The Meaning of Moonlandings

Dave Scott knows: "Man must explore." But pragmatists disagree.

There’s a divide—an almost unbridgeable gap—between the pragmatists and those with a different view about spaceflight.

Some talk about the practical aspects of spaceflight. The practical folks talk about costs and benefits: What technologies will be advances, and how will this help the economy? What will this cost? And, lately, couldn’t private companies do all this better, and save the taxpayer money?

There’s another view, a view that “realists” consider strange, idealistic and kind of foolish. That view says that we, the human race, as a species needs to explore and stretch itself; to try things that are very difficult or even things that seem impossible.

Many of these idealists are astronauts—they put their lives on the line, not for economic development, but for these intangible benefits. For example, on the moon, Dave Scott told his earth-bound audience “Man must explore.” Astronauts don’t go into space to save money, or even to advance technology. They want to do amazing, exciting and near impossible things. And, during the periods that spaceflight is popular with the public, it is AMAZEMENT that drives their enthusiasm.

Even now, with the new “pragmatic” plan, which seeks to transfer manned spaceflight to private companies, with some support and management from NASA, the pragmatists are using the idealistic vision to garner support. While only promising money for research and a “heavy lift booster” of unclear purpose and design, the pragmatists cite vague plans (hopes, really) of sending astronauts to an asteroid and Mars.

Many supporters are idealists who believe that this will come to pass. The Constellation program, they believe, was fatally flawed and would never have put astronauts on the moon and Mars. And, naively, they believe that the new research program will actually lead to a manned asteroid mission.

I think it’s very unlikely that, once the country goes for a few years with no manned spaceflight program, that funds will be restored; and getting enough funds for a manned asteroid mission under those circumstances is—I believe—extraordinarily unlikely.

If the U.S. ever returns to the cutting edge of manned spaceflight, it will be with a program of actual production of hardware, and actual program, and a thoroughly impractical mission driven by the human passion to explore.