Today, April 17th, 2012, the Shuttle Discovery made its final journey to a Smithsonian museum in Virginia. It was attached to the top of an outfitted 747, took off from Cape Canaverl, FL and arrived at Dulles Airport. Before landing the 747 flew over Washington DC a few times so everyone could see.
I grew up during the Shuttle Age. Like the generation before me, who grew up with the Apollo missions, I fondly remember seeing the shuttle launches on TV. The great billow of smoke and steam as the three-stage rockets instantly super heated the air under them, the deafening roar, the almost imperceptable movement as this massive feat of science and engineering struggled against the confines of gravity. The shuttle quickly gained speed as it built momentum and streaked upward across the sky. It gave me chills. It woke something in many of us as we saw, in front of our eyes, the testament to what the human mind could acheive. Like many little kids, I wanted to be an astronaut. I dreamt that one day I would be one of those lucky souls that would be riding that shuttle into Space. Not even the few horrible tragedies that occured could dampen that excitement.
If you are like me then you may have had the same thoughts as you viewed the pictures, or read the story, or maybe saw it yourself if you are in DC. For me, it had the feel of a memorial service or funeral procession. It was like a hero coming home and being laid to rest. It was emotional. But more than that it was sad. It was sad that the crowning achievement of the human race, and this nation, is being abandoned. It is sad that we have to rely on the Russians to comply with our one obligation, the International Space Station. And it is sad that this has happened because of the out of control growth of our current government.
For those of you may feel that this is no great loss let me ask you one question...how many innovations and advancements have come about as a result of space exploration? One is the entire area of commercial aviation. Modern air travel and technology is a direct result of the pursuit of space flight. We have pushed the bounds of our understanding of gravity, aeronautics, medicine and biology (from studies performed in zero gravity). How much further could we go?
Also, how about the necessity for our souls? I do not mean to get meta physical or philosophical, but think about. Why did Galileo feel the need to buck the Church and persist in his round earth theory? Why did Magellan, Columbus, de Gama and all those early explorers feel the need to go to the far ends of the world? Why were people fascinated with going into space in the first place? It is because the human race has a deep need or desire to explore. We need to know what is beyond the next horizon. It is part of nature, and to ignore that is to ignore a part of us. And Outer Space is the pinnacle of exploration. An almost infinite area to study and put our mark on.
For those of you who are sad that our era of space exploration appears to have ended, I say fear not! As I have wrote about before on this blog (see Free Markets Work) The American aero-space industry has not died. It has simply moved. It is no longer the sole purview of the government agency NASA. It has gone to the private sector where it belongs and can grow. Multiple private companies are now currently working on getting humans back into space and have had major successes towards that goal.
It is fitting that as the Shuttle Discovery is prepared for its final role in a museum, Spacex, one of those private firms, is at this very moment preparing for the first commercial orbital mission to resupply the International Space Station. A launch date of April 30th, only a couple weeks from now, has been confirmed and locked. And this will be just the beginning. Most of these private firms came into being around 2000. So in just twelve years a handful of private companies, using the Free Market, have accomplished what took three of the worlds largest governments almost 80 years to achieve. They have actually gone further! Think of what they could do in the next 20 years if left alone by the government.
Think of what could be accomplished. Think of the new industries and businesses that could be developed. I do not know what the price tag is on supplying the space station from the ground but I'm sure it is not cheap. How could the cost or service be improved by building that support system in orbit as well? It has already been proven that humans can live in space and a reliable and constant method of going into space is being developed. Is it so far fetched to think that businesses could set up shop in space where there might be a market? Bigelow Aerospace has already launched a developing orbital hotel. Is it not possible for family of Astronauts to be able to pay to stay there and see their loved ones more often? Or maybe instead of streaming video into school classrooms from the ISS, students could actually visit it.
What else is possible?
The bottom line is that the Space Age that every little boy and girl imagined when seeing the Apollo or Shuttle missions streak into the sky, and that the government has utterly failed on, is possible in our lifetime.
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