Fly Me to the Moon
What a difference a half-century makes. Eleven years after NASA was founded to prevent Soviet dominance of outer space, man was walking on the Moon. One might’ve thought we would continue on from there to Mars, the asteroids, and, as posited in various sci fi series from the 1960’s such as Lost in Space and Star Trek, be on our way to the stars, perhaps even by the 1990’s. Instead, we haven’t even been back to the Moon in over thirty years. All my generation has had to “inspire” us is the space shuttle.
The space shuttle is wack.
And that makes it triply cool that now NASA is planning to go back to the Moon, colonize it, and eventually send people to Mars by 2030.
The Constellation program could well be considered the most ambitious undertaking in human history, but according to a recent report on CBS’s 60 Minutes, it could be under threat by budget cutters who don’t see the point in sending people to Mars when our budget scenario is so precarious:
Constellation is a tempting target in a difficult economy. The money squeeze is the main reason why the U.S. won’t set foot on the moon until 2020. A Mars landing won’t take place until about 2030. To defray costs for the trip to Mars, NASA may need an international partner. If it’s up to Congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., who tried to halt the Mars program, Americans won’t be part of any human missions to the planet. So what does he have against Mars?
“I don’t have anything against a lot of things I don’t wanna spend hundreds of billions of dollars on,” says Rep. Frank. “Sending human beings there for the sole purpose of proving that we can do it and bringing them back requires an enormous amount of money at a time when we have a serious deficit, when we are not adequately funding a lot of very important needs right here at home.”
He has something of a point. The endeavor probably isn’t, shouldn’t and won’t be something that is undertaken solely by the United States. Instead, for financing and advancement, it probably makes sense for Constellation to look to the model of the International Space Station, which started off as a purely American enterprise, but came to garner the participation of dozens of nations. Exploring space should be something that humankind undertakes together. As we attempt to write the next chapter in human history, we should have a sense of being one people looking to extend our reach beyond this fragile world.
60 Minutes video here.
