Networking / Shuttle Atlantis Final Landing Completes U.S. Retreat from Manned Spaceflight
Shuttle Atlantis Final Landing Completes U.S. Retreat from Manned Spaceflight
By Wayne Rash | Posted 2011-07-22
News Analysis: Sure, there might be a few resupply missions eventually, but for all practical purposes, the role of the U.S. in manned spaceflight is over.
Early in the predawn Florida darkness, the Space Shuttle Atlantis
touched down on Earth for the last time and braked to a stop. After a
while, the crew of Atlantis boarded their bus back to their quarters,
said a few words, and left America's last Shuttle to the museum
curators. Eventually, Atlantis will join other space stuff as part of a
giant tourist attraction, showing generations of kids what might have
been.
The tragedy of the last shuttle mission is not that the program is over. That was bound to happen eventually. After all, it's been around for 30 years.
While the shuttles themselves were rated for 100 missions each, and
flew no more than one-third of their total lifetimes, the process of
turning them around for launch took so long that for them to fly for
the full lifetime of their airframes would have taken a century. Let's
face it, that's a long time to depend on old technology.
Instead, the tragedy is that we let the manned space program die
without another solution. For now, at least, we must depend on buying
rides from the Russians to get to the Space Station. One can only
wonder how well that will work now that the Russians have a monopoly on
space. One must also wonder if John F. Kennedy, who kicked off the manned
space program with a challenge to go to the moon, is turning over
in his grave.
Of course, there are plans to follow the shuttle program with commercial
vehicles that are capable of carrying crews and supplies to the Space
Station. Perhaps these vehicles will be built and perhaps once again
the United States will be able to ferry people into orbit. But perhaps they
won't. Right now, the future of Space-X, the commercial partner most
likely to get the contract to take people into space, exists at the
mercy of NASA and Congress. Neither organization has proven to be a
reliable partner.
But the real future of manned space flight
is beyond the low-Earth orbit where we currently seem stuck. Right now
we can't actually get people to geosynchronous orbit, a level we once
passed in a few hours on our way to the moon. The moon, of course, is
out of reach. Mars is unlikely ever to happen now that we've given up
the chase and lost our momentum.
But the exploration has not always been a government function. I
live in Virginia, where the first explorers arrived more than 400 years ago.
In most history books, the feat of reaching Virginia (which was a
vastly more dangerous undertaking than spaceflight ever has been just
based on the number of people who lost their lives in the attempt) is
credited to the English government.
Wayne Rash is a Senior Analyst for eWEEK Labs and runs the magazine's Washington Bureau. Prior to joining eWEEK as a Senior Writer on wireless technology, he was a Senior Contributing Editor and previously a Senior Analyst in the InfoWorld Test Center. He was also a reviewer for Federal Computer Week and Information Security Magazine. Previously, he ran the reviews and events departments at CMP's InternetWeek.He is a retired naval officer, a former principal at American Management Systems and a long-time columnist for Byte Magazine. He is a regular contributor to Plane & Pilot Magazine and The Washington Post.