Where’s the Vision? – Letter from Carpenter, Cernan, Duke, Buckbee February 18, 2010
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Apollo 11 launch, July 16, 1969 (NASA)
Scott Carpenter flew Mercury-Atlas 7. Gene Cernan flew Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and walked the Moon on Apollo 17. Charlie Duke landed on the Moon on Apollo 16. Ed Buckbee authored “The Real Space Cowboys.”
February 15, 2010
Dear Mr. & Mrs. America:
There has never been, and likely never will be, another government program that expedites technological innovation so much as the U.S. space program. There is not another program that has so successfully rallied a nation, inspired youngsters toward academic achievement or established the U.S. as the world leader in technology.
The manned space program has, in particular, been a source of our nation’s strength and character. But an Achilles heel in the form of our country’s executive branch threatens a mortal wound. Under the Obama 2011 budget, the U.S. will no longer ferry humans into space— no moon, no Mars. The source of much of America’s inspiration and spirit, the impetus for so much discovery, technology and imagination, is in jeopardy. The demise of America’s space program is just another step in the dismantling of our nation.
Where’s the vision put so eloquently in 1962 when President Kennedy said,” serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” President Kennedy delivered a vision to the American public that demanded courage, imagination and follow-through. The long-term focus has always been to progressively conquer new frontiers. Certainly, that focus has been shared by both government and private enterprise but to withdraw government from manned space flight will surely obliterate those far-reaching frontiers and precipitously lower our nation’s preeminence in technology.
We are the only country to ever conquer the high ground, the moon. And now we are to give that up to the Russians and Chinese who are committed to having a permanent presence there? The national security implications are starkly real. From the high ground, foreign governments will have greater access to monitor U.S. technology assets in Earth orbit. Whoever controls the high ground becomes the world’s leader in technology.
We ask you to join those members of Congress who have the fortitude and courage to embrace the vision that has become part of our nation’s signature and who are advocates of returning to the moon and maintaining America’s leadership role in the exploration of space.
Respectfully,
Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Astronauts
Scott Carpenter
Gene Cernan
Charlie Duke
and
The Real Space Cowboys
Creator Ed Buckbee
To the Wall Street Journal: Reply to Steven Weinberg, Feb. 3, 2010 February 14, 2010
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I sent this letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal following its running of an op-ed (Feb. 3, 2010) by Nobel prize winner Steven Weinberg, PhD. The Journal has not published the letter.
***
To the Editor:
Dr. Weinberg’s column endorsing the cancellation of NASA’s plans to return astronauts to deep space returns to the false argument that we must choose either robotic science or human spaceflight. Both robotic exploration and the talents of human beings in space are necessary to reap the intellectual and economic rewards of space.
Dr. Weinberg attacks the tired straw man of an astronomically expensive human mission to Mars. We’ll only send astronauts there when it is affordable and technologically feasible; neither is true today. I contend that it has been our long-term interest in one day sending human explorers to Mars that has driven the pace and number of robotic successes we have seen there thus far.
The plucky Mars robots have done a terrific job, but the most difficult scientific questions about the presence of life there will probably only be answered when human minds and hands can join their robot extensions.
I have flown on four space shuttle missions that delivered significant scientific advances in Earth science, astronomy, materials science, and biomedicine. But aside from losing such benefits, the unintended consequence of scaling back human spaceflight will be lower public support for NASA overall. Congress will soon divert research funds to pet projects more important to members’ re-election bids, and robotic exploration will wither, too.
The Nobel winner further seems to think that NASA’s sole mission is to promote scientific research. That’s the job of the National Science Foundation. Even so, NASA devotes a full third of its budget to space science activities, a higher proportion than at any time in the agency’s history. The president’s NASA budget further expands science funding.
NASA’s Congressional charter directs it not only to conduct scientific research, but to preserve “the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology,” and its “preeminent position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development…”
Those goals can only be met by declaring that our nation means to keep its astronauts at the forefront of human exploration. We must send them into deep space, beyond the International Space Station, to tap both the wealth of knowledge there and reap the energy and material resources necessary to spur our economy and keep our technological edge.
Without that commitment, within a year we will find ourselves with no better capability to exploit space than nations like Russia, India, and China. The latter has clearly stated its intention to send its explorers to the Moon. The president’s budgetary disinterest in U.S. human spaceflight guarantees we will be unable to follow.
We can afford both science and human exploration of space. What we cannot afford is the lack of vision that will discourage our young explorers, and turn away from the riches and promise of the final frontier. Congress and the American people should reverse the president’s shortsighted space policy.
Thomas D. Jones
Houston, TX
The writer is a planetary scientist and four-time space shuttle astronaut. His latest book is “Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System” (with Ellen Stofan).
Endeavour closes on the International Space Station during rendezvous on Feb. 10, 2010. (NASA)
Gunning the BUFF! February 13, 2010
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Tom Jones, combat-ready copilot, 1980
I was a copilot trainee on a B-52 sortie, scheduled for an “Oh-Dark-Thirty” takeoff
time from Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth, TX.
Our B-52D, painted sinister black and camouflage in its post-Vietnam War paint
scheme, crouched on the ramp like an aging Komodo Dragon. The maintenance troops
had filled it up overnight with 240,000 pounds of JP-4, the Air Force’s grade of refined
kerosene jet fuel.
About 30 minutes before takeoff time, I worked with our understudy aircraft
commander trainee (who had about 3 years as a copilot under his belt) to crank up our
eight J-57 turbojets. First we ran up number 4, using high pressure air blown in from a
ground start-cart. Then we used the hot bleed air from #4’s compressor to rev up the
remaining seven engines. Soon we had all eight jets singing their bell-like notes at steady
idle.
My aircraft commander was soon ready to run up the throttles to taxi clear of our
parking spot. One problem: the crew chief and his men yanking free the four thick 4-by-4
inch yellow chocks from our landing gear couldn’t get one of the forward chocks free of
the tires. Seems the refueling with more than a hundred tons of JP-4 overnight had
pinched one chock under the squatting tires. Our crew chief struggled for 20 minutes
with his sidekicks, trying to knock the chock free with blows from one of the other hunks
of yellow lumber. We could hear him huffing with exertion over the intercom. No luck!
Looked like we’d have to shut down and get ourselves backed off the chock by a tug (our
jets had no thrust reversers and so our B-52 could only go forward!).
Finally my pilot had had enough: “Stand clear of that lumber! We’ve got eight
locomotives at our fingertips here, and no damn chock is going to make us miss our
takeoff time!” He grabbed all eight throttles and ran up the power. The engines rumbled
and rocked our wings and fuselage. Couldn’t hear a thing except the roar as a hundred-
thousand pounds of thrust put it to that poor chock. The yellow wood splintered and
exploded as our four-foot tires rolled up and over the now-demolished obstacle! Yeah –
horsepower! It’s the sure solution to many problems.
I’ve looked over the years for another chance to use that line: “Out of the way! I’ve
got eight locomotives at my fingertips!” …but I figured people would think I was bragging.
Still, it’s nice to think that I did once.
I flew this B-52D, now known as Diamond Lil, during the early 1980s while stationed at Carswell AFB, Tx. Now she's at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. U.S. Air Force Photo/Mike Kaplan
Association of Space Explorers Continues NEO Impact Prevention Work at U.N. February 10, 2010
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My Australian friends at the Daily Beast posted this interview with me about the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) effort to support an international response to asteroid and comet impacts.
The interview can be found here. I like their sense of humor.
As an astronaut speaker, I find the small but real threat of NEO impacts is a popular topic with my audiences.
Chiyli impact crater (40 million years old) in Kazakhstan (NASA)
Impact Earth: A Smart Look at What’s Coming Our Way February 10, 2010
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I’m the narrator of a new planetarium show, Impact Earth, developed by Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science. From the NASA press release:
“Impact Earth is a fulldome planetarium show that teaches about meteors, meteorites, asteroids and comets. It includes the results from recent NASA missions and about the dangers they can pose to life on Earth…”
“The DVD was created for informal science venues (digital planetariums) and is also useful as ancillary material for middle school science.”
You can read more about the show and content at this site. Meantime, if you’re visiting Houston, check out the Brenham pallasite meteorite uncovered in a Kansas field by geologists using a ground-penetrating radar. The meteorite is on view at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. These objects, fragments of near-Earth objects, remind us of the larger asteroids that pose a continuing threat to our planet.
Before the premier showing of HMNS’ newest Planetarium show Impact Earth, Astronaut Tom Jones took time out to answer questions from students and Museum patrons. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmns/3543123981/)
Uncovering the largest fragment of the Brenham pallasite, as discussed in Impact Earth (http://www.meteorite-times.com/Back_Links/2006/February/Meteorite_People.htm)
The President’s Take on NASA’s Future: Mission to Nowhere February 1, 2010
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The president releases his FY 2011 budget today, and his policy for human spaceflight at NASA sets the nation on a course, not to the Moon or more distant destinations, but to an underfunded and second-class status in space. President Obama is declaring that human spaceflight is unimportant to U.S. national interests.
He’s not saying so directly. But his policies speak loudly. He will farm out the nation’s access to low-Earth orbit to commercial firms, none of which have built a human-rated booster or spacecraft. In the meantime, for at least five years, we will rent seats for our astronauts on Russian rockets.
NASA’s program to lift astronauts to the space station on the government-operated Ares I is to be canceled in favor of the commercial model. The Ares I follow-on, the heavy-lift Ares V, will apparently be tabled, too. That heavy launch capability is the key to exploring beyond LEO with astronauts. Its absence means the U.S. no longer wishes to send its explorers to the frontiers of knowledge and space-faring skill. Other nations, like China, will assume that leadership role.
A little history: NASA has lost more than 25% of its budget buying power in the past 20 years. Despite those cuts, the agency managed to operate the shuttle and build the International Space Station (ISS). But it lacked a long-term goal in space, and that lack of direction and a future limited to low-Earth orbit led in part to the Columbia accident in 2003 that killed seven of my colleagues. Now, seven years later, the president’s budget shows that he and NASA have forgotten the lessons of Columbia once again. Without a goal worthy of the serious risks of human spaceflight, we will be putting our astronauts in danger (on foreign rockets, yet) to do nothing more than crew a research outpost. I don’t think that activity is worth the risk, or worthy of the sacrifices we ask our astronauts to make.
The president inherited a Constellation program (return to the Moon and deep space) that was underfunded by more than 35% since announced by President Bush in 2004. The previous president never supported the vision of his original announcement, so that today Constellation is badly behind schedule. That schedule stretchout also raised costs for the development of the shuttle’s successor rocket, Ares I. Yet its first stage was flight-tested successfully last October. Restored funding could have put this rocket in service to ISS by 2015.
The president’s budget, announced today, does away with Ares I. The shuttle will retire late this year with no replacement on the horizon. American astronauts will rent seats on Russian rockets headed to the ISS. The new budget’s promise to fund commercial rockets to do this job is premature: none of the cargo rockets NASA has contracted for ISS transport has flown, and betting our nation’s access to space on an unproven commercial capsule is unwise. NASA should fly its new Orion as quickly as possible, then move to commercial substitutes once those firms have proven themselves with reliable cargo services. Today, though, the president canceled Orion.
Even worse, the cancellation of Constellation replaces the Ares V heavy-lift rocket with “research and development” on building such a vehicle, someday. Without such a Saturn V-class launcher, Americans will never get out of low Earth orbit (where we have been marooned for nearly 40 years). The president’s advisers have now placed the U.S. on a par with other countries that can reach low Earth orbit. Soon, China will surpass that capability, and is now a clear favorite to be the next nation to send its explorers into deep space. We will watch, helpless to follow.
The cancellation of Constellation without clear endorsement of a goal to send humans on a date certain into deep space postpones the promise of the future for the brightest of our young scientists and engineers. The space talent pool will begin emptying today, as promising innovators seek careers in other industries. What student would pursue a career in space science or astronautics with the knowledge that the country is turning away from leadership in space? One piece of evidence is that during the height of the shuttle program in the 1990s, we flew nearly 50 astronauts per year into orbit for science and defense missions. Starting next year, and for the foreseeable future, we will launch just 4 Americans into space annually, as passengers on foreign rockets, to a space station slated to be decommissioned in 2020. What will Americans do in space beyond that gloomy date?
The new budget, announced today, seems merely an attempt to disguise the demise of U.S. leadership in space. There are words endorsing human spaceflight, but too little funding backing up that commitment. Our capability in space, by design, will now be no better than Russia’s, China’s or India’s.
The president appointed his Augustine Committee to review the nation’s human spaceflight plans. He accepted their option to move our human access to space to a commercial footing, with great uncertainty as to safety, schedule, and cost. The nation has no back-up plan if this effort fails.
But President Obama’s advisors rejected the most important of the Augustine observations, that a great nation must fund an exploration program worthy of the name. The Committee called for an extra $3 billion per year for human exploration. The president’s team has rejected this single most important recommendation. We cannot lead in space or explore on a shoestring. By providing a budget boost that barely exceeds inflation, the administration is choosing a second-class space program for the nation. Although $787 billion was “available” last year for “stimulus,” finding $3 billion this year to stimulate our high-tech economy and talent pool, and rectify past underfunding, proved impossible.
Today’s budget actions will be rightfully seen as a retreat from U.S. leadership in space.
