We May Never Have a "Land on the Moon" Moment Again

As society is willing to take fewer and fewer risks, can we make great strides and advances?

Published on July 13, 2005 By Zoomba In Current Events

Today, the space shuttle Discovery was supposed to take off, marking the return to flight for NASA after nearly 2 and a half years following the Columbia disaster. It was scrubbed however due to a faulty fuel sensor.

I can understand the desire to make sure everything is 100% a-ok, but this is a piece of a larger puzzle we've seen NASA put together over the past 20 or so years. A shift from exploration and experimentation to that of safety and reliability. It makes me wonder if we'll ever see a radical leap like we did with the Apollo program in the 1960s. We went from not having squat in space, to planting a man on the Moon in under 10 years. It was an amazing feat, and advance in technology and science such that we've never seen before, and perhaps even since.

The space program has always been about huge risks. Air Force test pilots were the first ones to go into space. It's always been a matter of sitting on a tin can that was tossed into space by several tons of high explosives. Reentry has always been a tricky matter. Space is not "safe" not by a long shot. This was understood and because of that it used to be that risks were able to be taken in the process. Now, we're so afraid of making an error, any error, that we sit and do nothing at all out of fear.

We haven't been back to the Moon in years
We dabble with the space station but haven't done much significant with that in a while, and now that it's starting to fail it doesn't look like we're willing to put something new up.
We went 2 and a half years with no shuttle flights, and for a period it looked like we were close to scrubbing the shuttle program entirely until a new vehicles was designed, tested and put into production, something that could have taken us decades to do.

What happened to our sense of adventure? Our need to explore and conquer the unknown? We've become so afraid of risk, so afraid of failure that we won't even try. Everything you buy comes covered in safety labels and warnings because someone somewhere thinks we need to live in a soft padded world where nothing can hurt us. Risk is unacceptable to society now. Change involves risk, and change is a necessary thing in a society. Our fear of risk is going to impede change and may help lead to stagnation.

Great strides and advances have always involved risk. Nothing great is achieved without the possiblity of something going horribly wrong.

Comments (Page 1)

bakerstreet

on Jul 13, 2005

There will be a house cleaning soon. Between Rutan's efforts and the Chinese pushing hard into space, we can't let it stop. There's already talk about Conquering the LaGrange Points before the Chinese do. It's easy to forget that we are pretty much helpless in terms of attacks from space. It's next to impossible to intercept missiles from other countries. Imagine dealing with ones coming down from space and far greater speeds, who need nothing but gravity for propulsion.

Nope, we are in the "pre-sputnik" era. Some day soon the Chinese are going to do somethign substantial that can't be ignored, and another space race will ensue.

Moderateman

on Jul 13, 2005

nothing like some in your face DEATH to make the sissies come out, all great discoveries {most} came at great risk.

Zoomba

on Jul 13, 2005

Yeah, I'm not trying to minimize the deaths that have occured in the push into space, but I don't think those who died would want to see the effort stalled or even slowed down because of it.

Baker - I think you may be right, another reason I think our space program may be stalling is because we have no competition, and Americans really only truely shine and excel when they're in competition with someone. Once we win and control a market or technology, we tend to become complacent because it's been conquered, it's boring. As bad as it sounds, China militarizing space would probably be the best thing immaginable for the efforts of getting humans into space again, to exploring and perhaps colonizing the moon, or mars, or who knows what else. The Cold War was amazing for us in terms of science and technology.

bakerstreet

on Jul 13, 2005

Beyond that, we can't seem to make a "sale" to legislators that the space program is worth money unless we can show some tangible need. Frankly, I think a big 'ole Chinese, satillite-killing space station is food for research.

We park our military GPS and communications satillites up there like they are safe in heaven, but if they are threatened I think it will help the Intelligence committee light a fire under some of the more fiscally conservatives members of Congress.

Shiggoth

on Jul 13, 2005

This article reminds me of a novel by Stephen Baxter called "Manifold:Time"

It addressed the bureaucratic NASA vs. the bootstrap-startup space entrepreneur.
One of the plot bits that stuck with me was his plan to snag metallic asteroids as
well as giant blobs of fresh water, sending them into orbit about Earth.

Fiction - and a bit unwieldy later in the novel, but I wanted to share an alternative
to nationalistic/militaristic motivations for 'conquering' space.

Larry Kuperman

on Jul 13, 2005

In the Sixties, American space initiatives were pushed by competition with Russia, then the USSR. Look at our first manned flight for example. Without that competitive push, it is hard to motivate and justify costs.

Phoenixboi

on Jul 13, 2005

There was one significant risk today that was not mentioned to the main public. he sun has in the last couple of days let off a few M class flares which have triggered solar storm conditions here on earth. So this is a significant risk for damage to the shuttle and to the people on board.

I think they are being wise to hold off for this one. Another major disaser would be I think too much to handle after the last one.

ParaTed2k

on Jul 13, 2005

I am glad they scrapped this one, 3 repairs before the shuttle has even moved it evidence that the thing isn't ready to fly. However, I agree with you on your assessment of the space program. It sickens me to think that, in the 60s we had multistage rockets, in the late 70s the Shuttle was created and sent to space. Now it is 2005 and we are still using what amounts to 70s technology.

As for why we haven't moved foreward.... Comfort and convenience. We got comfortable at the top and it just wasn't convenient to continue to move foreward. Comfort and convenience are as caustic to human progress as any acid or base is to the human body.

-----

on Jul 13, 2005

I agree, if we want to put a base on the moon and mars...we need to get our buts in gear...yet, saftey is essential...i mean we don't want our astronauts to get half way and die in the space shuttle because we were not safe enough...

terpfan1980

on Jul 13, 2005

Honestly, the problem isn't so much the legislators, it's the citizenry....

The legislators need some massaging to get interested, true, but if the space program is pushed the way it was in the 60's -- as a high tech jobs program, then it's not that tough a sale.

The problem is we spend such a very tiny amount of our GDP on Space and Aeronautic engineering that it's pathetic. We have only a few companies left that really do any aerospace engineering and building. You can count the companies on a hand really. Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrup Grumman and not much else really.

We need to do better, but we need someone that can pull a JFK type speech off and really convince the public that we have to do it.

As you all note, if it becomes a race between us and China, then we may get interested enough to really do something again, but otherwise, it's sadly probably a lost cause, as we remain behind in our need to replace the shuttles, and our need to develop space craft that can take us to Mars or beyond.

bakerstreet

on Jul 13, 2005

"Honestly, the problem isn't so much the legislators, it's the citizenry...."

You really think so? So far as I can tell, I don't know anyone that thinks we should cut money for space exploration. most people I know lament that we don't spend more. The only people that I hear complain about it are Senators on pundit shows who lump NASA in with farm subsidies and PBS.

MasonM

on Jul 13, 2005

I think a big issue regarding safety is the fact that every accident endangers the life of the space program itself. I believe in some ways NASA is acting in survival mode for fear of the program being shut down completely due to yet another fatal accident.

I seriously doubt the space program will really advance much beyond what it is now until better technology is developed. Let's face it, we are still relying on what amounts to Wile Coyote on an ACME rocket. If our ships are so poorly constructed that a plastic panel falling off can do serious damage to the outer skin, something is terribly wrong with our Mickey Mouse space ship construction.

It's true that in the early days of the space program there was that pioneering spirit. It was all very new and exciting. We should have moved past that by now and into building reliable, sturdy ships reasnably capable of surviving space flight without fear of pieces falling off. Come on, if you bought a car and pieces started dropping off of it, how would you feel about it? If we can build cars and aircraft that can remain in one piece for millions of hours of use, why can't we build a space ship to do likewise?

If one can come up with a profit to be made from space flight, private industry will show NASA the right way to build a reliable space vehicle.

Zoomba

on Jul 14, 2005

We're already seeing private industry stepping up to the plate and working to advance space flight and turn it into a more reliable and safe mode of transportation. This is where innovation is going to come from in the future I feel.

The big problem is that space became boring to the American public after we landed on the moon. No one cares unless something blows up, and when that happens we're outraged and such and start talking about the whole thing being a waste of money. We're working off of two sticks of dynamite, a rubber band and an ACME brand parachute because we can't generate the interest to back decent research and development of alternatives. We should have been working on a shuttle replacement as soon as the Challenger went up in flames. Instead we wait 20 years for another disaster and even then we don't have anything far enough along to consider it anything but a "neat idea"

We're still in our very very early stages of space exploration, we know so little about what goes on up there we aren't yet to the point where our focus should shift to reliable and reusable, we still need to be out there on experimental craft, trying out new things to figure out what really actually works. Sadly, interest is so low right now and funds so tight, NASA can't even keep old projects running, let alone start new ones. We have probes finally nearing the absolute edge of our Solar System, they cost a few million a year to read the data from and keep in communication, these devices lasted way longer than expected and they're about to return to us data we've only ever theorized about. We stand to LEARN so much from these missions now, but in the interest of cash, they may be shut down.

We just don't know enough yet, and if we treat this like a commercial airline with safety and litigation issues, it'll take us ages to advance. We need cowboys up there again, we need something to revitalize our drive into space. We've got a limited amount of space here on Earth, a limited amount of resources but an ever growing number of people. Out there is an entire Universe untapped. Out there we may find others like us. We don't know.... But in the long-run, it's something we need to find out.

And if for nothing else, we should want to keep at it just for the sake of new knowledge.

MasonM

on Jul 14, 2005

I suspect as soon as our probes provide enough data to verify profitable mining prospects private industry will be building very reliable and resusable ships. While I would like to say that it will get done in the interest of scientific knowledge I think we all know that greed is the primary motivator that will actually get it done.

Dr Guy

on Jul 14, 2005

Nope, we are in the "pre-sputnik" era. Some day soon the Chinese are going to do somethign substantial that can't be ignored, and another space race will ensue.

I think the death of the USSR and now cooperation between the 2 major participants in the original race kind of killed the race aspect of it. But I think if we are to push farther out, it will be prodding by the Chinese that does it.

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