The purpose of the space shuttle was to transition our man in space
activity away from ambitious interplanetary development schemes to
general disillusionment with space travel and spread the gospel of the
ultimate futility of interplanetary development, with its basic tenets
marginalized by science fiction and ufo cultism.
Where would aviation be without heavier than air aircraft following
the Hindenberg disaster? and the Shenandoah crash? What if there
were a genre of literature dedicated to fantastical tales of a future
air age, complete with gremlins, trolls and angels beyond the clouds
and air admirals riding shotgun over Earth?
We'd still be using steamships to cross the Atlantic and anyone
proposing air travel as a practical possibility would be viewed as the
very definition of crank or worse.
So, without large reusable heavy lift launchers, without nuclear
thermal rockets, we are stuck with the modern day equivalent of
dirigibles which after decades of use dispel any notion of practical
commercial space development and are only waiting for a disaster big
enough to end public enthusiasm once and for all.
Which was its job from the outset.
We had the means to travel to mars in the 1960s, we merely elected not
to puruse it. Why? Because it would inspire the American public to
irrationally support the enlargement of a costly and endless space
development effort that paid no dividends (in the view of the decision
makers) to the American public, exposed our best rocket and nuclear
technologies to public scrutiny, flew in the face of missile and
nuclear prolifaration goals, distracted us from our Cold War efforts
and military obligations, gave rise to crazy 'one world' and
'planetary' notions that were anti-national and pro-communist (in the
view of the decision makers) and ultimately had the potential of
creating a military capability off-world that would one day turn
against the United States and be beyond the United States to do
anything about (just like the US turned against Britain eventually and
kicked their butts in world war two)
For all these reasons, JFK had to be stopped, and the program he
saddled this nation with would be brought down and forgotten over
time.
A week after the assasination LBJ and McNamara reviewed the moon
program budget for 1964 and radically reduced the size and scope of
Apollo, and ended any plans to flight test more visionary programs
like Rover. By 1967 when it was clear we would beat the Russians to
the moon, the budget was cranked down dramatically. It stayed in free
fall until after the moon landings. After Nixon organized a Space
Task Group that chaired by Spiro Agnew to look at the future of Space
travel after the moon landing. NASA came up with a laundry list.
Nixon said pick one item on that list. They picked the Shuttle as the
first step promsing radical cost reductions. The Shuttle got funded,
but not without getting a huge makeover by the Airforce that
dramatically increased development cost with wings engines and tiles
it didn't really need and the Army, that mandated SRBs which were
dangerous and low performing, in lieu of a fully reusable first stage,
increased operating costs. While the shuttle was funded, needed
infrastructure and support equipment was ignored - so flight costs
were very high, reducing flight rates, which further increased costs
above projections. This 'missed target' was used to lambast NASA and
every loss, accident, and mishap has been used to call for the ending
of man in space as a useless waste - from Apollo one onward. One day,
without a clear compelling vision, with only marginalizing chatter,
and with no clear technical or scientific basis supporting them - the
dream of space travel will end - leaving the high frontier of low
Earth orbit to NSA and NRO.
Which is how certain types wanted it from the very beginning.
Had we stuck with the Saturn V and invested money in launch
infrastructure and streamlining the handling of vehicles and
propellants, we could have lowered costs.
Had we a phased approach to making the Saturn V reusable, starting
with the first stage - making that a flyback booster - testing the
concept with a flyback titan - space access would be dramatically
reduced in cost. The money saved would be spent on payloads.
Had we stuck with the Rover program, we would have had a nuclear
thermal upper stage flying by the time we landed on the moon. That
stage, combined with increased spending on payloads, would have put a
Skylab type module on the surface of the moon and powered it, and we
wuold have had a moon -base at Tranquility by 1972.
Apollo 12 landed within 100 yards of Surveyor 3 on Oceanus
Procellarum in 1969, two years after the robot spacecraft touched down
on the moon, which demonstrated the feasability of supplying a lunar
base.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...adSurveyor.jpg
What would this path have given us? For the same money spent on
Shuttle, by 1980s we would have had a human presence on the Moon equal
to that of Little American in Antarctica, and in the 1980s,
Americans would likely have been as enthusiastic about that, as they
were about Polar Exploration in the 1920s. Funding would not have
been a problem for NASA in this situation. We would have been well
situated with experience of long term habitation on the moon, and
nuclear thermal rockets, to travel to Mars any time between 1972 and
1980. Who knows where that would have eventually led us? Setting up
a base on Mars is very similar ot setting up a base on the moon, once
the transfer times are taken into account. We likely would have had a
'little America' on Mars, and be thinking bigger thoughts.. The
amount of time the coed crews spent in transit on these longer
journeys would have likely ended up in some powerful reflection and
experiences that would have given us new insights in the 1990s that
cannot be predicted -except to say they'd be transformative of our
entire global culture. Such transforming universal visions of human
experience, would likely have communicated and motivated folks who are
now motivated by lesser visions - and likely have avoided our present
war on terror.
The 24 astronauts who visited the moon in the 20th century, had their
share of modern day shamans - which is at once amazing and
frightening.
Alan Bean trained himself to be a professional artist to capture the
emotion of his journey and to create a permanent record of his
achievements. He had this idea one day when he was visiting the
Louvre, and wondering about how the future would regard his mission.
He realized that the paintings he was looking at were hundreds of
years old. He felt it important to create an artistic record of the
journey. That's what he did.
Edgar Mitchell, taking star sightings with an Astrolabe on his return
from the moon on Apollo 14 had an epihanny while staring into the
milky-way with a low power telescope flying above the moon. When he
returned to Earth, he founded the Noetic Institute in an effort to
develop and understand his insight.
Other astronauts joined religious orders. Still others were treated
for what were termed mission related psychological difficulties.
This from a population of 24 hard-boiled fighter jock scientists.
What would be the artistic, religious and philisophical insights of a
generation of astronauts with hundreds working and living on the
moon? We can only imagine the impact by noting that a single picture
of the planet Earth snapped above the moon by Frank Borman Christmas
1968 electrified and transformed the world, giving rise to the
popularity of the environmental movement, the gaia hypothesis and idea
of the Earth as one place with common problems and common solutions
that all of us have to work together to figure out.
The power of that image motivated people like Carl Sagan to take a
picture of Earth from Voyager's perspective beyond Jupiter. This was
opposed for decades, until, finally, Carl, dying from Lukemia, and
pulling out all stops, got permission to take a picture fo Earth from
the Oort Cloud. At that distance, the Earth wasn't even a pixel size
- it slightly brightened a single pixel. He tells the story in his
last book, Pale Blue Dot.
As the specialist said in their once classified briefing documents -
anti-national ideas that did not benefit the United States and would
benefit the communists - our sworn enemy at that time - must be
supressed.
Get a clue people. Eisenhower was advised that the National Academy
of Sciences should operate as a board directing NASAs strategic
direction and growth - a Space Council that recieves a set amount of
funding each year for five or ten year terms. Eisenhower ignored
this. Why? Because such a well reasoned strategic development of
space capabilities would lead to growth, achievement, excitement, more
public money, greater public enthusiasm without end. Who knew where
it would take us? Eisenhower felt it would take us into bankruptcy.
Kennedy felt it would take us to where we needed to be in the 21st
century. Eisenhower, Nixon and LBJ all felt that JFK was an
impractical playboy who never had to balance a budget, and he would
lead this nation to economic, political and military ruin.
Does anyone know where the phrase - to boldly go where no man has gone
before - came from?
It did not come from Gene Roddenberry.
I will give the pointer to the source to anyone who asks.