In space, no one can hear you whimper
The Atlantis astronauts awoke this morning to an appropriate song: I Used To Rule the World.
No doubt the irony was unintentional, but it's hard to miss. The current Atlantis mission is the last U.S. manned space mission planned. President Obama's cancellation of the Constellation program leaves us without the means to put astronauts into orbit, and NASA astronauts will have to hitch-hike with the Russians for the foreseeable future.
We used to rule the world- or at least space. Now, we have effectively taken ourselves out of the manned spaceflight picture, and Barack Obama's legacy will be, among other things, the image of the Chinese flag being planted on the surface of a moon that is now, thanks to him, beyond our reach.
Given the exponentially greater return in revenue than the expenditure and the virtually unprecedented explosion in jobs created by the Apollo program, a bold decision by the Obama administration to stage a crash program to return to the noon and then to go to Mars could have been exactly what our ailing economy needed.
Instead, the era of American space flight that began with the mission of Alan Shepard and Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961 will end with the landing of Atlantis on July 20. What began with a bang will end with a whimper.
Thanks a lot, Mr. President.
Comments
However, I do have faith in American private enterprise. Let a million passenger rockets fly! Ad Astra per Prospera.
While I'm sure that the day will come when the American private sector will be able to complete with the Chinese and Russian and Indian and European public sector, that time is probably decades away. I'm very much afraid that, as a practical matter, President Obama's decision to trash Constellation and turn manned space flight over to the private sector will effectively make the United States a second-rate space faring nation for at least a generation.