With the completion of the STS-135 Atlantis mission with astronauts Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus aboard, the United States, at least for the foreseeable future, no longer possesses the capability to put astronauts into orbit. Since May 1961 when Alan B. Shepard became America’s first man in space, the only periods during which our manned spaceflight capability paused have been relatively brief, largely deliberate, and never without definite plans to resume operations. Those pauses in operations were:
- Between May 1963, when Gordon Cooper flew the last Mercury mission (Faith 7, MA-9) and March 1965, when Gus Grissom and John Young piloted Gemini III, the first manned Gemini mission. This was a planned interval as transition, test and training from Mercury/Atlas D equipment to Gemini/Titan II equipment took place.
- Between November 1966 and October 1968. In November 1966 Jim Lovell and Buz Aldrin flew Gemini XII, the last Gemini mission. The first manned Apollo mission, Apollo 1, was scheduled to fly in February 1967. Tragically, the Apollo 1 crew, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died on January 27, 1967 when a fire broke out aboard their spacecraft, which sat atop a Saturn 1-B booster, during a flight simulation on Pad 34 at (then) Cape Kennedy. The Apollo 1 fire and subsequent major modifications to the Apollo command and service module systems precluded manned flight test of the Apollo systems until October 1968, when Wally Schirra, Walt Cunningham and Don Eisele flew Apollo VII into earth orbit.
- In April 1970, the crew of Apollo XIII, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, safely returned to earth after the spacecraft suffered a catastrophic malfunction en route to the moon. The next moon mission, Apollo XIV, did not fly until February 1971 with Alan Shepard Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell on board.
- In December 1972, the Apollo XVII crew of Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt were the last human beings to set foot on the moon. Within 5 months the initiation of Apollo Applications took place. These were earth orbit missions using Apollo hardware after the first round of deep budget cutting put an end to further lunar exploration missions. Apollo Applications consisted of 3 Skylab missions and the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project. Skylab missions were flown between May 1973 and February 1974, and crewed by Charles “Pete” Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joseph Kerwin (Skylab 2); Alan Bean, Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott (Skylab 3); and Gerald Carr, William Pogue and Edward Gibson (Skylab 4).
- In July 1975 Tom Stafford, Vance Brand and Deke Slayton (one of the original seven Mercury astronauts; Slayton had been grounded for medical reasons between 1962 and 1972) flew the last Apollo mission in conjunction with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft with cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov aboard in the first American/Russian joint space venture, ASTP. It was not until April 1981, when John Young and Bob Crippen flew STS – 1 Columbia, the first of a long series of Shuttle Transportation System (“STS”) missions.
- In January 1986 the crew of STS – 51L Challenger consisting of Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis and Sharon Christa McAuliffe was lost when hot gas blow-by malfunctions on the spacecraft’s solid rocket boosters (“SRBs”) caused the entire vehicle to disintegrate shortly after liftoff. It was not until September 1988 when the shuttle next flew, with the STS-26 Discovery mission and Frederick Hauck, Richard Covey, John Lounge, George Nelson and David Hilmers aboard.
- Returning to earth on February 1, 2003, astronauts Rick Husband, William McCool, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Iian Ramon and Michael Anderson, the crew of STS-107 Columbia, was lost when damage to the orbiter’s thermal heat protection system failed and the spacecraft disintegrated. The interval between missions lasted until July 2005 when shuttle operations resumed with the STS-114 Discovery mission with astronauts Eileen Collins, James Kelly, Charles Camarda, Wendy Lawrence, Soichi Noguchi, Stephen Robinson and Andrew Thomas aboard.
When STS-135 Atlantis returns, the difference between the pauses noted above and the condition that will exist is this: in the past, well-defined plans to return American astronauts to space always existed. Particularly during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, the urgency and intent to succeed was palpable. The nation – and the world – felt it. Now, as the shuttle fleet is prematurely retired, the sense of urgency and intent to succeed in space are fleeting. Leadership has failed man’s most noble adventure. We have stopped leading in space. We have elected to take a back seat… or no seat at all in the theater of manned spaceflight. In fact, for the foreseeable future, we will be renting seats on aging Soyuz spacecraft from our once formidable adversaries in space, the Russians, to even get into orbit. Without any negative connotation on the brave Russian cosmonauts, that condition is disgraceful.
A new program, Constellation, featuring an advanced Apollo concept spacecraft named Orion, was on the drawing boards. Constellation would have taken us back to the moon, established a permanent lunar base, and serve as the backbone of a manned Mars initiative. But the current administration killed the Constellation program.
Did you read the names I noted above? Americans gave their lives to see that our space program succeeded and had a lasting future. I wonder what Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee would have to say about our sad predicament. I wonder what the crews of STS-51L Challenger and STS-107 Columbia would add. Somehow, I think these men and women who gave everything they had would feel let down. Maybe even betrayed.
Next, think of the tens of thousands of highly trained, skilled professionals who made Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle Transportation System possible. Do those who made the shuttle fly and still serve at NASA now become greeters at Wal Mart? What kind of colossal waste does that represent?
Our manned space program was one of the mightiest sources of inspiration man has ever created. It taught us to achieve brilliantly, to reach for the stars (literally) and to dream the impossible. We were so proud to be Americans. We thought of men like Al Shepard, John Glenn, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Buz Aldrin as authentic heroes. We wanted to be like them.
In this age of vanishing heroes, and leadership that is determined to see America decline, we have rap music and hip-hop culture instead of a vibrant manned space program. This is leadership’s fault. Again, leadership has failed.
In the shadows of the last shuttle flight, it is time to take inventory. It is time to assess what a vibrant manned space program really means for the nation. It means technology beyond description. It means, literally, millions of high-paying jobs for American men and women. It means manufacturing vehicles that are beyond the cutting edge of what currently exists.
And there is something else. A primary goal of manned space exploration remains essentially the same as it did 50 years ago when the Soviet Union placed Yuri Gagarin into earth orbit aboard a crude but effective spacecraft named Vostok. That goal is the prevention of rogue nations from utilizing space as the ultimate battlefield against its perceived enemies. Space is the high ground of the future. Those who treat it as the critical frontier it truly represents will succeed. Those who ignore its importance will suffer the consequences.
As a boy and young man, I watched those magnificent rockets, many of them bearing fragile human lives, thunder into the heavens. I sat in awe as American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts performed incredible feats. And I watched American astronauts become the first humans to set foot on another celestial body.
Had we continued at the speed President Kennedy urged the nation so many years ago, we would have gone beyond Apollo and the miracle of its steed, the Saturn V lunar booster. We would have developed Saturn’s successor, Nova. We would have been on Mars already. Who knows what technologies and benefits this would have created?
We still have a chance. It is not too late. But we must get moving again. America needs a vibrant manned space program. Who will lead us back on course?
John P. Schreitmueller is President and CEO of Atlanta based Resolute Consulting Group LLC. The firm specializes in leadership, work and life coaching and counseling. Mr. Schreitmueller is a former Marine Corps officer. He holds a commercial pilot’s license, multi-engine and instrument ratings, and has logged thousands of hours at the controls of high performance aircraft. His first book, Of Dreams and Astronauts, a narrative on the U.S. manned space program, won the 1990 Aviation/Space Writers Association Award of Excellence for nonfiction journalism.
