With the end of the shuttle program we no longer have the means to put Americans into space. There may be plans to do so in the future…I dunno.
This bugs me at some low-annoyance level. For the first time in almost 60 years, we have little kids growing up with no aspirations to be an astronaut.
Does this signal the end of the age of exploration? Have we reached our limit? Do we no longer have faith in technology and our ability to extend our reach?
Some kids may have still have the aspiration to be an astronaut. They’re just slightly more likely to never see their dream realized.
Anyway, I agree with you. I like the idea of sending humans to space.
I’d say it’s more like private enterprise is moving into the space business while government is getting out of it. In the long run this is probably for the best; the “mission” paradigm of space exploration has arguably delayed, not promoted, expansion into space. A government bureaucracy subject to politics and having its funding reviewed every few years hasn’t worked out that well. Especially, private ventures seem to be looking towards establishing an infrastructure in space that will make exploration to the Moon, Mars and earth-crossing asteroids far more sustainable.
I was a big fan of the space shuttle program for purely selfish reasons, but it was an enormous boondoggle. I think each mission cost something like $500 million. It never achieve the initial promise of being a cheap way of getting people and stuff into space. So if these private companies can launch stuff more cheaply, more power to them.
For what it’s worth, there are such plans that are currently in progress.
First, there’s Commercial Crew, where NASA is going to buy relatively cheap rides to the Space Station from Boeing and SpaceX. That program is still in development, but well underway. First manned test flights are expected late next year, after which there will be regular flights to the International Space Station.
Second, there’s the Space Launch System, and the Orion manned spacecraft. Unfortunately it seems to be shaping up as a gigantic boondoggle, with the first unmanned mission planned for 2018, and the first manned mission planned for 2023. Meanwhile, Congress continues to direct NASA to spend billions on development, but isn’t providing the funding for any actual missions for the rocket.
Yes. It made me sad to an unbelievable degree.
It ended an era with Apollo rockets, Ravell model kits of moon landers, and big appliance cartons (with holes cut out, so you could see solar eclipses safely).
Maybe if China lands on the Moon Congress will see things differently.
Only for the United States. There are other countries that still have manned space programs or are developing them.
The International Space Station is still up there, and people are still going to it. Just not via the US Space Shuttle program any more. So the dream of going into space is still a viable one - in fact, more viable than it was 20 years ago.
Another reason to enroll my five-year-old in Mandarin classes!
IMHO unmanned space probes and research satellites are extremely worthwhile projects, but manned space flight is just a kind of dumb circus. Adding humans to a space project makes it vastly more expensive and mostly limits it. Having a Space Shuttle project to serve the Space Station, and a Space Station project to justify the Space Shuttle, is a great example. I really enjoyed watching the Apollo program because the technology and imagination was fascinating, but that’s not the same thing as it having a deeply valid purpose.
'Course, that’s just an opinion.
Absolutely. One of the few things the government does I supported.
We landed on the moon in 1969. It is a national disgrace that we do not have a functioning base on the moon today.
I disagree with that last part there. I think Mars exploration has been severely hampered by lack of actual human beings on the actual planet.
Obviously there’s problems to solve (eg how to prevent humans from getting irradiated on the long journey to and from Mars), but right now we’ve got these little rovers that can dig a few centimeters into the soil.
A single human being with a shovel could collect many samples from deep underground and, before cooking the sample for chemical analysis, take a look at it under a microscope.
One must have priorities!
For example, these days it seems airport security is more important than manned space missions.
If you can’t afford something, then best to not buy it - something many American people do not seem to understand.
Well, we still have an astronaut program and our astronauts still go to space and I’m sure every one of our astronauts, and astronauts from other nations will tell you they grew up dreaming about being an astronaut. It’s an almost impossible dream for most people, like growing up to be president or hugely wealthy or something, but it’s still possible and some kids do still grow up dreaming about it.
Today, we have Elon Musk openly talking about colonizing Mars, so kids can still dream. SpaceX hasn’t sent up any humans yet, but it’s looking pretty good.
So, NASA’s manned space program isn’t dead, it just sucks. Manned space exploration in general, isn’t dead and it seems to be slowly picking up speed again.
Nope. Arguably the moon landing had worthwhile political results. Since then it’s been a waste of money and human lives. I don’t want manned space exploration to end, but until it produces some value it should be left to private enterprise to make it work.
The airline industry is an example of an industry that wouldn’t have gotten off the ground, so to speak, or would have taken much longer to get off the ground without the government and military funding the heck out of it and NASA is still funding new aircraft technology they will just give to private industry if it works.
For example: http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-begins-work-to-build-a-quieter-supersonic-passenger-jet
Bigelow Aerospace wants to put habitable space habitats in orbit but they basically bought the technology as is, dirt cheap from NASA.
I’m sure there are lots of so-called private industries that wouldn’t have gotten going without the government seeing some potential and funding it. SpaceX would be nowhere without govt. funding. Private space companies are never going to develop or colonize space without govt. support.
In the 60s, we implemented Medicare, the War on Poverty, the war in Vietnam and went to the moon simultaneously. We can do a lot of things, if we really want to.
I wonder if this generation feels about the Apollo program the way we feel about the Egyptian pyramids – that we can’t fathom how such a primitive people could manage something so big. We went to the moon with less computing power than you carry in your pocket. That can’t be possible.