We Don't Have The Right Stuff Anymore

You older readers will recall President John F. Kennedy's stirring speech to Congress on May 25, 1961.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior.

By the end of the 1960s, America did land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. When Stanley Kubrick made 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, voyages to Jupiter 33 years later did not seem so far fetched. For an Empire at the height of it's power, anything seemed possible. There were many back then who thought we'd have a permanent Moon Base and a spectacular Space Station orbiting the Earth 43 years later in 2010. Perhaps we would be terraforming Mars or mining hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon Titan. Literally, the sky was the limit.

There is no more powerful symbol of our Decline than the disgraceful mess at NASA today. All of our best achievements were in the past. And there they will stay, never to be resurrected again. I woke up yesterday morning to this from my local "newspaper" the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 

NASA's $9.4 billion mission to nowhere leaves staff bewildered

Monday, March 29, 2010

By Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Anyone need a $500 million, 355-foot steel tower for launching rockets into space?

There's one available at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Never been used.

The mobile launcher has been built for a rocket called the Ares 1 [mock-up left]. The problem is, there is not yet any such thing as an Ares 1 rocket — and if the Obama administration has its way, there never will be.

President Barack Obama's 2011 budget kills that rocket, along with the rest of NASA's Constellation program, the ambitious back-to-the-moon effort initiated under President George W. Bush.

People around the Cape Canaveral were shocked when they heard the news last month. They were already facing the imminent retirement of the aging space shuttle and the likelihood of thousands of layoffs in the contracting corps, but many hoped to find a Constellation job, stay on site and essentially just switch badges.

Now suddenly, they're looking at no shuttle, no Ares 1, no NASA-owned spaceship of any kind in the near future. American astronauts for years to come will hitch rides to space on Russian rockets.

"It's almost like losing manned space flight," said Michele Kosiba, 44, a quality inspector for United Space Alliance.

People are dismayed and bewildered. Mr. Obama has gotten the message and will fly to the Kennedy Space Center on April 15 to hold a space conference and a town hall meeting. He is certain to point out that his budget actually boosts funding for NASA. The new NASA strategy shifts the task of launching astronauts to low Earth orbit from traditional government contracts to commercial contracts. If the private sector can create a taxi to space, NASA can focus on new technologies and longer journeys in the solar system...

Lot's of people are puzzled, or even angry, when I characterize America as an Empire. There is more emotional confusion when I state that it is a Declining Empire. It helps to be older. It definitely helps to know some history. In the 1950s and the 1960s, America had The Right Stuff. 

We don't have The Right Stuff anymore.

Comments

[Fred]

We have the Left Stuff.