and live, or become stagnant, decaying, and collapse, and the light of our civilization can sputter and die.
If the Right is looking for new ideas for a new time rather than merely rehashing Reagan, then Zubrin’s proposals on space and energy, which abandon both cynicism and pie-in-the-sky gullibility for an optimistic vision grounded in achievable science, should be embraced and made a core part of our agenda.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/authors/robert-zubrin
Sound the retreat: Abandoning the “New Frontier” « Resolute Determination // Feb 15, 2010 at 10:12 am
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