In 1961, the Cold War raged, and for a confrontation that didn't involve combat or military assault it was pretty damned scary. Among testaments of the day to the palpable fear were Texas Towers, duck and cover drills in addition to fire drills in public schools, and the race to space. Spies had leaked the plans for our nuclear weapons long ago and the Soviet Union now had nukes, was busy testing them, and its space program was ahead of ours. You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to grasp the implications of that.
President Kennedy though saw beyond the Cold War. That year before a joint session of Congress he declared:
"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
I was born in 1954, and many of my peers today remember the 1960s as an age of hippies, protesters, Beatlemania, Woodstock, the Summer of Love, Kent State, Altamont (meth head drew down on a Hell's Angel who defended himself with only a knife and sent methboy packing). Not me. Although these memories are mine, I have others that are relevant not only to 1960s but also to today. The following paragraphs could get my sorry ass expelled from the gimme gimme Baby Boomer generation, but then that happened long ago.
Our president and an eminent reformer of the era, leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died tragically, both to gunshot wounds inflicted by cowardly assassins. Their dreams though could not and did not. Congress acted to create a new national holiday in honor of the only American who wasn't a president to have served his nation as a leader of our men, women, and children. On his birthday school teachers now pause to remind their students of the deprivation and hatred many Americans endured simply on the basis of the color of their skin, and how Dr. King led a nonviolent revolution akin to that led by Mahatma Gandhi to bring freedom and equality to non-white Americans. Years after John F. Kennedy's assassination a crack team of engineers, mission controllers, and veteran astronauts honored our fallen president by delivering the goods in the nick of time in 1969. I was fourteen years old on that day in July when my mother and I (dad was probably at work) watched scenes telecast from thousands of miles away as our astronauts conducted the very first EVA on the moon.
That era witnessed the peak of American aerospace engineering, and it was quite exciting to live through. As NASA reached for the stars, under the leadership of Kelly Johnson the Lockheed Skunk Works, which had developed the U-2 reconnaissance jet, engineered and cranked out the Mach 3.2 SR-71, which shattered speed records to set new ones that would stand for decades. SAMs coming at ya? No problem! Accelerate and leave 'em in the dust.
After Apollo though, NASA lost its vision and drive and degenerated into the bloated bureaucracy it is today. That of course hasn't put an end to dreams of rekindling their former days of glory. From this page:
At the core of NASA's future space exploration is a return to the moon, where we will build a sustainable long term human presence.
As the space shuttle approaches retirement and the International Space Station nears completion, NASA is building the next fleet of vehicles to bring astronauts back to the moon, and possibly to Mars and beyond.
But life isn't a Disney movie. Whereas it remains possible that one day we earthlings will return to the moon and extend our exploration to Mars and beyond, that day is years, perhaps decades away. Activity at NASA will soon slow dramatically as the economy slides into the abyss and the feds discover they can't just print dollars to buy anything they want. A hidebound industry unprepared to adapt to the stark new reality of a global economic collapse will jettison tens of thousands of employees, many of whom will join me in the ranks of the growing unemployed.
The moon then will wait patiently as we work things out on earth, and a new generation of scientists, engineers, mission controllers, and astronauts picks up where their forerunners left off.
Nice article. I'm just 3 years older.
It appears that the current administration has their sites on ur anus.
Oops, sorry can't figure out how to correct that typo. ;^)
NASA likes subcontracting, they're probably waiting to hitch a ride from India or Japan and let them pick up the upfront research costs.
Find a poll that shows the average everyday majority of America's even wants NASA to go to the moon. Two shuttle explosions, 1960's shuttle technology, two mars unmanned flights that disappeared, a CO2 monitoring satellite failure, etc, et... their track record hasn't been ideal to get citizen support. Idealists and enthusiasts would disagree, but for the record, they're "special interest groups".
Agreed PNB!
I will get on whatever flight they will allow me on and go! I'd be happy to go and just clean toilets!
Rickace says in part:
'After Apollo though, NASA lost its vision and drive and degenerated into the bloated bureaucracy it is today....'
Sorry, Rickace but I have to disagree with your assessment of NASA. In reality, NASA is one of the most efficient government entities going right now. They have trimmed the fat from the spending long ago, and do much with reletively little.
We have a member at Newsvine who also works as a scientist at the Glenn Center in Ohio. He tells it to me like this:
'If the yearly budget for the Department of Defense was split into 365 equal daily payments, NASA's current budget would add up to about five days of those payments...'
From February 8, 2008 at the NASA website:
'NASA Unveils $17.6 Billion Budget
WASHINGTON - NASA announced a $17.6 billion budget for fiscal year 2009 to continue exploring the solar system, building the International Space Station, studying Earth from space and conducting aeronautics research.
NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale said the increase for NASA's 2009 budget demonstrates President Bush's commitment to the agency's missions. With the increase, NASA still accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
The NASA budget includes $5.78 billion for the space shuttle and space station programs, $4.44 billion for science, $3.5 billion for development of new manned spacecraft systems and $447 million for aeronautics research.'
17.6 billion? That's peanuts for an organization that does as much as NASA. You have to remember they just don't run Cape Canaveral on that money, either. There are these entities (and all their employees) as well:
There are also all those subcontractors to pay, the maintenance and construction of the ISS, Rover missions, comsats, etc. The list is practically endless.
17.6 billion a year doesn't sound so bad now, does it? Some of the reason I know about these things is because I interact a lot with those brain boys down at JPL in Pasadena. They help me on research in my writing occasionally.
No worries...you aren't the only one who thought NASA was 'bloated'. In reality, if they had a bigger budget, those same guys at JPL told me we'd already BE on Mars. They've known for years how to do it. They just don't have the hardware.
Hmm...well, you don't think the US should lead the way into space and that we have no business spending the money to go. You don't think the Recovery Bill was a good idea.
Fine. But don't blame the Federal deficit on NASA. They work with a measly budget and do a great deal with it besides indulge a few astronauts. In fact, they are far and away from gluttony. I could name a few other things they do with their budget besides the ones I listed, such as all those free programs and materials they offer teachers. They are also responsible for a lot of the new tech we enjoy today, especially in communications.
If you want to cut the fat from the budget, you could start with the Department of Defense. I made a very good comparison there, pointing out that the entire yearly budget for NASA equals what the DOD gets in five days each year. This proves who is really at the Federal trough, and it's not NASA.
Another consideration: Without NASA continuing to lead the world in space tech and exploration, this would leave it all the European Space Agency, and a few other smaller government-sponsored space agencies, such as the Canadians, the Italians, and the other ones. Do you really want foreign countries to take complete charge of what goes on above your head? I certainly don't.
However, I don't think I'm going to convince you of the positives on NASA in a comment. The only thing I can offer is...
Well, NASA may not be going to the moon...but they've already set a date for a manned landing on Mars and say exactly how they are going to do it:
It's a mankind thing. Like Columbus, and that Neil Armstrong guy.
Even though Low Earth Orbit is considered boring, especially to us adrenaline-junkie Americans (been there, done that), the fact of the matter is that we have not developed a reliable and cost-effective way of routinely getting people 'up there.' The Russians have done fairly well in reliability with their Soyuz program, but the payload remains limited and the price limits it to multi-millionaires. Our American penchant for 'latest, greatest, cutting-edge novelty,' while admirable in some of its developments, has lead to largely throw-away systems that are terribly expensive to develop and operate. Let's not even discuss the bureaucratic bungling between the government, NASA, and the maze of contractors...
Once we can routinely, reliably, and economically orbit people and develop some sort of useful "port" at which to assemble components and store supplies, then further destinations can open up. Some of the initiatives from Bigelow Aerospace in inflatable structures, man-rating the Delta booster, and discussing a modified Orion capsule, are hopeful.
It's not about the science, as NASA likes to say. It's about THE FUNDING.
Let's take a manned mission to Mars, for instance. Think it can't be done? Think it's too expensive? Not really.
The guys at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have run up several different 'DRM's, which means 'Design Reference Mission'. These are basically mission plans, and they have several for going to Mars. But they don't have the hardware. People think we don't have the tech to go there, and this is not true.
I don't speak of my work much at Newsvine, not directly. However, I wrote a novel last year on this very subject titled The 13th Day of Christmas. It's about the first manned mission to the Red Planet, and I had help from JPL with the research. They know how to get to the moon, or even Mars all right. You bet they do. Although this book is currently sitting at Lulu, it's being moved into mainstream wholesale distribution in January.
But the funding for Mars is not there. Even with that, NASA still makes plans to go. They also know they will have to wait because although Bush pushed for a bigger budget for NASA, it wasn't much of an increase. He had to backpedal on that one because he had twenty billion a month to raise from taxpayers to finance the war in Iraq.
How much would it cost to actually put humans on Mars? Well, costs vary, but a good figure would be maybe 30 billion dollars. It's cheaper than when we did Apollo because when we did Apollo we also had to build all the NASA infrastructure first. (See my previous comment up there with all the NASA facilities listed)
Thirty billion would run the war in Iraq for about 45 days, when the war was at its height. Today, about two months. The result of such a program would be a dramatic increase in the study of math and science in our schools, and much brighter, more enthusiasitic students.
Just like when we did Apollo.
Rickace says in part:
'Game over for NASA and what's become Obama's war.'
Show me where the government plans to cut NASA funding. There are no plans to do so. Even Bush increased it. I still don't understand your comparisons about the war and NASA. The annual budget for NASA would run the war in Iraq for less than a month.
What NASA does...and how they continue to get the job done on the modest funding they receive is done in several ways. You have to remember - some of the smartest people on the planet work for them.
First, they squeeze everything out of every dollar they get. Second, they are more and more bringing universities under their wing and letting them do much of the work. The University of Arizona, Cal-Tech, and San Jose State are good examples. Third, they spread out the expenses over a period of years.
As far as the war, Vietnam was raging full-scale on the day we landed on the moon. Your article also says:
'that era (Apollo/Moon era) witnessed the peak of American aerospace engineering...'
Well, that certainly isn't true. It was only the peak in 1969, and they've come a long way since then. What we've done since Apollo has been amazing, and we are working with much better technology now. And it's cheaper, too...a LOT cheaper to launch missions than it was back then, especially the unmanned planetary probes. There is no infrastructure to build - NASA is already well-established.
You might think they are just going to layoff everybody and disappear, but I can assure you this is not the case. They haven't been building the ISS and sending out all those probes for nothing.
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