Confusing Vision for Space Exploration-А Statement of National Purpose?

For many years after the launch of Sputnik, the competitive aspects of the space race between the United States and the U. S.S. R. spurred space advances and development. These were the days of setting new records over the whole spectrum of space activity. These “firsts” included the first human in space, the first woman, the longest human time-period in space, and the first “spacewalk.”

A Brief History

During these early years, the space race included the race to the moon. Both the U. S. and the U. S.S. R. successfully sent unmanned probes to
the moon, but it was the United States, as a result of the Apollo Program, that was to win the race for putting a man on the moon’s surface. Begin­ning with the launch of Apollo 8 on December 21, 1968, Americans left earth’s orbit and ven­tured out into deep space. Apollo 8 and Apollo

10 were limited to lunar orbiting missions; it was not until Apollo 11, on July 21, 1969, that Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the surface of the moon.34

The Apollo Program successfully landed six missions on the surface of the moon. Apollo

11 through Apollo 17 were landing missions to the moon, but due to a life-threatening explosion of an oxygen tank aboard the command mod­ule of Apollo 13, on April 13, 1970 en route to the moon, that lunar landing mission had to be scrapped. Only through superior scientific and engineering skill, and determination by NASA personnel and the onboard crew, with a bit of luck thrown in, was the Apollo 13 crew success­fully retrieved from space to a safe landing. The details of this extraordinary feat are well worth reading.

The Soviet Lunar Program had 20 suc­cessful missions to the moon, including the first flyby, first soft landing on the moon, and the first circumlunar probe to return to earth. Although denied by the Soviet government at the time, the U. S.S. R. had two manned lunar programs in progress in competition with the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Due to several launch vehicle failures, these programs were can­celed by 1976.

To date (circa 2013), only three coun­tries have placed humans into space utilizing their own launching systems. In addition to the United States and the U. S.S. R., in October 2003, the People’s Republic of China successfully launched its first astronaut into orbit on the Shen – zhou 5 launch vehicle. China has also announced its intention to put astronauts on the moon by 2025. All other countries’ programs, including the European Hermes and the Japanese Hope-X programs, have been canceled.

Human space flight since the Apollo mis­sions has been limited to earth orbit. The Space Shuttle program in the United States has met with both success and failure as discussed above, with two catastrophic flights in Chal­lenger (explosion of the external tank caused by booster rocket failure on launch in 1986 with complete loss of crew) and Columbia (disinte­gration of the orbiter on reentry in 2003 with complete loss of crew). Additionally, the pub­lic and Congressional enthusiasm for human space flight seemed to wane as the space pro­gram became more mundane and as costs for the program came under greater Congressional scrutiny.