Much is being made of the anniversary of Armstrong and Aldrin’s walk on the moon that took place forty years ago today. Into this glut of remembrance and reminiscence I will add a few more words that I’m sure have been echoed elsewhere. I write this not because I am old enough to remember and brag on that gift of age, but because I must. The achievements of those years seem, even today, astonishing not just because of what they did, but because of what we do not do.
Today’s average toaster or coffeemaker probably has more computing power than the tiny on-board computer (with 4 kilobytes of RAM) that guided the Command Module on its journey. The magnificent Saturn V rocket was designed and built using slide rules and printed math tables. Today the argument that going back to space will result in a flood of new technology rings hollow to me because most of that technology was really created in the 60’s and 70’s. Today’s versions would be mostly refinements. One entertainment phenomenon from that time put it, “We have the technology.”
 The Lunar Module returning from the moon to dock with the Command Module. NASA Photo. |
If you go back to the science fiction of the day, TV shows like the original Star Trek and movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey made assumptions about our day that seemed quite reasonable at the time. The background “history” of Star Trek and the setting of 2001 both assumed that we would be out among the solar system by now. I remember that time, and it seemed almost natural that we would do this. I remember reading books about self-sustaining space stations, colonies on the moon… it was just a matter of time. Consider this editorial written by a NASA official forty years ago this month. (.pdf file).
Public education flourished under the new priorities of space. Far more profitable than the new technologies that flowed from the space program was the vast army of better-educated citizens whose brainpower went on to fuel one technological revolution after another. For one brief, shining moment, an educated citizenry was rightly seen as a matter of national security. The moon landing eradicated excuses for incompetence. The popular refrain for years afterward was, “If they can land men on the moon, they can fix [insert problem]!”
From my perspective the US neutered its space program because the aims of the politicians who supported the race to the moon were rooted in political needs of the moment. We needed to avenge the embarrassment of getting beaten into space by the USSR. For those leaders, this grand adventure was a colossal exercise in political posturing. Even understanding the tenor of those days of the Cold War, it’s hard not to feel contemptuous of them.
But part of it also has to be facing up to some stark realities. Space is, hands down, the most dangerous environment for humans, ever. Asteroid mining and all the other industries that were part of the future vision are far from cost-effective. Even using the Space Shuttle, it still costs something like $10,000 to put one pound of stuff in orbit. Much exploration can be done better and cheaper by robots who don’t need to eat, breathe, sleep, and can tolerate hard vacuum.
Still, it’s hard not to want to see us return to space, to reach again for the stars. As a nation we suffer from the effects of manufactured cynicism; the accepted myth that the same government that put humans on the moon is incapable of any great thing. This Reaganesque absurdity still fuels toxic political agendas at the expense of our national confidence. It cheapens our priorities. The atrophied state of our space program is just one reflection of this, despite triumphs like the robotic exploration of the solar system and the discoveries uncovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.
I like to think that our ability to go into space and to the moon was a reflection more of who we were than a measure of our technical prowess. Read any of the tributes to Apollo 11 today and you will see references to the can-do, pioneering spirit, which is certainly appropriate for this occasion. But there was another aspect of those times that is less acknowledged, and that was that the space program forged unity and a sense of purpose. The events leading up to the moon landing were a process of halting yet gradual unification until that climactic moment when Armstrong’s boot touched the lunar surface. At that moment the human race was one in wonder and awe. I’ve heard it said that the space program cost about $125 billion in today’s dollars. To replicate that pure focal point of purpose, even for a moment, would be money well spent.