The road ahead

The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on the final mission of a program that started before my daughters were born. Long before they were born. Before I was married, even. Okay, before a lot of stuff.

I grew up with the space program. And I know it’s a heart tugger for a lot of you to see manned space travel from Cape Canaveral coming to an end. I have to admit the videos of space vehicles riding their tongues of flame are stirring.

As I’ve said before, I grew up watching the NASA grow up. It was a fascinating show from start to…

There’s the rub. The finish? Not entirely – we’re still training and sending people up in Russian vehicles. Which by itself is a major victory. Considering the fact that in my lifetime the idea of Russians orbiting over our heads struck fear into the hearts of Cold War Americans, it amazes me that we share our programs now more or less seamlessly.

It’s been a long time since Americans collectively held their breath as a rocket reached for the heavens. While tragedies reminded us that the program has not been without its risks, the edge-of-the-seat wonder has long since dissipated. But that’s not a reason to stop, assuming we were getting good bang for the astronaut buck.

I’m not going to propose the end of space exploration; it’s in our nature as humans that our reach must exceed our grasp.   But reaching out these days need not include sending humans outside our atmosphere.

I’m going to be riding the bus to work for the foreseeable future. This is both a cost-saving and an ecology-preserving move on the part of my company. It’s a change I support. There’s no good reason to haul two tons of pickup with me twice a day as I teeth-grit my way through traffic. There’s just no value add to hauling Detroit around with me.

The International Space Station is a great and wondrous thing and I support crewing it while it lasts and wringing all the knowledge we can out of its unique experimental environment. It’s up there and we shouldn’t waste the opportunity it represents. Sunk costs, future value, etc. If that means paying to play, sending our astronauts up in someone else’s ride, so be it. Cheap at half the price.

What I’m less than enthralled with is the idea NASA proposes of building a next-generation crewed heavy lift vehicle. I believe there’s plenty of basic research to be conducted making best use of machines – those we have in hand and those we’ll invent. There’s no good reason to make our exploration phenomenally more expensive just so we can have a human on hand to pose for the camera. We can do more good work with less money and spend the savings on – I dunno – education?

Any future space program need not be constrained by the need to protect and nurture human occupants in our space vehicles. We should concentrate on the science instead of the Buck Rogers. Because just as I have no arguable need to carry a truck with me everywhere, our space explorers need not be burdened by taking human flesh along for the ride.