Eventually, men will return to the Moon, then proceed to the rest of the Solar System and however much of the universe can be attained within the cold equations of astrophysics. When they do, and when historians record those pioneering ventures, one can’t help but anticipate that Neil Armstrong’s first step from the Apollo capsule will be noted not as the beginning but as a scene from a disconnected prologue – like the Norse settlement in America or Hero of Alexandria’s steam engine or Charles Babbage’s proto-computer.
We sometimes ponder why those precursors led nowhere, and we have inklings of answers. Vinland was thwarted by climate change. The Hellenistic world had such a plethora of slaves that mechanical labor saving devices were economically pointless. The Babbage “difference engine” demanded not-yet-existing technical skills. What will the future see as the reason for our failure to leave Earth’s cradle after so briefly stepping out of it?
It is hardly a matter of money. For the amount spent on the useless Obama Stimulus, spread over ten or twenty years, the United States could not just establish a base on Mars but begin settling the asteroids. Nor is our society’s excessive risk aversion entirely to blame. By any reasonable measure, space travel has been quite safe. It’s true that every accident sets the program back disproportionately, but isn’t that because there is no strong desire to continue under even the best conditions? Is it really likely that we’d be a lot further along, had Challenger made its final flight safely?
It’s true that nobody has a good plan for making lots of money from space travel. That’s why private enterprise hasn’t taken over – not why the government steadily cuts NASA’s budget. Our future space historian will sniff that bureaucrats ought to have taken to heart Benjamin Franklin’s (or Michael Faraday’s) question, “What use is a newborn baby?”
It’s fatuous, too, to put great weight on choices of launch vehicles, the details of mission plans, and the like. If people wanted a thriving space program, the problems of the space shuttle would merely be an obstacle to be swept aside, not a motive for retreat.
To anyone who remembers July 20, 1969, the ensuing four decades of sloth are inexplicable, as if the sequel to Pearl Harbor had been the triumph of American pacifism. Back then, astronauts were heroes; lunar colonies were on the horizon; our children would be able to vacation on Mars.
As Jerry Pournelle put it, “I always expected to see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I’d see the last.”
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