NASA’s return to the moon program did NOT fail

When the Atlas rocket didn't work—NASA fixed it.

Constellation, NASA’s planned successor to the retiring shuttle is dead. After billions spent, there were only prototypes of the Constellation spacecraft and booster. That hardware, which was designed to return Americans to the moon, had fatal technical problems. So the hardware (and the program) was killed. (A simplified version or the spacecraft—called Orion—may still be built for earth orbital missions.)

At least, this is what most people are saying. I’m not buying it.

By any measurement, Constellation was starved of the money needed to make the program work. Even so, the craft Orion was well on its way. And a simplified version of the booster (called Ares I-x) was test flown successfully. But there were, in fact, serious engineering problems with the actual Ares rocket. People said it could not work and needed to be killed. That’s the story. I call that sort nonsense.

Other “failures”: Mercury & Apollo

In the early 1960s, the Atlas booster had a bad habit of blowing up into a huge fireball. Yet this rocket would be essential to put the first American in orbit. NASA did not declare defeat and end the manned Mercury space program. Instead, engineers studied the problem and fixed the rocket. John Glenn was launched into orbit on an Atlas rocket. The rest is history.

The first Saturn V moon rocket was launched (unmanned) to test it. The rocket shook so violently, it would have killed any astronauts had they been aboard.

NASA did not declare the hardware a failure and shut down the Apollo program. They studied the Saturn V and fixed it.

But on January 27, 1967, the Apollo 1 capsule caught fire, killing the crew during a ground test. Some Senators tried to kill the program. NASA studied the spacecraft, found numerous problems, and fixed them.

That time, the government failed to kill the program, NASA engineers did their jobs (as they always do) and succeeded in the incredibly difficult task of putting a man on the moon.

Constellation ended differently. The government pulled the plug, and the engineers were given no chance to fix things. So it goes.