Neil Armstrong!
Neil Armstrong died yesterday at 82 but the dream that he lived has been dying for a very long time now. It has been forty years since anyone last set foot on the moon and the only connection that the United States has to the International Space Station (ISS) is through launch vehicles provided by the Russians. It was announced this week that NASA had signed an agreement with the private company SpaceEX to provide cargo flights to the ISS beginning in a few months or so if things go as scheduled. However, it is to be up to five years before the United States has any capacity to fly manned missions to this orbiting facility. In addition to that fact, since the shuttle program was shut down last year, we really have no way to do any serious repairs or additions to the ISS at all. This week, two Russian cosmonauts did a six hour space walk in advanced preparation for some sort of additional module that their nation might launch by conventional rocket to the ISS at some time in the future.
There seems to always be a sort of indefiniteness to schedules for any manned exploration in space and it has been that way for a very long time now. Forty years ago, toward the end of the Apollo lunar program, it was stated that we might be able to land humans on Mars in the next twenty to twenty five years. That target expired fifteen years ago while now, there is talk that we might be able to land people on Mars or on an asteroid in the next twenty to twenty five years or so. The big celebration this year is over the landing of the Mars Rover on the Martian surface. It was a true accomplishment and a great leap forward for UNMANNED exploration of our solar system. If it had failed, it would have sounded the beginning of the death knell of all types of outer space exploration, and, it was such a complicated procedure just to get the rover on Mars that there were bets in all circles that it was destined to fail. It is interesting to note that 2.5 billion dollars was spent on the rover which was the same amount of money that might have kept space shuttles flying for another five years or so. But, there seemed to be no need to keep them flying because there appears to be no need for them because of the lack of planning for the future of the ISS itself. The Russians are beginning to plan for the destruction of the ISS sometime around 2020 or after when its supposed useful life comes to an end. That is only eight years away now!
It would appear that the United States has ceded the future of space exploration to the Chinese who are developing a program of ambitious proportions. Just a few weeks ago they flew people to an orbiting laboratory that they had launched where they spent two weeks in space. The Chinese are also laying plans to return to the moon in ten to fifteen years and we wouldn’t bet against them achieving that goal. It has been said that the twenty first century will be an Asian century and as far as space travel goes, that would appear to be very true. If we look back on the second half of the twentieth century, it was American dominated and the American space program was the capstone of that domination. It provided great prestige during the cold war and winning the race to put men on the moon was, perhaps, the singularly greatest highlight of that period of time. It is interesting to note that the Russians abandoned the race to the moon and concentrated instead on orbiting a space station which they did successfully with the launch of the Mir (peace) platform back during the latter half of the century. It is also interesting to note that the Russians have plodded along with a great deal more uniformity of purpose as they have never spent periods of time without the ability to launch people into low earth orbit as the American programs seem to periodically go through, thus causing gaps in the astronaut core, as so many retire early because they see these extended periods when they have no hope of attaining what they have trained for such a long period of time. Perhaps that was why Neil Armstrong only flew really one significant flight and then retired to teach engineering out at a university in the state of Ohio.
Neil Armstrong taught us so much about humility and teamwork, even in his statement when he first set his foot on the lunar soil. “That’s one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind!”
Neil Armstrong took the long view of life and he most certainly realized that he would be defined by this single act of bravery and technical competence and leadership for the rest of his life. Armstrong shunned the spotlight for the rest of his life, even refusing to give many autographs, such was his modesty and determination to demonstrate that he was only part of a huge team and that he had been fortunate to have been chosen for remembrance for this singular accomplishment. We should never underrate what Neil Armstrong accomplished on that day in July, 1969 because it could easily have turned into a disaster that would have cost he and his partner on the lunar lander their lives and forestalled any further attempts to set foot on the moon in theirs or our lifetimes. Armstrong had to take control of the craft and look for a suitable landing site in the face of knowing that their fuel was about to run out. Then, there was the risk that the craft would not take off again at the end of their planned stay, leaving them stranded there on the moon for an eternity. The risk was so real that then president Richard Nixon had two different statements prepared, one of congratulations and one somberly notifying the nation and the world that the endeavor had failed. We would not need one of those statements until 1986 when then president Ronald Reagan notified everyone and spoke so eloquently about the Challenger disaster during the early stages of the space shuttle program. As far as space statements go, however, none will ever compare to the one issued by president John F. Kennedy when he began the whole quest in May of 1961 by challenging his nation to place a man on the moon and return him to the earth by the end of the decade of the sixties. Neil Armstrong was not a part of the original group of seven that began that quest as he came along in a later group that was not as adventurous and was perhaps more publicity shy than the original group that had “the right stuff” and accepted things like homes and corvette automobiles as a supplement to their government salaries. Although these were brave men some of them have done things to continually promote themselves over the years while making money, something Neil Armstrong always had too much class to ever engage in.
There was always something pure about Neil Armstrong that has done nothing but add luster to the singular achievement that he participated in forty three years ago this year. He was a quiet, shy man who more than deserved the praise that has been heaped upon him. So many aspire to greatness and so many do it in such a sad, pathetic way while Neil Armstrong never asked for what came his way and simply let it stand for what it was. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was not landing on the moon bus, instead, how he never detracted from it in any way at all. So few can do that across a lifetime filled with all the temptations that inevitably come with fame.
As we look at the American space program in the second decade of the twenty first century, we see a program that, in many ways, stands at a crossroads. The attempts to transfer it into the hands of private industry appear laudable on the surface, however, they also remind us of similar efforts to transfer the military or the United States post office into private hands. There are simply some things that our government can do far better than anyone else. And, we question the will to continue on in outer space by a people who seemed to have no lack of it for so many, many years. We would hate to think that the passing of Neil Armstrong might also mark the beginning of the end of our journey to the stars. He and the American people deserve far better than that. It would be sad to think that something that has had so many milestones would now be marked by only tombstones as a remembrance to something truly great and wonderful that inspired a nation for so long that has now died. This nation needs inspiration more now than it has ever needed it before and the space program is really a very inexpensive way to provide that compared to the total that is being wasted on so many other things of such dubious value that only seem to detract instead of move us ahead. President Obama has as his campaign theme the term “forward” and there can be no better way to translate that into action than the deeply satisfying rewards to be derived from space.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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