By Wes Pedersen
If there is another man on the moon, it won’t be an American. A Russian perhaps, an Indian, a Chinese, or a Japanese, but not an American. In Obama-speak, we’re looking forward, officially, to landing someone on Mars in a few years, but the moon is been-there, done-that history.
As matters stand, when Atlantis returns this week, we will be space bums. No more shuttles to or from the International Space Center, where scientific miracles are being created. Our astronauts will have to hitch hike rides there on Russian shuttles. If one of our men or women working on the center suffers a medical emergency, there will be no shuttle ready to blast off from Florida to the rescue. We’ll have to depend on the Russians for that, too.
Mr. Obama reasons that corporate astronauts and vehicles ought to be able to handle some of the work that has been handled by the shuttles. You won’t get much of an argument against that from the space industry.
It is, however, a down-to-earth basic fact that we cannot afford the shuttles or much else in space, yet the president assures us we can’t afford not to substitute astronauts for the camera-equipped robots that have probed the surface of Mars. What he doesn’t care to say is that the cancellation of the shuttles is putting thousands workers out of jobs they cannot afford to lose. Nor is there any reputable estimate of the number of those newly unemployed might find jobs in the Mars venture if, indeed, it is ever begun.
Like the high-pressure salesman he is, he is trying to sell the men on Mars mission as a vehicle for creating thousands of new jobs as the lunar mission did when it was launched a half century ago.
Private industry and government will need to pull out all the PR stops if the Mars venture is ever to begin.
There remains, of course, one solid reason for sending astronauts back to the moon. If we don’t, the Russians could beat us there in a reversal of space fortunes. So might a number of other countries that covet the prestige of a lunar landing. India, for example, landed an unmanned probe on the moon three years ago.
Under Bush, NASA envisioned a permanent lunar base by 2024 and, ultimately, a manned journey to Mars.
With the space shuttle a thing of recent past, Russia will in very real effect have a monopoly in space until 2016. That, the Wall Street Journal notes, is when NASA hopes to take its pick of several new commercial crew transports currently on the drawing board. The agency is seeking a commercial space-taxi – designed, built and operated by the private sector – to cut costs while speeding the cost of development.
The switch from the moon to Mars should be welcomed by the space industry as a means of staying a live.
Selling it to a nation in need will not easy. The public must have clear reasons for supporting the program. It’s going take an enormous effort that will emphasize whatever positives can be presented in the clearest PR light.
PR- savvy Lyndon Johnson hit precisely the right note in a 1961 memo to John F. Kennedy explaining how to entice public support for the trip to the moon: “It is man, not merely machines, in space that captures the imagination of the world.”
The simple truth, however, is that a landing on Mars must be sold not only to the public but to Congress. The even simpler truth is that we cannot afford a race in space any more.
A point to remember: With a trip to Mars, it won’t necessarily be “man” up there. It’s a political known: there will be a woman, too, this time.
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Wes Pedersen is a retired Foreign Service Officer and principal at Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations Washington, D.C. |