The fall of the American rocket

Achintya Prasad, Hi-Times Staff Writer

On Jan. 10, the company Space X launched one of its rockets, the Falcon 9. It was designed to do two things: first, to resupply the International Space Station, and second, to attempt to land the first stage of the rocket on a barge in the ocean. This second portion highlights an unfortunate truth regarding space flight; it’s wasteful. Every other nation on Earth launch one-use rockets that go into space once before burning up in the atmosphere. This is an expensive practice, and one that has the byproduct of excluding most countries from the elite “space faring” nations.

That said, one nation that left that exclusive party, at least in the manned spaceflight aspect, is the United States. John F. Kennedy would most likely have never even bothered challenging America to go to the moon if he knew that, 50 years later, his nation would have to go to its former enemy, Russia, just to launch astronauts into low Earth orbit. Yes, since 2011, the most powerful nation on Earth has had to rely on its own rivals to send people to space.

This is one of the most tragic and shaming legacies America has ever had to endure in its entire scientific history. Technically speaking, we had greater capabilities in the field of manned spaceflight during a time of segregation than we have currently have. The last time the U.S. sent a single person to space, Steve Jobs was still alive. The last time an American-manned rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, Gangnam Style had not even be posted to YouTube yet.

This is an unacceptable lapse in American scientific and even military capabilities during a time when countries such as India and China are initiating a “catch-up” to US and Russian space agencies. We may be able to launch satellites and probes into space, using modified ICBMs or SSBMs, but, call me old fashioned, I believe the correct way to explore space is by sending men and women to physically explore.

At one point, the U.S. could send people to the moon. It was a time where nothing was out of reach. We traveled 200,000 miles all the way to the moon, planted a flag, and left with hundreds of samples. We acquired in depth knowledge from those Apollo missions. And now, our astronauts have to strap themselves aboard a Soyuz craft, rather than the Space Shuttle Discovery or on top of an American Saturn V rocket.

Now, some may argue that programs like NASA are expensive, and in a time of sequestration and political gridlock, we simply cannot afford a space program. Indeed, as I stated early, spaceflight can be a wasteful affair.

However, due to the size of the U.S. economy and the U.S. government, NASA has never peaked more than one percent of the U.S. GDP. One percent, and with that, we landed people on another orbital body. One percent that helped create the first, original reusable spacecraft, and the first space plane. One percent that managed to stand and counter Soviet technology for decades. One percent that, by definition, is a tiny portion of all the spending in the United States.

I propose that the government should immediately reinstate NASA to full capacity. Build large factories for rockets, whatever is necessary. The final frontier really is space, and the path the U.S. is taking seems to make it appear that we will not be included in that chapter of humanity.

As Professor Brand from “Interstellar” said, “We’re not meant to save the world. We’re meant to leave it.”

If that is not the attitude we use in our spaceflight mindset, we have honestly failed the early pioneers of spaceflight, including our American astronauts.