And lo, the vultures circle

[khaosworks]

Already we're getting articles about why we're still sending men and women into space if it's so dangerous. I won't quote Gus Grissom's views about the risk of life again, but here's a comment I left on sdelmonte's LJ in reply to this entry which I think bears saying (edited for minor typos):

There is a school of thought which says that manned spaceflight doesn't make sense and is inherently wasteful, and the money is better spent on scientific research of space than on high profile projects like the ISS which accomplish little but make people feel good. This school of thought also argues that telepresence and robotic probes are the way to go and NASA should concentrate its efforts on more efficient heavy lifting capabilities rather than feelgood missions. I can see their point to a certain extent - dreams don't pay for themselves, and if space travel to low earth orbit and beyond is ever to get anywhere to a point where it becomes as routine as a cargo plane taking off from one continent to another, it's got to be turned into a business.

As it is, I honestly don't see what the ISS is supposed to be, other than a very expensive Spacelab. I thought that the ISS was going to be an orbital shipyard, a way for us to build spacecraft in orbit cheaply so that we could launch from orbit to deep space without the need to boost ourselves with expensive fuel out of Earth's gravity well, but I'm not sure that's at all in the specs.

However, I don't see the concepts of space as a business and manned spaceflight as incompatible. Let's face it - the glamour and mystique of the astronaut is what draws people into the space program to begin with, and that's a huge recruiting plus. What NASA really needs is a vision and a direction, something that's sorely been lacking since Apollo shut down. Someone's got to take them by the balls and say, "Look, stop wasting time - take the money, go to Mars." Or back to the Moon, or the Asteroid Belt. Right now you've got competing interests yanking NASA all over the place, you've got a standing army of thousands of personnel overseeing the Shuttle which by this time should have been reduced to a standard ground crew. I can't look at the space program now and honestly say that its current model justifies its own existence. Where are we going? Where do we want to go?

In the end, though, I think the impetus for manned exploration will win. Even if it's a compromise of send the probes out first, then send men later like we did with Apollo. As Gus Grissom also said in that famous press conference where he said that the conquest of space is worth the risk of life, "Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis only Man can fully evaluate the Moon in terms understandable to other men."

Essentially, it doesn't become real until one of us stands on the Moon, or Mars, or an asteroid, or one of the Jovian moons. Robots can show us the data, but there's little poetry in it - and the impetus to science is just as about the sense of wonder as anything out there. Dave Scott, commander of Apollo 15: "There's something to be said about exploring beautiful places... it's good for the human spirit." Dollars and cents can't take into account those intangibles, and it's those intangibles that will be ensure the future of a space program. The science is one thing, but it's not the only thing. It's also about colonization.

But Lord, we really need to get NASA's act together.

Comments

[jost.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to see the events of the past few days from my perspective. I'm not sure if you knew or not, but up until I hit a late growth spurt during my freshman year of college which left me 1/2 inch too tall for the program, I was positioning myself to join the astronaut corps. I had done Space Academy I & II, won the Right Stuff Award at II, signed up for all the right classes and even had Dick Covey (STS 51-I,STS 26, STS 38 & STS 61) send a congratulatory letter to my Eagle Scout ceremony. I don't know if I would have made it into the corps but it certainly wouldn't have been for lack of trying. This is actually my first public comment post-breakup. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. I sat on my couch watching the same footage over and over just crying like a baby. Even now as I type this I'm tearing up, but it feels good to get it out.

You would be hard pressed to find any stronger supporter of manned spaceflight than me. Hell, they could have strapped me to the outside of the shuttle on Saturday afternoon and I would have gone willingly. Even with this zeal, I think NASA, as it stands, needs to be dismantled. It was conceived at a time when jet propulsion was new and thus the scope of NASA is too broad in my opinion. I don't know the percentages but I do know that NASA's budget contains a good sum for inter-atmosphere jet and flight studies and not just supra-atmosphere research, travel and study. I think it would be in the best interest of future manned spaceflight is it were covered by a group that had the sole focus of outer space. I think we've reached a time where private enterprise will carry on atmospheric flight research on its own dime much better than NASA could. Of course, I've held this same opinion for years...

I will say that it's refreshing to see the same reverence for the space program in your posts that would be in mine. I often wonder how people in countries who have no space program of their own look upon ours and it's nice to see at least one person out there who views it as the logical extension of mankind's future.