Few Dead Astronauts

Sierra Times ^ | May 6, 2003 | Michael Levine

[J. Neil Schulman]

Few Dead Astronauts

By Michael Levine © 2003

Even as a Soyuz capsule safely returned two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut from the International Space Station today, I still hear people asking whether there’s anything in space that was worth losing the seven Columbia astronauts.

Seventeen space travelers have lost their lives in the NASA space program – three on the ground in their Apollo One spacecraft fire in 1967, seven Challenger astronauts lost on blastoff in 1986, the seven Columbia astronauts lost on their final descent on February 1, 2003.

We know of four Soviet cosmonauts lost coming back to earth from space missions.

That’s 21 space-flyer deaths since manned space exploration commenced with Yuri Gagarin’s first orbit of the earth on April 12, 1961.

Compare this to Ferdinand Magellan’s 1519 voyage to circumnavigate the earth. Magellan started with five ships and 230 men. One ship with 18 men returned. Vasco da Gama once set sail with 133 hands, and returned with 55.

Consider the settling of the American west. Half of the Donner Party’s 90 wagon-train emigrants starved to death.

But these numbers pale compared to the building of the Panama Canal, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at their shortest land separation. Estimates are that 20,000 workers died building that 51 mile-long waterway.

Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”

President John F. Kennedy, speaking in 1962 about the American moon program he’d started, said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Yet in four decades of flying into space we’ve only lost 21 people, none that we know in space itself, in what was supposed to be the greatest human adventure ever, the exploration of the “final frontier.”

The first human orbited earth April, 1961 and the last human set foot on earth’s moon in December, 1972. No human has set foot on any other celestial body. Since 1972 no human has broken free of earth’s orbit.

The era of human space exploration lasted just eleven years then was abandoned.

There’s your answer. It’s the wrong answer. But then, we’ve been asking the wrong questions.

We shouldn’t be asking whether to resume flying NASA’s space shuttles, which were never designed to explore space. We should be asking what happened to the American character that for the first time we seem reluctant, almost paralyzed, to pursue a noble adventure.

Maybe it is NASA’s fault. I don’t mean losing astronauts on space flights. They’re only human and loss of life is inevitable in any difficult endeavor worth pursuing. NASA’s failure was deploying teams of scientists, engineers, and pilots, but never deploying any teams of science fiction writers to show us the romance and glory of it.

Science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, who covered the Apollo 11 moon landing with Walter Cronkite on July 20, 1969, said in an interview shortly after the remaining moon shots were cancelled, “NASA takes the most romantic subject I know of and makes it incredibly dull. I’m not disparaging the engineering accomplishments nor the heroic astronauts. I’m talking about NASA’s public relations.”

NASA took us as far as the moon. They never adequately explained why we went. Most everyone thought it was just a race against the Soviets and we’d won. Thus we quit.

So what is there in outer space worth exploring anyway? We’ve sent out satellites that took snapshots and the nearby planets look dead. None of the other planets in our solar system have air. They have hellish climates and worse weather. But there are things outer space has to offer the human race that we will die without.

Earth is only one small planet and the cost of living only goes in one direction – up. That’s supply-and-demand. There’s only so many natural resources. But there are going to be more people. The other planets – even the orbiting rocks we call asteroids – are rich in natural resources … with plenty of land, waiting for improvements. Air? Good weather? We’ll make our own.

We need something more exciting to do with ourselves than fight with each other. I think men often get into wars because we’re easily bored. Sex and football are only momentary, albeit powerful, distractions. Perhaps the choice for avoiding long-term boredom is between exploration and war. I prefer exploration.

Finally, we need the unknown. Space is big enough that we’ll probably never get to the end. Maybe our nearby planets don’t have interesting neighbors but some planet around some star probably does, and if we don’t learn how to fly there, we’ll never meet them.

And how lonely is that?

Copyright © 2003 by Michael Levine. All rights reserved. Reprinted on FreeRepublic.com by permission of the author.

Steve Allen called Michael Levine "the Michael Jordan of Entertainment P.R." He’s been a book editor, an L.A. talk radio host, and writes a column for Entertainment Today. His website is at http://www.levinepr.com. His email address is nospam_levinepr2@earthlink.net.

[newguy357]

Since 1972 no human has broken free of earth’s orbit

Actually, since the moon is in orbit, no human has ever broken free of earth's orbit.

NASA’s failure was deploying teams of scientists, engineers, and pilots, but never deploying any teams of science fiction writers to show us the romance and glory of it.

No. If NASA put sci-fi writers in space instead of the high quality astronauts they have, then they would have had one more failure. I have a feeling that any of the astronauts could write sci-fi 10 times better than sci-fi writers--they are just too busy doing more important things.

[NormsRevenge]

The era of human space exploration lasted just eleven years then was abandoned.

There’s your answer. It’s the wrong answer. But then, we’ve been asking the wrong questions.

We shouldn’t be asking whether to resume flying NASA’s space shuttles, which were never designed to explore space. We should be asking what happened to the American character that for the first time we seem reluctant, almost paralyzed, to pursue a noble adventure.

Maybe it is NASA’s fault. I don’t mean losing astronauts on space flights. They’re only human and loss of life is inevitable in any difficult endeavor worth pursuing. NASA’s failure was deploying teams of scientists, engineers, and pilots, but never deploying any teams of science fiction writers to show us the romance and glory of it.

Science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, who covered the Apollo 11 moon landing with Walter Cronkite on July 20, 1969, said in an interview shortly after the remaining moon shots were cancelled, “NASA takes the most romantic subject I know of and makes it incredibly dull. I’m not disparaging the engineering accomplishments nor the heroic astronauts. I’m talking about NASA’s public relations.”

NASA took us as far as the moon. They never adequately explained why we went. Most everyone thought it was just a race against the Soviets and we’d won. Thus we quit.

Carl Sagan comes to mind as well. Billions and billions of dollars.. and we remain earth-bound as a species. Maybe our place is not traveling to the stars, but then maybe not. Who will now step forward and lead? And who shall stay?

[J. Neil Schulman]

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Few Dead Astronauts, newguy357 quotes Michael Levine "Since 1972 no human has broken free of earth’s orbit" and responds, "Actually, since the moon is in orbit, no human has ever broken free of earth's orbit."

Argue that point with NASA, since they're the ones who spoke of the Apollo spacecraft breaking free of earth's orbit. Maybe you're not old enough to remember; I am.

newguy357 quotes Michael Levine "NASA’s failure was deploying teams of scientists, engineers, and pilots, but never deploying any teams of science fiction writers to show us the romance and glory of it." and responds, "No. If NASA put sci-fi writers in space instead of the high quality astronauts they have, then they would have had one more failure. I have a feeling that any of the astronauts could write sci-fi 10 times better than sci-fi writers--they are just too busy doing more important things."

You might want to check out the transcript of the Apollo 15 astronauts speaking while on their lunar mission, posted at http://www.wegrokit.com/apollo.htm :

From "The Hammer and the Feather"

167:51:20 Allen: As the space poet Rhysling (the blind poet in Robert Heinlein's The Green Hills of Earth) would say, we're ready for you to "come back again to the homes of men on the cool green hills of Earth."

[Scott - "That's from the Green Hills of Earth. That's one we talked about before the flight. Have you read that one?"]

[Jones - "Oh, yeah! That was a favorite when I was a kid. Had you read it?"]

[Scott - "Sure. (Quoting from memory) 'We pray for one last landing, on the globe that gave us birth. To rest our eyes on fleecy skies, and the cool green hills of Earth.'"]

[Scott - "In thinking about perception kind of stuff, if you think about where we are (at Hadley), the thing that's really different about the Earth is 'cool green hills' with the fleecy skies and the blue sky. So Heinlein's perception of a meaningful thing for the Blind Poet of the Spaceways is pretty good. That he could transport himself out."]

[Jones - "It was written sometime in the 40s, I think."]

[Scott - "And here we have black skies, and a gray surface. Dramatic difference. I always think it's amazing. Some of those science fiction guys can really project themselves out there that way."]

[Jones - "The good ones could."]

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones. All rights reserved.

There's also a crater named for Heinlein at the Hellas Southeast Quadrant on Mars.

Not bad for an unimportant science-fiction writer.

Another unimportant science-fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, invented the communications satellite, and described it in his writings. If he had thought to apply for a patent on it, he'd be richer than Bill Gates.

Another unimportant science-fiction writer, Jerry Pournelle, ran human factors for NASA and led the team credited with developing the first cardiac monitor. You might remember that if you ever find yourself in a CCU.

As for how well astronauts write science fiction, well, Buzz Aldrin collaborated with an established s-f writer, John Barnes, when he tried his hand at it.

[Jay D. Dyson]

we remain earth-bound as a species. Maybe our place is not traveling to the stars, but then maybe not. Who will now step forward and lead? And who shall stay?

I am suffering from a horrible head-and-chest cold, so if this doesn't come across as incredibly lucid, please excuse me. (And for those who don't care for my commentary, it'll be business as usual, so carry on.) ;)

My take is that we're still in the baby-steps stage of space exploration. And we've got a lot of work to do before we can consider sending humans even to Mars.

First we've got to tackle the fuel problem. If anyone remembers the Saturn 5 rockets that took our astronauts to the moon and back, picture something at least one order of magnitude greater. Why? Because when we send humans up, it won't just be like the Pathfinder/Sojourner mission. We're going to have to include enough stuff to keep our astronauts safe and sane during the 16-month round trip journey. That's a lot of oxygen, food, and equipment.

Second, we've got the issue of human psychology and physiology with which to contend. On the physiological side, we've got issues of bone decalcification. There's a joke among astronauts that you spend the first few days in space "pissing out your bones" because weightlessness causes the body to leech calcium out of our internal skeleton. Then there's muscle atrophy. Just being in a zero gravity environ precludes us from using muscles we normally rely on. Yes, there are several exercise regimens that astronauts engage in to deflect this syndrome, but none are as effective as being in an actual gravity environment.

Then we've got issues with human psychology and the canonical "cabin fever." You think being cooped up in closed quarters for a few months in the winter with a limited selection of food is bad? Try it for almost a year-and-a-half. I can pretty much guarantee you won't be the most pleasant soul by the end of it. Now take that situation and put in it at least 5 other members who'll be equally cranky. Someone's bound to get tossed out the airlock sooner or later.

Third, there's the issue of the technology we'll use. Yes, there's a lot of great stuff out there. I'm on a 5-year-old laptop that's got more processing power than all of the Shuttle computers combined...but we can't use this technology because it is not fail-safe. A blue screen of death may be a pain in the arse on Earth...but it's a matter of life and death when you're navigating your way through space.

Fourth is cost in terms of dollars. The original Viking missions to mars (1976) cost $3 billion (with a 'b') dollars. The Pathfinder/Sojourner missions were much cheaper at just under half a billion dollars. Now when you factor in the additional cost of prep, testing, construction and payload for a human mission to Mars, you're talking in the trillion (with a 't') dollar range.

Finally, what's the point? Sure, it's a romantic notion to think that humanity can walk on other worlds, but what can humans do on Mars that a hundred Pathfinder/Sojourner missions can't (for less cost)?

This isn't to say that humans don't have a place in space science. They definitely do. The experiments and human involvement in the Shuttle and International Space Station have (and continue to) yield fantastic data courtesy of their pure science research. And that data is slowly being absorbed in the academic and technical communities. Eventually, the seemingly-meaningless pure research done finds its way into applications (one such being complex medicines that can only be synthesized in zero gravity).

Anyway, that's my $0.02 on the subject. I'm going to bed...

-Jay

[Aracelis]

Another watch-your-blood-pressure post. Sigh!

[Aaron0617]

Another watch-your-blood-pressure post. Sigh!

Exactly. I thought this would be a post on how US should use Russia's old technology.

$600 MIL to launch a shuttle vs $40 mil for Russia.

I say we dump the shuttle.

[NormsRevenge]

I have a hunch that we will get past the baby steps but it will take a lot of time and money and innovation and lives, as you noted.

Space is a hostile environment as we all know and there are no WalMarts or 7/11s detected out there as yet. ;-)

I also suspect that we may find that human bodies will evolve or adapt as extended missions are undertaken.

Are we willing, as a civilization, to commit to the costs and sacrifices involved? Is it worth it? We may not have a choice should another dinosaur age ender/ asteroid/ planet buster be spotted headed our way anytime soon.

Get Healthy soon!

[RadioAstronomer]

I have a hunch that we will get past the baby steps but it will take a lot of time and money and innovation and lives, as you noted.

We already had. We canceled Dynasoar, basically all the rocket planes such as the X-15, MOL, the Saturn V, Apollo 18 and 19, abandoned Skylab, now the entire Titan rocket series (the last titan IV has been delivered), etc.

From here: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/saturnv.htm

NASA realized that after the completion of the Apollo, Skylab, and ASTP programs there would still be significant Apollo surplus hardware. This amounted to two Saturn V and three Saturn IB boosters; one Skylab space station, three Apollo CSM's and two Lunar Modules. After many iterations NASA considered use of these assets for a second Skylab station in May 1973. A range of options were considered. Saturn V SA-515 would boost the backup Skylab station into orbit somewhere between January 1975 and April 1976. It would serve as a space station for Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft in the context of the Apollo ASTP mission. The Advanced or International Skylab variants proposed use of Saturn V SA-514 to launch a second workshop module and international payloads. This station would be serviced first by Apollo and Soyuz, then by the space shuttle. Using the existing hardware, these options would cost anywhere from $ 220 to $ 650 million. But funds were not forthcoming. The decision was taken to mothball surplus hardware in August 1973. In December 1976, the boosters and spacecraft were handed over to museums. The opportunity to launch an International Space Station, at a tenth of the cost and twenty years earlier, was lost.

I also lament the loss of the SSC.

[Calvin Locke]

Actually, since the moon is in orbit,...

Hmmm. But the Apollo craft orbited a body that was in Earth's orbit. I doubt that if the Moon suddenly vanished, that the
craft would continue to orbit earth.
(Obviously, instantaneous angle exceptions at Moon's gravity loss)

Come to think of it, once an Apollo left Earth's orbit for the Moon, Earth's gravity would have probably lost it's
effective controlling grip. Else, why would the LEM combo have to brake to enter the Moon's orbit?

[Aracelis]

I knew we had a lot of stuff left after these programs, but I didn't realize the extent of the inventory. Quite a waste, IMO.

[Cincinatus]

They never adequately explained why we went. Most everyone thought it was just a race against the Soviets and we’d won. Thus we quit.

Why does he need it adequately explained when he obviously already knows the answer?

This theme is elaborated on HERE.

[Knightsofswing]

We as a speices[sp] are drawn to seek the unkown. Yes we may loose some brave souls, along the way, but that is the way of things. [Sad but true fact] But we as a people want to see what is over the next hill. [even if it is on another planet] We will eventually return to the stars, and planets ect..... I only hope to be one of the lucky few to do so!

[Mamzelle]

re: Finally, what's the point? Sure, it's a romantic notion to think that humanity can walk on other worlds, but what can humans do on Mars that a hundred Pathfinder/Sojourner missions can't (for less cost)? )))

Given the progress in robotics, this is the only way to go. The entire orientation of NASA has *been* romance, not exploration, so the writer here has the problem backwards. NASA has been about "rides"--not exploration. This was caused, in part, by glorifying some pilots in the early years to the point that they controlled the nature of the missions. The mission then became providing *rides*--and the astronauts each competed mightily for their turn.

And every time there was a disaster, there were years of setbacks. The recent disaster was not only costly in astronaut lives, but in the interminable investigation, which cost five more lives due to a helicopter crash of the investigators...

If the flights are unmanned, lost missions become only lost missions, not a national tragedy.

[KevinDavis]

Robots are for cowards like you.. Humans must go into space in order to survive.

[Mamzelle]

Get yourself a segway if you're so hot to "ride"--albeit vicariously.

If NASA can't explore, shut the miserable place down. I'm sick to death of PR joyriding and "science" in space that would be small potatoes at a junior high science fair!!

[KevinDavis]

Yes I'm sick of NASA, however chicken s**** like you should not hold America back, let the real americans move and you can curl yourself up in a corner. I prefer that humans go into space. Not robots. Yes it is dangerous, but life is dangerous. You rather see Chinese astronauts on the Moon? on Mars? WIMP!

[Mamzelle]

Holding us back? We haven't been anywhere since Slayton set the policies that turned the program into a merry-go-round. Frankly, robots would have the guts to start moves to Mars. Then we wouldn't have to bother our heads with the egos of wannabe celebrity pilots--instead we could tackle the real problems of Finding Out.

I'd love for the Chinese to waste their time "riding"--we could put our engineers to work getting farther and learning more through the advances in robotics and telecommunications.

Your silly curses go to show that this is a contest in your mind, and you lack much interest in exploration. That's why NASA has done so little exploration in the past thiry years--to accomodate your kind of *sportsmanship*. Bah. Why should any taxpayer waste his money on such nonsense?

[KevinDavis]

ROBOTS are wimps like you.

[RinaseaofDs]

Read Buzz Aldrin's book and then let me know. It's called 'The Return'. I know it is only one datapoint, but it's vicadin between two cardboard covers.

Any Peggy Noonan fan will tell you that a talented writer can make all the difference.