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Civilians In Space
Commercial Space Ship, Spaceship One Have you wondered what is going on in space? Why is it that we walked on the moon so many years ago and have seemed to ended manned space exploration right after that? The excuse was given that the people didn't care about flights to the moon anymore and that is why it was stopped. If anyone believes that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. As the years went by, private industry began to get more and more itchy. They wanted to get into space, but it seems that they haven't been able to do it. What is stopping them besides the technology, if it is? While we think that space is open to all, is it really? In early July a letter was written to Congress. The letter was signed by various astronauts, former NASA heads, business executives, scientists and other professionals. It asked for the funding of a commercial crew that could be sent to the space station. This was also proposed by President Obama and entered into his budget request. These people want to accelerate our pitiful manned space exploration program that seems to be going nowhere. When I was young there was a plethora of science fiction movies playing. Some of them depicted the landing of men on the moon, others showed ships landing on other planets and the occasional one showed a ship traveling between galaxies. We all thought that once we landed on the moon, we would then spread out to the planets and stars. We know that this never happened, or did it? As I am fond of saying, we just might have a secret space program that has been around for years and there is no way to know what it has accomplished. If we don't have one, why did we waste our chance of exploring space? Some say that we were warned away by aliens, while others state that we just couldn't afford to do anything with all the wars we are always fighting, or preparing to fight. The Cold War used up a lot of our resources and all of the Soviet ones and fighting in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan certainly didn't help the budget. When you think about it, most other countries in the world don't have the huge expenses that we have.
Inside Of The International Space Station Are we being naive by thinking that nothing is happening with the manned exploration of space, because of all the secrets that are being kept from us lately, or is there really nothing going on? I know that I would love to know the answer to this question, but I never will. Maybe those younger people will find out in their lifetime that secret exploration was really going on and it was kept secret. Anyway industry is going under the assumption that nothing is going on and an aerospace journalist stated, “The government needs to open the door for some bold visionaries who see amazing opportunities there. Imagine what space will look like if the innovators and risk-takers who gave us Silicon Valley are given a chance to build businesses there.” Some in Congress believe that we can not afford to pursue manned space exploration, due to all the huge budget deficits. We could easily cure two huge drains on our budget by getting out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, places that we should have never entered in the first place. We could also print our own money saving the huge fees charged by the Federal Reserve Bank that is owned by private foreign banks.
The Moon, Apollo 16 I am sure there are many other ways we could get our deficits under control without hurting anyone, but nobody every talks about the true solutions. Even putting a tariff on some foreign goods to help our domestic industries is not out of the question. There are countries either supporting their industries directly with government money, or using tariffs so why do we have to be different? Assume that we could get the money for manned space exploration, how would it start? I think that we would have to go back to the moon and build a permanent base this time. The moon offers all sorts of opportunities for cheap space launches and for minerals, some of which are not found on earth. Since the moon's gravity is so much less than earth, it doesn't take near as much conventional rocket fuel to launch a vehicle, leaving room for more cargo and instruments. Railgun launches are even possible which means that no fuel would be required for a launch. As newer propulsion systems are used and developed this may not even be a problem thus allowing earth based space ports to become more like airports with passengers traveling back and forth. Private industry has stated that gaining back the leadership in manned space exploration will create thousands of jobs and if we begin to build space craft for sale, companies like Boeing and newly created companies will require tens of thousands of workers and the figure could go as high as hundreds of thousands of workers and we should hire Americans first. Never mind importing scientists and engineers from other countries, we could contribute to this type of education if demand rises high enough. I am not saying that doing these things will solve all our problems, they can not all be solved as long as lobbyists are allowed to spread huge sums of money around Washington. What I am saying is that this would help us a lot. We were once the undisputed leaders of technology in the world and until recently you couldn't even get a television made in the U.S.A. anymore. We are letting our technological prowess slip through our fingers. It is as if we are trying to hold on to a fist full of water. It is all running out from between our fingers. The sad part is that it is our own fault. We have the wrong priorities in this country. We don't seem to be able to tell what are the most important things. The single most important thing should be getting this country back on its feet and reducing the jobless rate. If we could get out of the wars, get our industry going and start building things at home with government protection for fledgling industries, like those that will be needed for manned space exploration, we might just be able to explore space and get people back to work. To turn our back on human space exploration is just turning our back on progress. There are more and more countries that realize the value of manned space exploration and they are nipping at our heels. How long will it be before countries like China, India and Russia start sending people back into space? How can we just sit and watch this happen? Does this country have a death wish, or is it being controlled by the multinational corporations that don't care about individual countries and only care about where something can be made or bought at the lowest price? Its time. Lets get people back into space and lets do it NOW!
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