Lost In Space

Last week, NASA’s Atlantis safely returned its crew to Earth – the last of 135 missions of a Space Shuttle program that began in 1981, and the last of our country’s manned space missions currently scheduled. This news brought back a boatload of memories.

As a kid who wanted to design “stuff for the future,” the NASA programs – Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle — were like an intergalactic candy store. Sure, there were political reasons that the United States was involved in space exploration – couldn’t let the Russians get there first – but as a kid, I didn’t really understand or care about that. My thoughts centered almost exclusively on how cool it was going to be to work on the Moon, and to be part of a never-ending series of missions to explore Mars, Jupiter, and the coolest of all…Saturn. The excitement, the anticipation — what an incredible feeling for a kid! And most of the other kids also shared these feelings. The passion was unbelievable. (When I occasionally see that kind of passion and enthusiasm in a young person today, it makes everything feel right – like somehow everything’s gonna be just fine.)

Now, couple all the moon shots, satellite launches, shuttle missions and the like with movies like Star Wars, tours of the Kennedy Space Center and places like Disney World, and the “Optimism Meter” blew through the roof. (Bet I’ve been on the Carousel of Progress at Disney World a couple of hundred times, staring at the incredibly life-like scenes of people living in the “future.” Space Mountain? Maybe three hundred times.)

Unfortunately, real life isn’t Disney.

Somehow, over the years, between the politics, the economic ups and downs, and all the other things going on in the world, the American drive for leadership in space got watered down. Currently, NASA has no plans for manned space exploration. Sure, there’s still the International Space Station, but its original purpose of being a “bus stop” for planetary exploration missions was changed long ago, and we now have to rely on other countries to taxi our scientists there. Then there’s the Mars Rover, the Hubble Telescope, several unmanned data-gathering projects, and even an upcoming launch, in 2016, of a craft to gather pieces of an asteroid and bring them back for study.

But nobody living or working on the Moon…or Mars. Politics suck.

True to the American entrepreneurial spirit, there are serious efforts in the private sector to continue to penetrate outer space with manned flights. One company, Virgin Galactic, www.virgingalactic.com, has aggressive plans to provide those with a great deal of desire to ride in outer space (and a great deal of cash) a means to do so. Other companies are formulating plans to provide shuttle services to and from the space station. The time, the risks and the investments required to successfully accomplish these efforts seem to be astronomical (no pun intended, but made me chuckle). No doubt, our government using what was once perceived to be almost unlimited funds (i.e. your tax dollars) probably made at least the investment part a whole lot easier. I absolutely have to applaud the fact that there are still those who will continue to carry on the original innovative spirit — the need to explore – even if for profit.

And although a little bit of youthful spark was extinguished last week, an adult fire again gets refueled, especially when I hear someone say, “what the hell…we can do it ourselves.”