NASA scientists who will oversee the mission to Mars of two robotic rovers this summer are pioneering the next giant leap in the U.S. space program: exploration aimed at landing humans on Mars this century.
But the dark cloud cast over NASA’s manned space program after the disintegration of space shuttle Columbia, the second shuttle loss in 113 flights, makes it increasingly unlikely that anything other than machines will be going to the Red Planet, at least for the next generation. Political will has yet to be mustered as strongly as the determination of pioneering astronauts to step into the unknown.
The tragedy also further delays completion of the International Space Station, which already has been whittled down in scope, and it brings to the forefront lingering doubts about humanity’s role in space.
NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists have launched probes to every planet in the solar system except Pluto, sending back spectacular images. Probes also have been sent beyond the solar system, bearing greetings from Earth.
But in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster, humans have been tragically reminded of the risks of space travel as NASA focuses on a course that will take humans and machines deeper into space and beyond the low Earth orbit of recent missions.
There will be shuttle flights and journeys to the International Space Station. There will be robotic missions to Mars, and soon NASA plans to add a space plane that will be launched by a rocket to ferry astronauts to the space station–taking over a task that had been done by the shuttle fleet. Boeing Co. is building the X-37, a prototype for the space plane that is scheduled for its first test flight in April 2004.
This is the latest step in the evolution of NASA and the U.S. space program. Over the years, politics, economics, national defense and science have shaped space exploration–and experts believe this will always be the case.
“There isn’t and never was a singular goal,” said Bruce Murray, a professor at the California Institute of Technology who headed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena from 1976 until 1982. “There are many agendas.”
Shaped by Cold War
Murray, who co-founded the Planetary Society with the late Carl Sagan, said it was clear that the early decisions that shaped the space program were dictated by Cold War political realities.
“Clearly, the initial factor was the U.S.-Soviet rivalry and the Soviets’ early spectacular success,” he said.
But Murray said that even after the Cold War, there is still support for space exploration.
“The basis for that ended in 1990-1991 when the [Berlin] wall came down,” he said. “Here we are 12 years after the Cold War, and we are going at about the same [budgetary] pace.”
The space program’s goals and direction have changed many times since President John Kennedy set the original goal in 1961 of landing a man on the moon by decade’s end.
But despite changing directions, the country’s overall commitment to space has not flagged. And President Bush sounded that continued commitment to human space travel after the loss of Columbia.
“This course of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose. It is a desire written in the human heart,” Bush said. “We are that part of creation that seeks to understand all creation.”
There is no question about our insatiable desire to explore and migrate. The human race, according to scientists, originated in Africa millions of years ago and spread over the continents and oceans to populate the world.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll taken after the Columbia disaster found that 82 percent said they wanted manned shuttle flights to go on and 73 percent were in favor of continuing manned and unmanned missions.
But if exploration were the primary motivation for going into space, there would have been a manned landing on Mars by 1986, which NASA leaders said was possible back in the euphoric days after the moon landing in 1969.
That didn’t happen because of the program’s history of direction changes and because of political moves. A Mars landing probably won’t happen until at least 2030, if at all.
A key element that has always played a role in deciding NASA priorities is the competing agendas within the agency and the military, and among politicians and contractors who profit when missions are chosen.
Murray witnessed that when he headed the Jet Propulsion Lab, which specializes in unmanned missions to deep space. While he was director of the lab, the shuttle program attracted resources he would have liked seen used in other ways.
Shuttle was focus
“NASA’s motivation was to develop the shuttle. The shuttle was going to be the way of having access to space,” Murray said, noting that the bureaucratic power game deprived him of money he wanted for other missions.
“NASA then became opposed to these [exploration] types of missions. There was a conflict with NASA’s agenda,” he said. “The result was that we lost more than a decade of planetary exploration. We were in conflict.”
Kennedy’s reasons for emphasizing the space program were pure politics. He needed something dramatic to counter the Soviet Union’s leaps into space.
“When President Kennedy made his speech in 1961 about going to the moon, we already had the plans to do it,” said Hans Mark, a former NASA deputy director. “Then a set of political circumstances happened where it was all of a sudden possible to go ahead.
“These political circumstances happen every once in a while. That’s history,” said Mark, who teaches space engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “We have to be ready to take advantage of those circumstance to go to Mars when they occur.”
Economics always underscores decisions on space.
By 1998, the money that private companies made from commercializing space, mostly through communications satellites and launchers, reached $120 billion a year, exceeding for the first time the amount the U.S. and all other governments spent on space.
More Top Picks Dremel Digilab 3d20
$15 billion budget
In contrast, NASA’s annual budget is about $15 billion, and the shuttle and space station programs account for 40 percent of that.
Since its founding in 1958, NASA has faced two constant criticisms: Why is so much money spent in space and why do we need humans in space when robots can do the work?
NASA officials answer by pointing to new technology the space program has delivered. And, they add, for every dollar the agency spends, the federal government gets $7 in return through taxes paid by workers and private companies that profit from space technology.
As for the robot issue, humans are better than machines at finding solutions, such as correcting the myopic lens of the Hubble Space Telescope and picking up the right rocks on the moon that indicated the age of the solar system.
The presence of humans in space is important also to keeping public interest high.
“NASA can tap into the `going where no man has gone before’ idea as long as human beings are going to space,” said Alan Marcus, a professor at Iowa State University. “The phrase is not `to go where no robot has gone before.’ The space program has always had a romantic ambience about it.”
Nixon and Reagan
While all the presidents since Kennedy have supported the manned space program, only Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had an opportunity to set a new course for NASA with initiatives.
Still immersed in the Cold War, Nixon approved the shuttle program as a transportation system. After the shuttles were completed, Reagan proposed building the space station for commercial purposes. Business leaders convinced him that they needed microgravity manufacturing capability to make perfectly round ball bearings and other things that are hard to make on Earth.
Former President George Bush came the closest to making human exploration a bigger part of the space program. In 1989, he proposed the Space Exploration Initiative, which called for a return to the moon and a manned mission to Mars.
His proposal fell flat after Congress refused to fund the first planning phase.
Although President Bill Clinton didn’t make any major space initiatives, he did save the space station program when Congress threatened to cut off funds after the Soviet Union collapsed. His argument was political: Make the space station an international venture in which other nations could share some of the costs.
NASA is now left with three aging shuttles and a space station that is not scheduled to be completed until 2006, a date likely to slip by a year or more while the shuttle fleet remains grounded.
Neither the shuttle nor the space station is fulfilling the role for which it was intended, said Howard McCurdy of American University.
The shuttles were supposed to be cheap, safe and on schedule, and instead they are expensive, unsafe and undependable, McCurdy said. They still will be in service long after they were scheduled to be replaced.
Changing intentions
The space station was supposed to be a commercial manufacturing center and a staging platform for flights to the moon, Mars and beyond, McCurdy said. The commercial aspect flopped and Congress eliminated the staging platform, he said.
Cal Tech’s Murray was involved in the early planning of the space station and opposed the idea of using it to manufacture things in zero gravity, arguing that technology changes so fast that NASA would be required to constantly upgrade equipment.
“The early ideas were simplistic,” he said.
Edward Stone, JPL director from 1991 until 2001, said tight budgets during his term were part of the “faster, cheaper, better” policy promoted under NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.
“We were launching a lot more missions,” said Stone, a professor at Cal Tech. “There were just not enough resources to avoid mistakes.
“But NASA’s job is to push the frontiers,” he added.
The Columbia disaster showed that most Americans understand there are great risks to the manned space program. The USA Today poll found that 94 percent of the respondents said they were deeply upset, but 71 percent said they believed such accidents were bound to happen.
“We’re going to continue to expand in space,” said Jerry Grey, director of science and technology policy for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
“The human race doesn’t stop. It doesn’t turn around and go back,” he said. “We expanded on Earth when we could. We went into the sky. We went down to the ocean. Space is unquestionably the next frontier, and people recognize that now.”
– – –
What’s on NASA’s horizon
The agency’s top projects for the near future fall into three categories — shuttle missions, Mars exploration and the advancement of flight technology.
SHUTTLE JOURNEYS TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Time frame: Under review after Columbia disaster
Purpose: Finish assembly of station NASA has planned 24 more trips to the International Space Station. The next seven would finish assembly of the station’s core.
The first had been scheduled for March on the shuttle Atlantis but is under review. It would have exchanged crews and delivered supplies, experiments and a new piece for the station’s exterior, a stowage platform.
ROBOTIC MISSIONS TO MARS
Time frame: Launches scheduled May 30 and July 12
Purpose: Search for traces of water on Mars.
Two 400-pound robot vehicles will explore the planet’s surface through at least May 2004. The rovers are equipped with mastmounted cameras, microscopic imagers, spectrometers and a robotic arm.
Further plans for Mars: Include a more powerful orbiter to comb the planet’s surface for signs of water (2005) and a mobile laboratory that could avoid hazards and study difficult-to-reach sites (as early as 2009).
More Top Picks Saccadic Dysfunction Explained For Parents
THE X-37 SPACE PLANE
Time frame: In development by Boeing Co. since July 1999. The first is expected to be test-flown in April 2004. Orbital flights are planned for 2006 to test its ability to re-enter the atmosphere and land.
Purpose: To develop better and cheaper technologies for spaceflight.
The reusable aircraft attempts to move beyond the shuttle’s technology. It would be half the shuttle’s length, better armored against intense heat and able to fly up to 25 times the speed of sound. A shuttle or disposable rocket would carry it into orbit.
Sources: NASA, Flight International