While Congress is exhausting itself in the political judo of rearranging the “deck chairs” of Congress, technologically and operationally the United States is making significant strides towards the long-held national dream of becoming a true human spacefaring nation. Yet, a clear and pressing national need for America to (finally) become a true human spacefaring nation is not nationally evident. This must change if the dream is to be recognized. Let’s look at why 2019 may be the year for this to happen.
Kennedy’s 1962 speech
While the need for robotic space operations is now quite obvious—satellite communications, global navigation and timing, early warning, military and environmental surveillance and reconnaissance, exploration, etc.—a broadly supported need for Americans in space has not yet been defined.
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On September 12, 1962, speaking at Rice University in Houston, Texas, President Kennedy used the metaphor of climbing mountains to help justify why America should become a great human spacefaring nation.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, “Because it is there.”
Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
When Kennedy made this speech, the world was still awakening to humans in space. America had finally matched the Soviets by putting John Glenn into space for 3 orbits. Human spaceflight was still a novelty with a high cost and an uncertain outcome. Former President Eisenhower, who led America’s military defeat of Nazi Germany and preceded Kennedy as president, commented, “To spend $40 billion to reach the Moon is just nuts.”
Yet, the key phrase of Kennedy’s 1962 speech as “We choose to go to the Moon”—repeated for emphasis.
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
What President Kennedy showed was the power of the presidency to focus America’s technological might with bold goals to be achieved within a defined time. Kennedy was following the example of Roosevelt, with the
great hydroelectric projects in the 1930s, and President Eisenhower with the start of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. However, no president since, except Reagan—Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush, or Obama—has effectively used national progressive engineering projects to advance America’s freedom and prosperity. America has suffered because of their lack of political courage and foresight.
President Kennedy’s brutal public assanation in 1963 cast his Moon landing goal into political concrete despite reservations on the cost and the expanding federal obligations due to the growing Vietnam War and new federal social programs. However, once the Apollo effort succeeded—and with Kennedy dead—the political and public support for Americans in space began to wain, especially once the existence of America’s military robotic space forces became publicly known. President Johnson, who became president with Kennedy’s death, made subsequent remarks indicating that the Apollo program continued largely because it provided the technologies and cover for a rapidly growing covert surveillance and reconnaissance effort. Looking back, Apollo was a spectacular technological achievement, but one
Fifty years after Apollo 11, the mountain climbing metaphor remains the best reason put forth by pro-space organizations for sustaining the International Space Station and renewing American human space voyages of exploration. One year, Mar’s is the focus of these frantic calls; the next, its the Moon. Obviously, a “climb that mountain” call has not stirred any president (other than Reagan) to define, sell, and politically support a comparable goal. Fifty years after Apollo 11, we need to recognize a pressing national need to point American boldly spaceward.
Fortunately, America now has several pressing reasons!
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chair of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC (spacefaringinstitute.net) which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the U.S. Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he began to study the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and energy. His technical papers are located at https://www.mikesnead.com and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research. His blog is at: https://spacefaringamerica.com. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or through email sent to spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com.