Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the first American spacewalk by Ed White (who would die in the Apollo 1 fire shortly after).
Having been beaten by Soviet Alexey Leonov (March 18) there's no particular significance to White's activity except that the basic concept of a person orbiting the Earth is, you know, mind blowing.
It's depressing that we're so jaded and used to space exploration that no one really pays attention anymore. It's just a thing that happens, every bit as exciting as the building of a new strip mall. Yes, I understand that we can't really afford the space program anymore. Yes, I realize that there's not much of a point to sending actual humans into space when unmanned vehicles (Two robot posts this week. What the hell.) can do every aspect of spaceflight for which there is a legitimate need. But it's cool. It's too bad that we can't afford to do cool things just because they're cool anymore. It's too bad that we can't set goals as a nation and high-five one another when "we" achieve them. I guess we can still do that one, but the goals are depressing things like "I hope we can plug that gushing oil well before the entire ocean dies" or "Maybe we can wrap up one of these wars in the next couple of years."
It's never fun when you have to come to grips with the fact that you can only afford the necessities and all of the fun stuff has to fall by the wayside. It's not a great way to live, and it's where we're at as a nation.
(No Politics fail.)
Nunya says:
I liked it a lot better when we could rally around national accomplishments like space exploration, SETI, and when the National Science Foundation wasn't viewed as some sort of socialist plot.
Now, we now know all about topkills and junk shots (OK, that's just funny) and we now know more than any human being should know about C.D.O's, C.D.S's and the assumption that anyone with a modicum of power is doing his best to screw someone else over.
At some point this national funk will end and when it does, I hope we invest in the simple joy of wonder and figuring out what makes the world work. All of those crackpot governmental waste programs like "vulcanology" and "super-coliders" and "magnets" have actually spawned all of the growth industries in America since WWII.
While we're at it, maybe we can rediscover the value of community and stop chasing a few more bucks all over the country while abandoning our families in lieu of shinier rims.
America can go one of two ways: embracing fear and hate and greed or continue in the spirit of the new deal where the floor was raised for all and prosperity was much more egalitarian.
I sincerely hope for the latter.
dominic says:
Thanks for posting this; I have been thinking about this for a while. Especially the part about jadedness–it is mind-blowing that we can have humans orbit the Earth. My wallpaper right now is the "Pale Blue Dot" photo. How profound it must have (or at least should have) been when it was taken, yet how blasé it is now.
The thing is, I'm not convinced that a space program is unnecessary or "just" a cool thing to do. Well, maybe it is at this very moment. But eventually, as a nation/species we are going to need to strongly consider obtaining energy resources and/or forming colonies in space or on other planets. Oh how I wish we could spend (at least most of) our military funding on space research instead.
John Danley says:
Yeah, but nobody "believes" in space. It's optional like global warming.
Elder Futhark says:
I've done this calculation before, but it is still fun. Let's take $700 billion (TARP or thereabouts). The space shuttle, on a good day, can boost one pound of cargo into orbit for $5000. (This can be realistically reduced to $1000/lb with the properly engineered launch system, and theoretically $100/lb). At $5K/lb, $700 billion gets you the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into orbit – fully loaded, fueled, and crewed.
With some VASIMR thrusters to replace propellers, some liquid nails and duct tape, and they could explore anyplace in the solar system all the way out to the Oort cloud in a travel time of weeks or months. We could do it today. Probably for 1-2 trillion, but no shitting. A city-sized space ship and maybe a moonbase (fuck Mars – nothing there). Not bad!
Now, realistically, (oh fuck it happens), we just ain't ready. Propulsion costs can be brought down. Power is no problem if you don't mind plutonium being shot into space. Life support. That's the kick in the nuts. remember Biosphere II? Big joke, right? Nah. It taught us that it is fucking hard to create and maintain a non-dysfunctional self-sustaining ecosystem. Which, unless you can learn to breathe vacuum, you kind of need for long term projects.
I am optimistic. We will live out there. Not soon. But sometime.
heydave says:
I remember the very first printing of the Whole Earth catalog. The image on the cover of the lonely blue dot.
Let's pursue what we can in our lives to not be fuckheads.
glf says:
I've always dreamed of being able to travel on a spaceship (like on the new Starship Enterprise).
In order for us to have money for "optional" stuff, we need to spend alot less money on "necessities". We certainly don't need to spend a trillion dollars on defense. Or, billions of dollars on bailing out companies whose own stupid decisions dictate they should have gone out of business.
BK says:
I used to run the SETI at-home program on my work and personal computers. I still get a rise from reading Contact (not even Sagan's best work).
My folks told me when I graduated from college that eventually life wears you down and the things you dreamed of fade out of your memories unless you really hold on to them.
The complete lack of interest in not only space, but just about anything related to science that doesn't help fat lazy people get skinny or give 70 year old men erections is a pretty sad reflection on our nation's priorities – and collective dreams.
moonbat says:
It was a drag getting older, realizing that I could no longer do the crazy stuff I used to do as a kid, and beginning to worry about the various body malfunctions that began to appear. But I got a lot smarter and I hope wiser in the process. The things I think about now, and can do now, I never dreamt of as a kid. I now see all the childish and confused pre 35 year old stuff as just the opening act.
Nations come and go, they have their birth, their adolescence, their middle and old ages. Some manage this better than others: the Roman Empire lasted, what, a thousand or more years? With a full 200 years spent glorying in its zenith?
In a larger sense, the human race is very much in its adolescence. As with all hormone charged adolescents, it's a open question whether we'll survive it or destroy ourselves. It's cool that we got to go into space, but this technological mastery doesn't come without the downside of oil spills, robot wars, and unconscious politicians. Growing up will likely look a lot different than the glory days of our youth when we sent people to the moon.
George says:
I always wondered why Neil Armstrong was more famous than Yuri Gagarin. To be the first man ever to leave the earth has got to be the most mind-blowing achievement ever, sure being the first to walk on the moon is okay, but its not the same as being the first man to ever see the earth from a distance.
J. Dryden says:
I've always thought of space travel as a natural extension of astronomy, which as a science is both fascinating and yet largely (though, what with satellite technology, not wholly) inapplicable to human affairs.
One thinks of Sherlock Holmes's dismissal of the discipline:
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."
Extreme of him, of course, and yet at the core, he's right in that the behavior of incredibly distant celestial bodies that have no influential bearing on life on Earth isn't really something that we can *use* to live our lives any better. Given its status as "knowledge for its own sake" and its prohibitive expense, it's easy to understand the budgetary objections.
And yet–my counterpoint to such claims is that astronomy is an investment, and a damned important one, in our future. We know that, if our species survives long enough, Earth will eventually no longer be habitable, because when the sun goes into its red giant phase, it will no longer–what's the word?–'exist.' And when that far, far, FAR-off day arrives, and if we're still here, we'd better have a plan and the tools/knowledge to implement it. So knowing about where we might go and how we might get there is–and hey, this ties into this week's discussion about investing in savings!–going to be pretty freaking vital. (Not to mention the whole "asteroid's a-comin'" forewarning that it would be nice to be able to do something about.)
As a species, our future is in space. It has to be, and better to figure out now, at leisure, how it works and how we can live there, than to wait until it's nearly too late and we make the mistakes that come from the rush of desperation.
Plus which, it's *so* freaking cool.
moonbat says:
J Dryden mentioned astronomy – we may have lost our way a bit with space travel, but anyone in science will tell you that Right Now is the golden age of astronomy. The stuff we have learned in the last couple of decades in this, as well as a couple of branches of science are completely mind boggling. Tune into NatGeo, the Science channel, or the Discovery channel to see what I mean. And be amazed.
wellnab says:
@Elder Futhark:
Only if we can arm it with a Wave Motion Gun.
Andrew says:
A little different, but in a somewhat similar vain (the "because it's there" rational), check out the red bull stratos project. I'm pretty stoked about it!
http://www.redbullstratos.com
Parrotlover77 says:
GREAT freaking post. Far too often those that want our awesome space program back jump too quick to bash Obama, perceiving him as the obstacle when that's just not the case. He's just taking a pragmatic approach: we can't afford all that right now. The real fault is 30 years of neocons bashing science, bashing scientists, and cutting funding for anything that doesn't help their rich buddies. Once we fix that (ha ha – as if that will happen in my lifetime), we can do cool things again that doesn't involve a private business. Until then, enjoy looking at hubble pictures on your computer.
Mayya says:
Actually, many of us are not jaded. And the value of manned expeditions far outweighs those of robotic missions. We have not yet reached the point where machines can observe, think, and intuit like humans.
As far as affording it, space research HAS paid off, many times over. Much of our medical technology, for instance, was first developed for space missions.
Bugboy says:
I think the dirty little secret no one is realizing is…no one is sure humans can be sustained off-world. We evolved on this planet with a whole host of things enabling us to exist: gravity, micro-variations in monthly barometric pressures, protections of the Van-Allen Belt, endless environmental variables we are only beginning to understand and may never completely master recreating in artificial environments.
Bugboy says:
My point is, it is a fact that time spent in space currently takes a toll on the physiology of humans…we are a long way from solving that problem.
Pan Sapiens says:
When I was a kid, the planets were just points of light. Venus was assumed to be a swamp planet, with dinosaurs and blonde Amazons living there, which made a Three Stooges in Orbit movie cutting edge theoretical science. And then, all of a sudden, the points of light were worlds. Whole worlds. And there people, real people, up there. I remember walking out on a nice summer night looking up a the moon and saying "There are people up there!" That memory is a good one.
The Space Shuttle is a beautiful machine, but it is one of the dumbest ways of getting cargo into orbit. Pick one job. Either cargo, or people. Good thing DARPA developed the Saturn V. Still the cheapest way to get shit into orbit.
Obama is right to ease NASA off of the easy stuff. Time for them to get back to doing cutting edge shit, and let the space trucking companies develop and drive down the payload cost. Because, when it costs a million bucks to lift me one hundred miles up, something ain't right. I want it cheaper, because I want to skydive from orbit before I die.
Prudence says:
I'm a bit of science dumbass, but I thought the whole space elevator concept was fucking cool.
Hobbes says:
I'm 25 years old and I want to be an astronaut. People look at me funny when I say that, like it's something that only kindergarteners should aspire to.
Bugboy says:
A lot of the things you read in sci-fi are within reach of today's tech…space elavator for example I am fairly certain is do-able, so are rail guns…magnetically driven weapons that can also on a large scale be used to launch vehicles into orbit. But it's cheaper to burn chemical.
If we ever get off our asses and find some other way to do things than burning things to gain energy, we might be getting somewhere. I've asked a physicist some questions like "Why are we still burning stuff? It's not a lot different than what cavemen did, and even nuclear power plants are nothing but fancy steam engines." She had no anwers for me.
party with tina says:
Is it not yet clear that we've been taking technology in the wrong direction since… probably, forever?
party with tina says:
The most historically significant technological advancement in human history are the saddle stir-ups, it allowed people on horseback to fight.
Patrick says:
I'm sorry. What? How are we any less able to fund a space program than we were forty years ago? We choose not to fund a space program like we used to, but there is absolutely nothing stopping us from doing Apollo scale programs like we used to.