Catching up on the news this morning, I scanned the MSNBC homepage for interesting stories. “Iran Sends Mouse, Worms, Turtles into Space” caught my eye, especially as it was juxtaposed with another story, “US Grieves Over Cancelled Program”. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is quoted as saying that the “Scientific arena is where we could defeat the West’s domination.”
Now, I don’t equate the launching of a 10’ rocket with the Apollo program or the space shuttle, but it seems that they are kicking ass in ambition. While Iran aspires to, and works towards, putting man into orbit within the next 10 years (it has already put a communications satellite into orbit), America is getting ready to mothball the shuttle fleet this year and has just cancelled the Constellation program, “effectively cancelling a five-year, $9 billion effort to build new Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets”, which “were slated to replace NASA’s three aging space shuttles.”
Is it possible that Iran (?!?) will have a heavy launch vehicle capable of putting man into orbit before the US gets its act together and replaces the shuttle fleet?
And it’s not just Iran. Our traditional space race competitor, Russia, will soon be the only means we have of getting our own astronauts to the International space station ("Can we catch a ride? We'll give you gas money."). India has successfully inserted a spacecraft into lunar orbit, has a manned program underway, has allocated budget and will launch a manned mission by 2014-2015. China has put men into orbit, and has laid out its plans to put a man on the moon by 2020.
I was in grade school when the Apollo program was underway. It was a race to be the first, to be the best, and to show the world what America is capable of achieving. We had political will. There was national pride. We accomplished that which no other country has yet to achieve. We were leaders. We swaggered when we walked.
And today? I fear that we’re not even laggards. Our mojo is gone. It's not that others have passed us, it that we've pulled ourselves out of the race. While other countries see manned space flight as a primary ambition, we yawn collectively and couldn’t care less. Maybe we’ll start caring when Iran has its own astronauts in orbit or when Russia/India/China puts astronauts back on the moon. But by then, we’ll be left in their dust – moon dust. That’s my .02!
Martin Suter
martin.suter at iplicensing.net
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