Two things happened to cut the legs from under the space program in the '70's. First, the nation had focused so intently on landing on the moon (and we made it look easy!) that once we had reached that milestone we had no other goals before us to focus on. Second, the economic malaise of the '70's made space exploration a tempting target for politicians looking to convert funding from military and technology budgets into domestic social project budgets.
The space shuttle program was what sprung from the ashes of the Apollo program, NASA administrators looked at the lessons learned from the moon program and decided that a reusable vehicle that was equipped for more versatile scientific and exploratory missions was where the space program needed to go. It's been 27 years since the first shuttle flight, though, and NASA again needs to refocus on another grand mission. Manned interplanetary exploration will be fabulously expensive but if we partner with two or three other nations to share the costs and benefits it's doable. Unmanned expeditions just don't give us the knowledge nor capture the imagination of the public like manned missions, that needs to be in the future of our space program.
I still remember where I was and what I was thinking when I saw Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969, practically 39 years to the day ago.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-07-15 01:33 am (UTC)The space shuttle program was what sprung from the ashes of the Apollo program, NASA administrators looked at the lessons learned from the moon program and decided that a reusable vehicle that was equipped for more versatile scientific and exploratory missions was where the space program needed to go. It's been 27 years since the first shuttle flight, though, and NASA again needs to refocus on another grand mission. Manned interplanetary exploration will be fabulously expensive but if we partner with two or three other nations to share the costs and benefits it's doable. Unmanned expeditions just don't give us the knowledge nor capture the imagination of the public like manned missions, that needs to be in the future of our space program.
I still remember where I was and what I was thinking when I saw Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969, practically 39 years to the day ago.