Category Archives: Space History

Space, Space History

Happy Moon Day

20 Comments

It’s the forty-first anniversary. Mark Whittington took a few minutes off from fantasizing about the contents of legislation and the emotional states of others, and his imaginary Internet Rocketeer Club, to put together a long list of relevant links.

[Update a few minutes later]

Living on the moon — it’s the pits.

[Update a while later]

For those not aware, Evoloterra authors Bill Simon and I will be on The Space Show tonight from 7-8 Pacific (probably longer on the web).

[Update in the afternoon]

Speaking of Mark Whittington, his latest fantasy is that Constellation would have gotten us back to the moon in 2019. It’s hard to know how to deal with wilful delusions like this.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Bob Zimmerman displays a profound lack of faith in his country:

Sadly, it appears right now that the next manned lunar mission is probably not going to be an American mission. Though the exact outline of NASA’s future remains as yet unclear, President Obama has rejected the Moon as a future destination, and Congress appears willing to accept this decision.

Instead, either a Chinese, Indian, or Russian astronaut is likely going to be the next human to stroll onto Tranquility Base, taking pictures and souvenirs. All three nations have expressed a determination to get to the Moon. All three have also demonstrated in recent years the technological know-how for making it happen.

I will say no more than that I see no sign of either political will or capability of any of those countries to put a man on the moon. No one seems to be in any big hurry about it (e.g., China launches humans into space every three or four years). There is no indication that any of them are building the kind of infrastructure (either a heavy lifter or propellant depots) to enable it, and no demonstration of the ability to do vertical/vertical vehicles (not even at a Masten/Armadillo level).

My prediction is that the next human to trod the lunar surface will not be a government employee.

[Bumped]

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Apollo Anniversary Thoughts

5 Comments

Nothing has happened since the fortieth anniversary to change my opinions in the long essay I wrote last summer.

Four decades have passed since the first small step on the dusty surface of our nearest neighbor in the solar system in 1969. It has been almost that long since the last man to walk on the Moon did so in late 1972. The Apollo missions were a stunning technological achievement and a significant Cold War victory for the United States. However, despite the hope of observers at the time—and despite the nostalgia and mythology that now cloud our memory—Apollo was not the first step into a grand human future in space. From the perspective of forty years, Apollo, for all its glory, can now be seen as a detour away from a sustainable human presence in space. By and large, the NASA programs that succeeded Apollo have kept us heading down that wrong path: Toward more bureaucracy. Toward higher costs. And away from innovation, from risk-taking, and from any concept of space as a useful place.

As I wrote, Apollo was a magnificent technological achievement, but in terms of opening up space, it was not only a failure, but the false lessons learned from it have held us back ever since.

Political Commentary, Space, Space History

The History And Future Of Space Exploration

6 Comments

I missed my connection to LA, and am stuck in Chicago until I can find a flight some time tomorrow. It’s kind of late, and I don’t have much time for blogging, and many of you may have already seen it, but Glenn Reynolds has a piece on space exploration in the Journal tomorrow. And of course, Tuesday will be the 41st anniversary of the first steps on the moon. It’s not too late to plan a party to celebrate. I and the co-author, Bill Simon, will be on The Space Show that evening. We may even do a live version of the ceremony, though that’s still TBD.

Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Apollo Is Finally Over

58 Comments

I’ve had a lot of differences with John Logsdon over the years, but in this Space News piece (pointed out to me by Charles Lurio), he gets it pretty close to exactly right (i.e., we’re pretty much on the same page):

Yale University organizational sociologist Gary Brewer more than 20 years ago observed that NASA during the Apollo program came close to being “a perfect place” — the best organization that human beings could create to accomplish a particular goal. But, suggested Brewer, “perfect places do not last for long.” NASA was “no longer a perfect place.” The organization needed “new ways of thinking, new people, and new means.” He added “The innocent clarity of purpose, the relatively easy and economically painless public consent, and the technical confidence [of Apollo] … are gone and will probably never occur again. Trying to recreate those by-gone moments by sloganeering, frightening, or appealing to mankind’s mystical needs for exploration and conquest seems somehow futile considering all that has happened since Jack Kennedy set the nation on course to the Moon.”

Introducing “new ways of thinking, new people, and new means” into the NASA approach to human spaceflight has not happened in the two decades since Brewer made his observations. That was the conclusion of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003, and despite the positive steps taken since then to operate the shuttle as safely as possible, much of the Apollo-era human spaceflight culture remains intact. Trying to change that culture and thereby close out the half century of Apollo-style human spaceflight seems to me the essence of the new space strategy. There is no way of achieving that objective without wrenching dislocations; change is indeed hard. Gaining acceptance of that change will require more White House and congressional leadership and honesty about the consequences of the new strategy than has been evident to date.

Sadly, White House and congressional leadership and honesty have been in pretty short supply lately, on both this issue and others.

Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Space History Bleg

27 Comments

Does anyone have a reference that describes the decision to reduce the size of the Shuttle fleet from seven to five during the Carter administration, and Mondale’s role?

[Update late evening]

Thanks for all the inputs from all the commenters. I’m a little surprised, because my recollection (from the time — see, I’m such a fogie that I actually claim to remember such things) was that Mondale had reduced the fleet size by two in the late seventies. I apparently have some reading to do to get it right.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Commercial Human Spaceflight Prospects

4 Comments

Jeff Foust has a good roundup of the current state of play in industry/congressional skepticism about the ability of the new players to do the job.

And Tom Frieling describes an appallingly bad book on space history. This kind of thing is really inexcusable, and may feed ignorance for years. When I do my pieces for The New Atlantis, I circulate drafts among a lot of knowledgeable people, to make sure that I get it right. If I write a book, I’ll do the same thing. But I guess that kind of thing isn’t very important to some authors and publishers.