When Others Discover What We Have Forgotten

What they HAVEN'T discovered yet is greed

What is it that makes these countries desperate to do this stuff? Easy. It's desperation to be looked at as being even on the same page technologically with the space superpowers. It has nothing to do with wanting to be explorers or pioneers, and such blather. What we have long ago forgotten is that sometimes a nation needs to prove to itself (as well as to others) that it is, in fact, pretty capable. What it would take for us to rediscover this is some credible threat that we aren't technologically on the same page with other powerful nations.

I think you've got it partly right. Even China, which has considerable technological competence, is desperate to be seen in this way. They aren't in a race with us to explore. They're in a race to keep up with us. That may actually be a lot easier than we thought it would be, given the delays in Constellation! That's also why, once we have abandoned a concentrated effort on lunar return and focused on flex path, the Chinese will revector the same way. Their threatened competition in what we're actually going to do (as opposed to what we're not going to do) will, much like for the Russians, give them an ideal posture to eventually be partners with us. That is what they REALLY want.

They haven't discovered greed in Nigeria? LOLOLOL. There is a rich tradition of political corruption in Nigeria, and posturing technologically to look powerful is part of it.

Keith/Frank --

I have to echo what Hallie said. Thinking that this would have ANYTHING to do with the desire to explore or fire up the imaginations of children is... well, profoundly naive, if not laughable.

Nigeria is oil-rich. Little of that oil money goes to the people of Nigeria -- instead, it winds up in the hands of a multitude of corrupt government officials, through the usual variety of sweetheart deals, skimming, outright bribery, and generic graft. Additionally, it goes towards buying influence for Nigeria -- and, accordingly, for its governmental officials -- in the rest of West Africa. A flashy space program serves all those goals -- vehicle for increased graft, prestige item for geopolitics, and -- as Hallie noted -- something to get the other space powers (the US, Russia, China, the ESA) to pay attention to them.

Science and exploration aren't even a factor here. I'm willing to guarantee that. For all the flaws in the US space program and the government's treatment of it, we HAVE discovered what the Nigerian leaders (so far) have not: that government programs should serve great purposes, not serve to line your pockets with other people's money and repress your political enemies.

What would it take for such a (re)discovery to happen in America?

Keith, I think Bolden recently emphasized a big part of what it would take for a rediscovery here in America:

"What if you were a seventh grader and you knew that if you buckled down, and studied hard at math and science, that you could go to space? Not because you would be the one of the very few who might become a NASA astronaut, as I was so privileged, but because you saw hundreds of people of all nations traveling into space each and every year, and knew in your bones that you could soon be one of them? ... This day could come soon."

That day of participatory, not vicarious, human spaceflight could come sooner for us than NASA's current course, depending on course corrections made by this Congress, this White House and Bolden's NASA over the next couple of months.