The Space Shuttle and what is right and what is wrong with America

The International Space Station and the Space Shuttle is a classic example of both what is great about this country and what needs some fixing.  I shall never forget that day in 1962 when the entire class, in fact the entire school was glued to the radio to hear the news of John Glenn, America’s first man to orbit the earth.  From that day to this, America had the goal of being the world’s leading space-faring nation.  We took great pride in announcing that we would be the first to put a man on the moon and we did.  Once again we achieved a monumental moment when not only Americans, but the entire world marveled at American ingenuity, American courage, American technology, American vision, and America’s “can do” mentality.  President Kennedy had set the goal and two presidents later America achieved that goal.  From there we began planning for greater accomplishments in space, the shuttle was designed in the 70’s for the purpose of providing a vehicle designed to become the work-horse of space access and truly it has been.  A space vehicle like the shuttle could only have done the amazing achievement of the creation of the International Space Station.

While this history stirs us with national pride, as well it should, 2010 will mark a very sad year, not only for the American space program but for the heart and the spirit of America.  At the close of this year, we Americans will have no vehicle to put men into orbit.  We will have no vehicle for making use of the International Space Station, that we played the major role in building.  We will be dependent on the Russians for access to space.  If that last sentence doesn’t shock you, it does me.  What has gone wrong with this once great country?

Instead of political leadership we have experienced the ultimate in political stalemate and political partisanship that is slowly killing this once great country.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that at some point during the last 30 years someone should have raised the question, what is our next step after the shuttle?  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans either in the White House or in the halls of Congress have given any thought or leadership to this once great program.  No one, no legislator, no senator, no president paid any attention to the fact that we were dependent on a space system designed more than 30 years ago.  No one made plans until it was too late to forestall an absurd gap in our capabilities in space.  True, President Bush did initiate a program to create the Orion and the Constellation programs (in 2004) that were to take us back to the moon by 2015 and not later than 2020.  Note the following:

“Second, the United States will begin developing a new manned exploration vehicle to explore beyond our orbit to other worlds -- the first of its kind since the Apollo Command Module. The new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, will be developed and tested by 2008 and will conduct its first manned mission no later than 2014. The Crew Exploration Vehicle will also be capable of transporting astronauts and scientists to the International Space Station after the Shuttle is retired.” For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary January 14, 2004

But these plans came too late and were unfortunately never pursued aggressively.  As we know, no testing of a new Crew Exploration Vehicle was conducted in 2008 nor since, for that matter.  As the saying goes, the Bush initiatives were a day late and a dollar short.  And now, the Obama administration has sidelined the entire manned space effort, with platitudes about the private sector and plans for Mars.

American leaders at every level of our Federal Government, from Congress to the White House have taken to partisan bickering rather than serious minded governance.  What has happened to one of the most visible elements of American knowledge and know how has been allowed to decay into bureaucratic intransigence where nothing happens and no one seems to really care.  This was a very easily foreseeable situation.  But nobody seems to have been guiding the ship of state and now we are degenerating into ever more acrimonious debates over issues that are clearly in the nation’s best interest.  We have moved from space dominance and independence to space dependents.  The Russians and the Chinese will soon be more capable than we are.  This is a national embarrassment.

If we the American people do not exercise our rights as citizens of a democracy and create the changes in leadership, we will see that what has happened so starkly in our space program will only be repeated in every other area or our national heritage and we will end up not only borrowing money from the foreign countries that once looked to us for leadership, we will be begging for a “lift” to the space station that we were once the proud builders of.  I grew up in an America that was different than this and I do not believe that we should settle for less.  Join with me in becoming an independent agent for change.