We had a really good run in space over that last 50 years. In that span we put the first American in space, landed on the moon 6 times (allegedly) and built a space station the size of a football field. All of this was accomplished by nearly 150 manned missions which cost the lives of 17 brave astronauts who dared to believe that what they were doing was important enough for them to risk their lives in the first place. September 16th of this year will mark the last manned space flight launch in the United States.
Today, the president unveiled his budget which effectively cut the Space Shuttle’s replacement, aka The Constellation Program, as well as offering up no other plan for the future. Their goal is to have private companies pick up the slack and in the meantime have the Russians launch all astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The private contractors, by the way, are at about the same technological place that NASA was back in the early 1960’s. We are effectively starting over except this time billions and billions of government dollars will not be behind any advancement. Private capital will have to fill the void.
The trouble is, manned space flight is not currently at a point where is will be profitable to launch humans into space. Let alone in the private sector. The result of which means that in reality, we will most likely not have a manned space flight launch into Low Earth Orbit for a good amount of time. I am talking about decades here folks. Where once it seemed like a human landing on Mars was only 10 years away now seems like it will be more than a century, at least for the United States, that is. Russia and China have both stated Mars to be a human destination for them and are pursuing it rigorously. Unfortunately, the reality of this kick in the ass will probably be the only thing that revitalizes America’s desire to go back into space.
The trouble is that many people simply got bored with NASA over the past 20 years. Space travel became routine and it seemed that only disaster was able to capture the attention of the US citizens. Most people out there will probably not even realize that we will no longer have a manned space program. Even fewer will care. NASA has done a piss poor job of letting the public know about all the good work it has done over the years. We are all going to live longer and healthier lives as a result of all the advancement that has come out of the space program. It truly saddens me that people have become so apathetic about one of the things America does best.
It will be strange living in a world where we tell our children: “Hey, look up there, that is outer space. We used to go there and it was awesome. Now we don’t.” In all honesty, I REALLY hope that the Chinese and Russians stay on track and have successful manned space programs. It will just be a shame that those other countries will be on the leading edge of understanding and exploring the universe instead of us. I hope I will be able to make time to head out to Cape Canaveral, Florida to witness one of the final 5 launches of the greatest space program in the history of mankind. And hopefully I will look back on this blog post in 10 years and laugh at just what the hell I was thinking.
*Quick Note* I don't really like talking about politics since it is generally redundant talking about it with people who have philosophical differences with the way you think. But the simple fact is that the numbers don't lie. This year, we bailed out banks to the tune of almost 1 trillion dollars. The entire budget alone for this year is some 3 trillion dollars. The entire budget for all of NASA? 18 billion dollars. That's less than .6% of the entire United States budget. So if this decision isn't about the money, the only other thing it could be is simply lacking the desire to do it anymore. I can only imagine what kind of world we would live in today if Spain had decided not to fund Columbus' trip back in 1492. Ok ya, that turned out to be a little bit longer than a quick note.
