NASA: The Next Generation
Canvasing Florida ahead of the state primary a few weeks ago, Newt Gingrich curiously called for a permanent colony on the moon by 2020, leaving media outlets and non-Floridians shaking their heads. Summing up the Republican presidential candidate's extraplanetary intentions, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart couldn't help but throw in a jab: "[Newt] realized that the Earth is very sick and now he wants to leave it for a younger planet!".
Newt's delusions of grandeur, however, raise a worthwhile point: what happened to NASA? The space agency that once captured our imaginations with moon landings and the Hubble Space Telescope has in recent years been relegated to stitching together high-res photos of Earth. Are the glory days over? Will we ever, as the L.A. Times writes, feel the E.T.-like magic of being 12 years old again?
Right now, the biggest problem facing the space agency moving forward is transportation. All three of its space shuttles—Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor—were retired in 2011 after 135 missions and 30 years of service. Current astronauts are hitching a ride with the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get back and forth between the International Space Station and terra firma. And while private U.S. companies like Space X are expected to fill the gap in the next few years, costs are still prohibitively high and tests still needs to be done before opening to the public.
But the news isn't all bad. NASA is designing a new space capsule, called the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, and has plans for a massive rocket that could fuel deep-space missions within our solar system. President Obama has set a goal to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and wants to follow that up with a manned Mars mission. And the agency is focusing on new technology that will allow them to fly lighter, cheaper, and greener.
Most importantly, our interest in space isn't waning. Between November 15 and January 27, NASA received more than 6,300 applications for new astronauts, more than twice the normal response and the second-highest turnout ever. Of those, only a handful will make it through the vetting process—the space agency plans to select between 9 and 15 candidates for its 21st astronaut class in the spring of 2013—but the record numbers are an indication that space, with all its mysteries, is still a draw for many of America's best and brightest.
As for Newt's moon dream? Don't count it out just yet. After all, setting up a moon colony was part of former President George W. Bush's space initiative in 2004. The only difference between space policy and space cadet, it appears, is the title of the messenger.
Comments