We have all heard the expression "space, the final frontier." Over the past several decades the space age has matured, and the general public and the government have been pressed to address many other areas of interest and concern. There is now a question on our minds: "Is space still an important frontier?" In other words, has a new final frontier appeared on the horizon?
To answer these let's consider the history of the space age from its beginnings. On that October day in 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik I, the western world was hit by shock and awe. This was definitely a wake up call and it certainly got our attention.
The next response was determination. The U.S. had the will and public support for an unlimited-budget, all-out space race. Apollo was the result and the race was over by 1969. The pressure was off and no one was in a space race anymore. NASA was 12 years old and still lean and mean, but had no mandate to continue to wow the world.
Bureaucratic creep slowly took over, and soon programs were being designed by political committees and bean counters. The public lost interest in human space flight and NASA lost congressional support for exploration, except when jobs in districts were at stake.
NASA has now become a mature and politically driven government agency. Human space exploration programs are essentially jobs programs. For example, Constellation has been cancelled, but congress is yelling for a new large booster, an example of a solution looking for a problem.
Frankly, there is nothing wrong with a jobs program. Let's just not call it something that it is not. For example, call NASA's human space exploration activities a research program that will assure the availability of top technical talent for future programs.
Everyone knows that PowerPoint engineering is not rocket science. Let's tell it like it is and maybe we can move beyond "ho-hum" space.
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