THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2005
COLLEGE PARK, Maryland This week NASA described plans to return astronauts to the moon in 2018 at a cost of $104 billion. That's nine years after President George W. Bush leaves office. Starting from scratch in 1961, President John F. Kennedy's commitment to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth was realized in just eight years. What is going on?
COLLEGE PARK, Maryland This week NASA described plans to return astronauts to the moon in 2018 at a cost of $104 billion. That's nine years after President George W. Bush leaves office. Starting from scratch in 1961, President John F. Kennedy's commitment to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth was realized in just eight years. What is going on?
The Apollo 11 moon landing on July 16, 1969, transcended the superpower struggle for world domination that had motivated it. People everywhere were awed by what was above all an inspiring demonstration of human achievement. Could lunar colonies, expeditions to Mars and even the stars be far behind?
Just three years later, however, as the war in Southeast Asia drained American resources, the era of human space exploration abruptly ended. In 36 years, no human has ventured beyond the relative safety of low-Earth orbit. Who could have imagined, on that magic night in the summer of 1969, that the moon might be as far into space as humans would ever go?
On the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, President George H.W. Bush spoke from the steps of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The president called for a return to the moon and for a human expedition to Mars. "Like Columbus," he said, "we dream of distant shores we've not yet seen."
George W. Bush seems driven to complete his father's unfinished business in space, as in Iraq. But much has changed. The Cold War, which provided the initial motivation for America's space program, is long gone. And technological progress has superseded human space exploration. Remotely controlled instruments have become natural extensions of frail human bodies.
Much of what we yearn to discover in space is inaccessible to humans. Astronauts on Mars, locked in their spacesuits, could not venture far from shelter amid the constant bombardment of energetic particles that are unscreened by the thin atmosphere. Beyond Mars, there is no place humans can go in the foreseeable future.
The great adventure of the 21st century will be to explore where no human can possibly set foot. The great quest is to find life to which we are not related. Could nature have solved the problem of life in some other way, in some other place? When we find out, we will know much more about ourselves.
Two mechanical geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, are doing this even now, by searching for evidence of water on opposite sides of Mars. They don't break for lunch or complain about the cold nights, and they live on sunshine. They've been at it for nearly two years, yet their mission costs less than sending a shuttle to the International Space Station. The brains of Spirit and Opportunity are the brains of geologists back on Earth.
Progress in society is measured by the extent to which work that is dangerous or menial is done by machines. The benefits we enjoy from the space program - weather satellites, communications satellites and global positioning - come from robotic spacecraft. Few scientists are calling for a human mission to the moon or Mars. Human space exploration is essentially over. It is too expensive and provides too little return. But politicians know that the American public identifies progress in space with human astronauts.
The Bush administration's solution is to create an impossibly expensive and pointless program for some other administration to cancel, thus bearing the blame for ending human space exploration. The return to the moon is not a noble quest. It is a poison pill.
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