Forty years ago tonight...

[alexpgp]

I stood on the short stairway that led from the dining room of our house to the den, where the television was, and watched Neil Armstrong step on the moon and make history.

Since the last human stepped off the moon, scientists and engineers have compiled an impressive list of achievements, certainly in the field of remote exploration and measurement, as well as in space medicine, materials science, and other areas associated with human space flight.

There are those who say the whole thing, from the time Gagarin flew, has been a waste of time, money, and resources.

I, on the other hand, believe that, in addition to the many "spinoffs" NASA likes to brag about, some of the key technologies developed for space - especially remote sensing technology - have kept everyone's ICBMs and the associated nuclear weapons developed during the weapons race of the Cold War from being used, and thus, have made said time, money, and resources an excellent investment.

Does the U.S. have a future in space? I don't know. Despite all the rhetoric, I'm pretty sure the government's going to get out of the human space flight business, though it may have to let the fish flop around on the ground for a little bit before putting it out of its misery.

In the end, I'm not sure this won't be a good thing, for if the Space Transportation System (aka, the Shuttle) has taught us anything, it is that governments tend to put all their eggs in one basket and do so exclusively for political reasons. (Heck, back in the day, I thought "beating the Russians" was the icing on the cake of exploring space and landing on the moon; government papers released since then show that, in fact, things were exactly opposite.)

And political reasons almost always run counter to reasons of economy, efficiency, and responsiveness, and thereby obtain results that aren't just less-than-optimum, but mediocre or worse. And being political, there's no feasible way to compete or to change things, except to vote the rascals out (and, by extension, your rascals in). But don't get me started.

Private enterprise - what's left of it - will step in if there's a chance to make a dollar by fulfilling a need. But as the recent housing bubble has shown, governments love to skew the economic playing field for what it perceives are desirable ends, even though the history of such manipulation is littered with some pretty spectacular failures.

In the end, tf our government places obstacles - either direct or indirect - in the way of private space flight development, I think you can expect the "language of space" to eventually become Chinese, or maybe even Russian.

Because humanity most definitely has a future in space, and I saw that first step.

Cheers...

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I saw a clip of Kennedy tonight, saying that except for beating the Russians, he didn't care about space at all. Quite different from his public statements.

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

OMG. Obama's bit from yesterday: "The president recalled that as a boy living in Hawaii, he would perch on his grandfather's shoulders and watch the space capsules land in the Pacific Ocean." Is he really that stupid?

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, except for Apollo 7 and Apollo 9, the splashdown sites were in the Pacific.

(See: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-40_Entry_Splashdown_and_Recovery.htm)

Cheers...

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

And easily visible from Honolulu...

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Watching, like, directly? Using eyeballs and no boob tube?

Ye gods.

Cheers...

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I grew up on a college campus that benefitted a great deal from the space race, in terms of the development of various engineering departments and materials research centers. The people educated there certainly didn't all go on to work in space-repated industries, but I expect that they, and those educated in other enginneering and science programs around the country that also benefitted from this, have done a lot through the years to benefit the American economy, as well as quality of life. Of course, weather and communications satellites are pretty damned useful too, just to start on something directly space-related that we depend on every day. People don't realize how much we get, partly because they know so little about science and technology*, and partly because so much has been integrated into our lives so smoothly.


*Cell phones = magic boxes, for most people, let's face it.

[skipperja.livejournal.com]

I keep reading vague comments about crashing the space station into the ocean sooner rather than later. I've wondered whether Russia or China could claim it as an abandoned vessel. Of course, they probably wouldn't have a command center set up to control it.

Interest in the human space program is certainly declining in the U.S. There were even a few people I worked with years ago who saw their NASA jobs as just a way to make money. Some even felt that the space program wasn't worth the investment. However,I was a science fiction fan from childhood and seeing those stories come to life was very fulfilling. I think the space program has been one of the great accomplishments of the U.S. Just compare it to war and weapons systems, welfare, the Interstate Highway System, and the Post Office.