Washington - NASA prepares to mark its 50th birthday Tuesday
in a somewhat sober mood, and even the official date for the legal
creation of the space agency - July 29 - will take a back seat to
larger celebrations planned for October.
The surviving space shuttles, now 27 years old, are to be retired
in 2010, leaving the sole transport to the International Space
station in the hands of America's erstwhile space rivals, the
Russians.
And while US President George Bush in 2004 launched a return-to-
moon plan with the idea of using Earth's natural satellite as a
launch pad for the exploration of Mars other planets, there's little
enthusiasm for such programmes in the current election campaign.
The candidates show little vision for space, the economy lacks the
money and generally, Americans' belief in the blessing of progress
and the omnipotence of technology also has slid to a new low.
Exploring space is part of the American dream, a mixture of
pioneering spirit, the pursuit of new frontiers and cool economic and
military calculations. Along the way, space travel has created modern
heroes, like the first US astronauts on the moon, a triumphant
experience in the summer of 1969 etched deeply in the memory of every
American alive at the time.
In its retrospective on the politically tumultuous year of 1968 -
when civil rights leader Martin Luther King and Senator Robert
Kennedy were murdered, and riots over civil rights and the Vietnam
War shook the country - Time magazine highlighted the one event that
warmed every American's heart and restored the feeling that the
United States could still do something right - the circumnavigation
of the moon by Apollo 8 with astronauts Frank Borman, Bill Anders and
Jim Lovell on board.
On Christmas Eve in that eventful year, millions of Americans
watched as the spacecraft circled the moon and the astronauts read
the Biblical creation story. 'In the beginning God created heaven and
earth.'
Hollywood could not have done it better.
Such belief in the future has been the guiding light of great
American moments, even though it was always clear that the space race
against the former Soviet Union was about domination of space and
planet Earth.
No one recognized Americans' deep fascination of space flight and
its mobilizing effects better than the late president John F Kennedy.
Amidst the depth of the Cold War, as Americans were still rubbing
their eyes over the Soviet launch of of the first ever satellite in
space, Sputnik, the charismatic young president restored the faith.
'We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other
things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because
that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies
and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to
accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to
win,' Kennedy said in 1962.
He called space a new frontier, well knowing that a scientific-
military complex would arise to put an astronaut on the moon and
boost the US in its struggle against the Soviets.
Seizing new ground and crossing into new frontiers are as American
as Thanksgiving turkey, whether in science and technology, art and
culture or literally in the way American settlers took over land in
the 19th century westward movement.
In fact the moon landing, with its flag-planting and patriotic
flag-saluting scene, was reminiscent of the staking-off of land in
the westward rush - but with military overtones.
The 1969 moon landing marked NASA's zenith. The drawn-out Vietnam
War, declining funds, doubt about technological progress, all eroded
the US push into space. Instead of spectacular adventures carried out
by men and women in protective space suits who dared to venture into
the icy cold of space, missions today are largely the work of robots
and laboratories.
Was it a coincidence that President Bush sought to restore the
spirit of adventure to space exploration amidst the international
threats and insecurity posed by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Bush put it in other terms, saying that the pursuit of research
and discovery was not an option that Americans choose, but a longing
etched in the human heart.
'Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once
drawn to unknown lands and across the open sea,' Bush said in 2004,
when he announced the return to the moon. 'We choose to explore space
because doing so improves our lives and lifts our national spirit. So
let us continue the journey.'
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin was more prosaic last September
when he kicked off a lecture series honoring NASA's 50th anniversary
with a speech on the role of space exploration in the global economy.
'NASA opens new frontiers and creates new opportunities, and
because of that is a critical driver of innovation,' said Griffin.
'We don't just create new jobs, we create entirely new markets and
possibilities for economic growth that didn't previously exist.'
Perhaps there will be modern heroes again if the US achieves the
goals Bush set out of reaching the moon again by 2020 and Mars by
2037.
lanceJul 23rd, 2008 - 20:36:28
Traveling to the moon was first class science. It had never been done before and the validation it provided was exceptional and life altering.
Traveling to mars is like traveling to the moon, but further. It has the earmark of the vision of Bush ... a president that has the vision of a village idiot. He ripped off an old idea, didn't understand it in the first place, and made it bigger ... just like the U.S. national debt (which is going to pass 10 trillion dollars soon!). To Bush an idea is better if it is bigger. Kill more muslims, turn covert ops into full scale war, bigger bail outs of CEOs, etc. etc. Good small ideas if implemented right, but bad big ideas. Bush definitely lacks originality. NASA taking direction from a president (any president) is a joke and always has been. They have become an engineering organization without good engineering project management, excepting a few smaller projects.
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