One More Step for
Mankind
From the depths of the deep
darkness and static that poured into living rooms across the country, one
immortal line broke the silence and put meaning to a millennium: “one small
step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” In less than a decade, the American
space program was able to transform a long-shot goal into arguably the biggest
scientific achievement of the twentieth century. These ten simple words,
uttered by a single man, represented the collective feelings of an entire
nation. At long last, years of hard work and billions of taxpayer dollars had
finally become worth it. For the first time since Columbus, the tangible world
as we knew it was expanding, and with it, the realm of possibilities. To many,
our American manned space system seems to have regressed since the time of
Apollo, considering it has been more than four decades since man has touched
any celestial body besides earth, and the truth is, they are mostly right. For
a wide variety of different reasons, we are not even capable of returning to
the moon at the moment, let alone expanding our reach to Mars. Over the past
few years, however, the space system has made a strong push once again, and our
technological progression now sits on the cusp of expanding our reach farther
than ever before.
Fifty
years ago, the world was a much different place than it now is. The design and
construction of the Apollo spacecraft, and accompanying Saturn rocket, had a
much larger socioeconomic impact on the American public than any science
experiment in history. From the launch of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, in
1957 until the Apollo moon landing twelve years later, the space race provided
an avenue outside the battlefield in which earth’s two superpowers could wage
war. Following President Kennedy’s famous guarantee in 1961 to “land a man on
the moon… before the decade is out,” failure truly was not an option. Even with
a processing system less powerful than a modern cell phone, America was able to
put men on the moon, a feat many believed could not be done. Spurred by the
surprise Russian launch of Sputnik, and the fear of what this launch
represented, America was forced to take drastic measures in the waning years of
the 1950’s. Fueled by overarching fear and scientific ambition, the 1960’s
marked a new era in scientific exploration. Over a ten year period, the
American government spent a whopping 25 billion dollars towards the ultimate
creation of the Apollo spacecraft, the equivalent of well over 170 billion
dollars in today’s money. In the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s space
promise, NASA’s budget was increased by some 500% over its previous mark;
America was determined to put a man on the moon, and no cost was too great [The
Space Race].
Today,
however, NASA receives less than 1/5 the budget it did during the Apollo era
after being adjusted for inflation, and much of that is surprisingly spent on
things such as climate research and aircraft development. In general, Americans
are all too willing to fork over piles of cash to get their hands on the latest
iPhone or laptop, but when it comes to technology that can actually make an
impact on the word and the greater good, many Americans are far too
tight-pocketed. Over the course of the 2016 fiscal year, NASA is slated to take
in 18.5 billion dollars of the federal budget, which is no small amount by any
standards. In the big picture, however, this amount corresponds to less than 1%
of the total federal budget for 2016, making financial resources more of
limiting factor to space exploration than any technological factor. When
questioned in a 1997 poll, the average American estimated that 20 percent of
the nations budged went toward NASA and space exploration, so where does this
huge misunderstanding come from?
This is not the first time that our
space program has faced economic restrictions, however. Nearly fifty years ago,
America faced a similar problem: during the 1970’s NASA proposed a massive
project to put men on Mars, build an international space station, and even
colonize the moon, but because of long term budget gaps, that project, along
with every major project since, has failed to get off the ground. Based on the
rate of scientific growth of the 1960’s, there is no doubt that putting a man
on Mars is not a matter of “can we,” but a matter of “are we willing to.”
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