For Some Of Us It Is Deja Vu All Over Again In Outer Space
Let’s Stop Going in Circles – And Go Somewhere (2002).
“Between the time I was 2 and when I turned 14 humanity went from zero spaceflight capability to putting humans on the Moon. To me, my first vision of spaceflight was one where quantum leaps were to be expected. I knew this because I saw these leaps happening before my own eyes. That expectation took a firm hold of me and hasn’t left me – or many of my generation. Yet we, and the generation that has followed us, have been cheated of what could have been done in space.
In the following three decades we have yet to send humans back to the Moon. Indeed, it would probably take us longer to recreate the ability to “land humans on the Moon and return them safely to the Earth” than it did to do so the first time. As for sending humans to Mars – it was 20 years or so away when I was a kid. Thirty years later it is still that far off – if not further.
As for the ISS, we could have built this – and should have built this – a decade ago. Now that the ISS has managed to become reality we need to refocus it – and ourselves – towards the true exploration of space. We need to go somewhere for a change. We can’t sit at home – or drive around the block – and call ourselves “explorers”.”
Keith’s note: I wrote this in 2002 – 17 years ago. I was frustrated then. I am frustrated now. Someone born in the year I wrote only knows a world where people live permanently in space. Alas, yet another generation has grown to adulthood without seeing humans walk on another world.
Keith, I was 10 when Apollo 11 landed and I feel the frustration as well, we have squandered decades and will never get them back. We have been thru both SEI and VSE and gotten nowhere. Like it or not Project Artemis is our generation’s last chance at seeing something big happen in terms of manned spaceflight.
Yes, no doubt there are many hurdles ahead and make no mistake this will be a marathon and not a sprint in terms of the budget battles with many ups and downs. I’m still in the optimistic camp that this will happen and figure why not get onboard and do what I can to support it and enjoy the ride, this time hopefully all the way to the lunar south pole.
I had just graduated from 10th grade when we landed on the moon. I am now 66. I share your frustration. Based upon their records, I would bet more on Space X than NASA. NASA is not bad, however Keith Cowling is right in our lack of exploration progress. Certainly Congress and a long line of presidents share the blame, but NASA has lost mojo since the 1960s.
I remember that 2002 article well. I also remember Apollo well – I was four years old when 11 landed in Tranquility. We in New Zealand had no satellite TV ability in those days. Film of the Apollo 11 landing and EVA was duplicated in Australia and flown to Wellington on an Airforce ‘Canberra’ (B-57) jet bomber in time for an evening nationwide screening on the one TV station we had: NZBC-1.
The footage was introduced by our own, Patrick Moore equivalent, Astronomer Peter Read. It was transmitted across New Zealand by a relay of transmitter trucks, strung the length of our small country up on mountains, for line-of-sight beaming to local receivers. The next day; I put on my brother’s full face motorcycle helmet and played in the neighbour’s sandpit, picking up rocks I’d placed there before my ‘EVA’. That’s more or less where my lifelong love of space began.
These days: our local media deign to give airtime to ‘Flat Earth’ conferences and highlight conspiracy opinions to ‘maintain a balanced view’. Sheesh. Spare me… 🙁
Sadly the agency is waning as congress kills it with a thousand papercuts. The space council directives were the last chance to break free from the shallow waters of low earth orbit. With the HQ reorg and $1.6 B budget request seemingly dead with those on the hill money will funnel into SLS/Orion but no progress will be made because that isn’t a priority. A few parts of gateway may go up eventually but human exploration by NASA beyond leo in any meaningful way is all but dead. Once a year if that frequently is an agency on life support waiting to be put down like the family dog you just don’t want to say goodbye to.
While I think everyone wants to see the program move along more quickly I think a lot of people are expecting more out of the government than is reasonable. Did Keith get sponsored by NASA to climb Everest 10 years ago? I doubt it-I suspect he went as a tourist and his cost him some change. If there is a reasonable role for NASA, maybe advacing technology, then the government should be behind it but if its like most other venture to expand the economy and man’s world of operations then you need to get behind commercial entities like Space X. They will need to lead the way. Apollo took us in the wrong direction for a lot of reasons and we have been expecting too much ever since. Its time to forge a new way forward. NASA is not it. Frankly I really do not know what NASA’s plan is or what it is for? I appreciate that Bridenstine is a great cheerleader, but he’d do well to figure out some good reasons why NASA is needed and should be involved at all.
Issues about direction/capability are impacted by the OMB. That’s the real power. The biggest part Congress plays is protecting Centers and Sr. government employees who competence it seems is destined to keep us on or near earth. Some in congress see that as the way you protect jobs (if a Sr. NASA employee looks bad, NASA looks bad and yes, that’s nuts). But in the end, that unrestricted protection feeds a cancer on the NASA work force that will one day lead to a center or two being closed (or heavily scaled back) because they wont be able to execute the mission. In some places you could argue that day has already come.The contractor failing revolves around belief any NASA lead major human space flight program will be cancelled prior to a 1st launch. Spending every dollar they can until congress ends the cash flow, regardless of results, good or bad.
Until NASA rids itself of corruption and incompetence in leadership, hold contracts to the contract and makes at least one friend in the OMB this pattern will never end.
If we ever go to Mars the mission will be led by ESA or SpaceX.
I feel your pain, Keith.
I was 5. My mother called me in from torturing insects outside to watch the landing. I lay on the rug in front of the TV and dreamed of a day of full-time human occupancy on the Moon like what we now have with the ISS.
I screamed in frustration when Skylab fell from the sky. Late night comedy joked about it, but I didn’t see the humor.
I watched in frustration at every shuttle launch as this switch, or that valve, or some sensor scrubbed launch after launch. I estimated in my head how that “routine” launch schedule could not be maintained with that vehicle and knew that something would snap.
Then I cried with the nation and with the students of a school teacher that died aboard Challenger…and named one of my daughters after her.
I gave up at the senseless, preventable, and wasteful loss of Columbia and her crew. Pres. Bush caller it quits and I didn’t care.
I joined in the frustration when NASA started building a monster to go to the Moon and refused to listen to industry folks, and their own people, who warned that Constellation wasn’t sustainable as a program.
I watched Commercial Space launch communications satellites until I got bored with it all and turned to science fiction for my space fix.
Then Obama killed the languishing Constellation program and I whined about it publicly, not for the program but for the Mars date that was erased and not replaced. I whined again when congress tried to rename Orion to that stupid name that no one remembers.
I yelled at every budget as Congress tried to kill Commercial resupply and Commercial Crew and gritted my teeth in frustration as each budget cut kicked the takeover down the calendar a little further and Congress fed the SLS coocoo with the life blood of the COTS and CCDev babies.
People call me a SpaceX fanboy. Well I’m sorry, Keith, but I am sick to death of watching the benefits of a space culture slip through the fingers of us Moon Children. It isn’t NASA’s fault, it is their masters in government, and when Congressional influence over the pace and direction of space advancements is fully replaced, and SLS and cost-plus contracting for NASA’s space flight efforts are dead and buried I will dance on their graves.