A Look Ahead

In remarks given after space shuttle Discovery landed at Dulles airport yesterday, Deputy NASA Administrator Lori Garver gave onlookers a sense of where NASA is and where it might be headed now that the space shuttle program is no more.  She rightly pointed out the many accomplishments of the shuttle program, and she even acknowledged some of the melancholy flavor of the end of the shuttle era. “To those who say our best exploration days are behind us, I must disagree,” she said. “While it is wonderful to reminisce about the past, NASA continues to focus on the future. You need only admire the amazing  space shuttles and their accomplishments to realize the people, organizations and nation that created them have only just begun. Vehicles with names like Orion, Dragon and Dreamchaser are being built all across the country today. They will continue and expand on the space shuttle’s many accomplishments.”

She went on to talk about asteroid visits and Mars exploration, and how those programs might enhance jobs and technology. If all this happens, then perhaps the future is not so gloomy as it seems.  Although I’m waiting to see how the promise of the upcoming launch vehicles and our future as astronauts plays out, at least there’s some sort of plan in place, even if it doesn’t give our country its own launch capability for crewed exploration for a few years yet. But, the real proof of the pudding will be in whether or not the funding is made available to make all of it happen (and more).  And, that’s where things get dicey.

In  my last entry, I pointed out that Congress (representing the people, supposedly) has to make the money available.  And, that’s where the guts comes in. I don’t think there’s much in the way of guts in our representation right now. If people WANT a space program that is robust, and we make our voices heard, supposedly Congress will do the will of the people. But, I’m skeptical, since the Congress we all know today seems to be more about bowing to narrowly defined special interests and corporate lobbyists that do NOT seem to have people’s jobs and future in mind. I often wonder if we ALL made a huge fuss about increasing NASA budgets, etc., would Congress listen?

So, let’s say Congress gets its act together and starts doing something positive for NASA (and not the markup battles that are going on this week). What ARE we looking forward to in a long-term space program? I began reading through a National Academies of Sciences report called Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration, published in 2011 and available here (you can read it free online).  And, based on what I’ve read so far,there’s a very broad mandate that cuts across all disciplines of science. To reinvigorate NASA (as it says in the report), it will take all sciences, pulling together, to focus our space program on the challenges of the future, whether here on the ground or in low-Earth orbit, or on the way to Mars. For example, the report looks forward to human exploration of space, and the many challenges it will make on the physical bodies of our astronauts. It talks about the issues involved in searching out habitable places on the Moon and Mars, and the technical challenges of getting to those places and surviving there for long periods of time.

Of course, all the sciences involved in space exploration are supported by and support various industries and agencies, and those require trained people to do the jobs needed.  And, that raises a question of where the training is going to happen?  It’s been widely known for a long time that our country (the U.S.) is having problems in attracting more people to the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines needed to do the jobs. In short, in many places, education is letting us down. Or, to put it more properly, support for science education itself is being let down. In part, that’s because our education system has been gutted and manipulated by non-educators with political axes to grind. The result is showing up in poorly trained students and a workforce that will not be ready to meet the challenges we face.  Where we will get the people to take those future jobs in space and other technological industries and disciplines is a mystery that we as Americans will need to solve. The people who are in science research NOW are holding the line on our decline in science interest, but what happens when they retire? Will there be new folks to step into their shoes and take up the cause of our space program and all the good things it does for us and our economy?

Where do we start?

Before anything else we do, I would love to see education removed from the manipulations of the political arena. I am reminded of a saying I saw on Facebook the other day: those who can’t teach make laws regulating those who can. It seems to be very apropos. Let teachers do their jobs, remove the meddling politicians and their ilk from the classroom, and stop screwing around with the teaching of science, as they are trying to do in Tennessee and other places where proud ignorance overcomes pragmatic common sense, and people with NO knowledge of science feel that it’s perfectly fine to meddle in things they don’t understand.

Our future in space needs well-trained motivated people who have received an education that promotes science inquiry. These people are the key to a  future that lifts us all up, and that’s where we should all be headed. The NAS report I cited sketches out a great future, but the weak link to everything we want to become is education. And, it’s a link we need to defend from the forces of ignorance and wilful stupidity. We did it once before, and if we care about the future, we will be able to do it again.