Gone are the inspiring images of heroic astronauts marching toward the gantry, helmets cradled in their arms and smiles on their faces. The latest portrayals of American space travel suggest it has devolved into an odd combination of futuristic trucking firms and pricey amusement park rides.
Two commercial spacecraft accidents last month raised serious concerns about private-sector space travel as well as the federal government’s broader space policy. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo disintegrated above California’s Mojave Desert on Oct. 31, killing one pilot and injuring another, just days after the liftoff explosion of Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Antares rocket on Wallops Island, Va.
Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and NASA are investigating the accidents. They will no doubt use what they learn to upgrade safety protocols and rules.
Already under scrutiny are the 1960s-vintage Russian engines used in the Orbital Sciences craft. It would seem risky to rely on an engine that old to drive out of state, let alone fly out of the atmosphere.
The accidents were reminders that space travel remains extremely dangerous even as public enthusiasm for it has slipped away with budget and program cuts.
After many years of a shuttle program that had astronauts and their guests delivering space freight while investigating such questions as the effect of weightlessness on spiders, the Obama administration decided that private companies should take over the task of hauling supplies and eventually people to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, NASA is supposed to be working on getting humans to Mars by about 2030.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution craft, which began orbiting the red planet in September, is studying how it lost most of its water and atmosphere. It is an extraordinary chance to learn what happened on Mars and perhaps apply the lessons to Earth.
However, as with the Curiosity rover, which crawls on the planet’s surface, MAVEN’s human operators are earthbound. Watching them is a lot like watching someone play a video game. The human element, along with all its emotional content, is missing.
The space program has to be about defying not just gravity, but conventional thinking. It should be about the heart as well as the mind. Those noncommercial imperatives that once fueled NASA and space exploration have faded.
Maybe it’s because science has been politicized and derided in some circles, or because Americans’ outlook has suffered under the strain of a difficult economy and fears that the next generation won’t be better off. Or maybe it’s because robots are doing what space cowboys can’t yet do. But cargo ships won’t capture the public’s imagination unless they’re laying the groundwork for brave humans to forge new paths.
(Editorial, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
(MCT Information Services)
