Miles's blog

February 20, 2012

Today is the 50^th anniversary of John Glenn’s flight as the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth.  Glenn is now 90 years old.  He is vigorous in his old age, while the space program he was such an integral part of is moribund.  Both, I suppose, are signs of the times.

According to the United States Census Bureau there are almost 2 million Americans aged 90 or older.  Over the next 40 years this population is expected to quadruple.  That means that they have been collecting Social Security and been using Medicare for 25 years.  Because over $1 trillion of the federalbudget goes to these programs, more than 30 percent, the aging of America’s population is putting a huge strain on the budget.  (Of course, you can describe this any way you want. You can say foreign wars are, or other welfare programs, or even the debt itself from interest payments.  How you describe the “burden” on the budget depends on your perspective on the importance of certain aspects of federal spending. No matter how you slice it, though, spending on old people costs a lot.)

The huge national debt has forced severe reductions in federal spending for programs other than entitlements and security.  One of the casualties of those reductions is the manned space program.  Right now America, the only country which has sent men to another celestial body and the country which pioneered virtually every significant aspect of space travel beyond merely putting a person into orbit, cannot send anyone into space.  We have to pay our former rival, Russia, to boost our astronauts to the International Space Station.  Even the lame Space Shuttle program, little more than FedEx for near-earth-orbit missions, has been eliminated.

That John Glenn has lived to see this decline is somewhat ironic.  He left the space program not long after his mission and spent several years as a U.S. Senator.  His successors on Capitol Hill have not seen fit to honor his legacy by funding manned spaceflight.  Even today’s anniversary has not been given a great deal of attention.  

NASA is not completely disbanded.  There is an active unmanned program and some people are working on futuristic plans to again send people into space for the purpose of exploration.  But I doubt I will live to see it.  Even NASA’s own website says the future includes partnering with commercial interests.  There is no talk of sending people to the moon, apparently because we have already been there.  Mars is discussed, and has been for 40 years, but there is no concrete plan, nor even any real good theory of how we can accomplish such an ambitious feat.  With the current feeling about taxes and government spending I doubt there ever will be.

One can always say we have too many problems here to waste money sending people to Mars.  I suppose if you look at everything as merely a bottom line analysis that is hard to argue with.  No one can state with certainty the tangible benefits of a space program.  Many technological advancements resulted from the space program, and a great deal of scientific information was gained, but there is no guarantee a trip to Mars would achieve anything other than the pride of having done so.  This is where the decision to reduce the manned space program is such a loss I believe.

I have blogged before about the excitement and pride of watching Americans explore space in the 1960s.  Nothing else in my lifetime has come close.  The thrills of watching men orbit the Earth, walk in space, and then land on the moon were inexplicable to those born too late to experience it.  Unfortunately, a majority of Americans fall into that category.  (If you want to get a sense of it watch the terrific HBO presentation of “From the Earth to the Moon.”) Too many of us demand the government either solve all their problems or go out of business. That leave spending for nonessestials like space exploration completely off the table.  (Did you see Santorum said he will cut $5 trillion.  Here is his list of how. There are almost no specifics, just things like “freeze wages” and “eliminate waste” and “prioritize defense spending.”  I will maybe blog about this moron in the future.  Maybe he wants to increase funding for dead baby transportation.)

America has lost its sense of wonder, its sense of adventure, its desire to do great things just for the sake of doing them.  I don’t know why President Kennedy imposed his timetable of getting a man to the moon, but that he did so speaks volumes about his, and his country’s, views of what a great country can achieve. Whatever you think of Kennedy, if nothing else admire his optimism.  When he said we will send a man to the moon before the end of the decade America had only spent 15 minutes in manned space travel.  No one knew for sure if people could survive extended periods in space, or exactly how to get to the moon and back.  And yet America devoted significant resources to doing so, and then did it.  Yes, people in America were hungry, were sick, were discriminated against, and were sent off to war.  But the vision of achieving this incredible goal did not waver.  Unfortunately, shortly after it was achieved, people lost interest, ultimately leading us to the sad state of where we are now.

So drink a toast tonight to John Glenn and what he did.  Savor for a moment the space program.  Then move on, for you have just appreciated something lost to history.