INTRODUCTION by Dava Newman

THE ARC OF SPACE EXPLORATION

by Roland Miller

Space enthusiasts of my generation are generally disappointed that the 1960s-era predictions of vacations to space stations and to the Moon have yet to materialize. 1 It is thought that Stanley Kubrick’s vision of space travel in 2001: A Space Odyssey was based on the era’s rapid technological development. 2 If progress in space exploration (coupled with interest, funding, and advances in high technology) had continued at the peak pace of the Apollo program’s era, some or all of Kubrick’s vision may well have come true by now.

After Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in July of 1969, with the space race won, America’s interest in space exploration rapidly waned, both politically and socially, to the point that the last three planned Apollo missions (18, 19, and 20) were cancelled. The early success of the United States’ human space exploration efforts made it look easy. In reality, those early Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions stretched the abilities of technology, industry, and human proficiency. With the exception of the tragic Apollo 1 fire and the near-catastrophic Apollo 13 mission, it appeared to most Americans in the ’60s that human spaceflight was not too hazardous. In reality, there were many near-disasters and accidents.

NASA pushed the limits of the technology available in the ’60s—much of which dated to the ’50s and ’40s—to reach the Moon before the Russians did. After Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, there was real concern that NASA’s luck would run out and they would lose an Apollo crew on launch, or in transit to or from the Moon. The war in Vietnam was expanding. Other domestic budget demands and priorities competed with the space budget. These and numerous other events and issues doomed the Apollo program to an early end. I doubt that anyone involved in space exploration during the early ’70s would have guessed that at least 50 years would pass between astronaut Gene Cernan’s last step up to the Lunar Module ladder in 1972, and the next human footprint on the Moon.

The good news for space fans is that there is a purposeful arc to the trajectory of the United States space program. It is sometimes hard to see in the short-term. To paraphrase an old saying, “Sometimes, you can’t see the universe for the stars.” When it comes to America’s space efforts over the past 60 years, that may very well be the case. If one steps back and looks at the progress over those six decades, another perspective can be observed. The reality of long-duration space habitation and travel compared with a space mission lasting a couple of weeks is the difference between walking around the block and walking around the globe— while carrying basically everything consumable that you will need for two to three years. After Apollo, we were no more prepared to journey to Mars than the Wright Brothers were to make an airplane flight around the world after their first trials on the beach at Kitty Hawk.

The progression from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo was critical to the success of each program. The same can be said of Skylab, the Space Shuttle program, the International Space Station, and whichever program eventually takes humans to Mars. Each succeeding level of these programs built upon the knowledge and experience of its predecessors and proved new concepts and technology. Astronauts continued to develop skills critical to the next phase of exploration.

The Space Shuttle program is often maligned as just going “around and around and never really going anywhere.” Neil deGrasse Tyson described it as “boldly going where hundreds have gone before.” 3