NASA: Patriotic Decline

Written by TJ Larsen

December 8, 1998

Thesis:

Today, budget cuts; a lack of public interest, and the dependency on International cooperation has put NASA at high risk of concluding our final chapter on space.  The latest attempts to revive the U.S. space program are dependent on questionable funding and optimistic results.  The future International space station may be the last in a long chain of disappointments for manned space research and NASA itself.

Outline:

I.               NASA’s Budget

a.            Mission to Planet Earth

b.            Space Station

c.            Shuttle technology (X33)

II.             International Efforts

a.            Russian’s Mir Example

b.              Russia’s Participation

III.           John Glenn and Most Recent Events

a.              Illegal Campaign Funding from China

b.              Reaction and Cover Up Attempt

A Soviet cosmonaut named Yuri Gagarin was the first man to physically leave our planet in a spaceship.  The United States sent Alan Shepard into space for 15 minutes just three weeks later.  On February 20, 1962, John Glenn rode in a Mercury capsule for five hours around the earth three times and ended up in the ocean.  A couple of days later, President John F. Kennedy made a public announcement that America would put a man on the moon before the decade’s end.  His promise was kept when Neil Armstrong planted the red, white, and blue flag on the lunar surface eight years later. America excelled in industrial projects faster than any other nation for a few more decades.  In the 1960s, there was a reason to be patriotic and admire all the accomplishments that NASA achieved.  Today, budget cuts; a lack of public interest, and the dependency on International cooperation has put NASA at high risk of concluding our final chapter on space.  The latest attempts to revive the U.S. space program are dependent on questionable funding and optimistic results.  The future International space station may be the last in a long chain of disappointments for manned space research and NASA itself.

Many projects that NASA has developed have been victims of large U.S. budget cutting.  The decision process takes a while before everyone with authority can agree what to support and what to eliminate.  Mission to Planet Earth is a program that almost never left the blueprint stage.  Allen Freedman wrote an article that identifies the Commerce Science and Transportation Committee Chairman, Larry Pressler, and other influential people who fought to preserve funding for the climate-study program, which was susceptible for budget cuts in 1995.  Pressler said, “Mission to Planet Earth may well be NASA’s most important program… (It) delivers direct benefits to the taxpayer, in contrast to the speculative spinoffs promised by some other space activities” (Freedman 2).  Vice President Al Gore, and George E. Brown Jr., a Democratic member of the House Science Committee, also supported the project.  Brown was quoted saying, “many Republicans are opposed to (Mission to Planet Earth) because it will study such issues as global warming and could produce evidence of the effects of greenhouse gases produced by industry” (Freedman 3).  Robert S. Walker, the Science Committee chairman, was against the idea.  He believed that other space programs deserved the funding that was considered for Mission to Planet Earth.  In 1991, Mission to Planet Earth was first intended to study earthquakes, the earth’s magnetic field, and other global issues but since it was restructured to just observing climate change with satellites, Walker thought the focus was too narrow.

Mission to Planet Earth did get fully funded with $1.36 billion.  On July 18, 1995 the House of Appropriations Committee also guaranteed the first initiatives for the future space station when they approved a bill that gave NASA $13.7 billion for 1996.  They also “restored funding for three space centers that a previous version of the bill had targeted for shutdown” (Freedman 1).  The International space station has always found support from the Clinton administration and Republican leaders.   Requests for funding NASA’s space program have been made and argued over for months at a time.  Some wanted to reduce the deficit by eliminating the space station, and others offered “to terminate the station and use the money for housing, environment and science programs” (Freedman 3).  The actual overall price of the space station is believed to be $21.3 billion, and when the launch cost is taken into consideration the price practically doubles to $40 billion.  NASA hopes that the American people will approve and be satisfied with their new international attempt to observe the longtime effects of space.  The station itself will most likely take a $100 billion to maintain and most of the cash will come form the United States while at least fifteen other nations share the results.

The money spent to construct the new station could be spent on developing an easier and less expensive way to send things into space. “The Atlas, Delta, and Titan boosters employed for satellite launches were all designed in the 1950s, before microelectronics, composite materials, or even pocket calculators” (Easterbrook 2).  Today’s space shuttles are structured basically the same way it was in 1972.  They cost so much that it would seem logical to relocate a large portion of the space station’s funds on the development to NASA’s X33 idea.  This is a plan to build a rocket that could orbit the earth in single-stage.  The X33 is supposed to “rise to space in one piece, just like the rockets in ‘Buck Rogers’ serials” and allow NASA to build the space station affordably later in the future (Easterbrook 2).  Putting a man on Mars seems like a possibility when you consider an advance in our launching technology of that caliber.  As smart as it sounds, the NASA administrator, Daniel Goldin, strongly emphasizes that cutting the funds of the space station would be “gambling with the future of the space program” (Freedman 2).  Since he has managed to keep the project going so far, we have no choice, but to wait and see if the results are favorable.  Many people fear that the huge International space station will be half-built and abandoned because of a lack of interest or other nations’ failure to collaborate efficiently.

When the Americans joined the Russians on Mir in 1993, the U.S. hoped to gain some insight on how to handle long-term missions in space.  Soviet Cosmonaut, Yuri Romanenko, has held the current record since he “returned successfully after 326 days in space,” (Smith 2).  The future International space station motivated the alliance.  Serious problems occurred on Mir on a regular basis while the U.S. astronauts were on board.  The head of the House Science Committee, James Sensenbrenner, “concluded that Mir was overdue for the scrap heap and pounded NASA officials for endangering the safety of U.S. astronauts” after learning the details of the mishaps (Guterl 2).  First, Mir was filled with smoke and fumes when some oxygen canisters burst into flames. Months later, the main oxygen generators broke down followed by the air-purification systems because of a coolant leakage into the atmosphere.  The biggest catastrophe put Mir at half power when commander, Vasily Tsibliyev, crashed the unmanned Progress cargo vessel into one of Mir’s six module hulls by joystick.  He was practicing an eyeballed docking maneuver instead of using the radar in case the unit ever failed.  Tsibliyev fired the braking thrusters a bit longer than usual because the Progress was heavier than normal and the pressure in the braking thrusters were lower than normal.  The result was a puncture to American Michael Foale’s lab and sleeping quarters and nonfunctional solar panels.  Marcia Smith, a space expert at the Library of Congress, assures us that the problems that happened on Mir can and are expected to happen on the new space station.  She even claims that the station’s complex hardware will most likely bring on even larger problems that the astronauts will have deal with in turn.

Russia’s participation in the International space station has been less than satisfactory in terms of budget and productivity.  Recently, they have failed to successfully build and launch their share of components for the space station.  The U.S. has been making huge efforts to keep the International space station international by funding both nations’ efforts.  “Bill Clinton approved an emergency subsidy of $660 million for Russia’s space agency to keep it from going out of business… strictly a transfer payment from U.S. taxpayers to Russian aerospace contractors” (Easterbrook 1).  NASA’s Administrator, Daniel Goldin, used to be the executive of the Strategic Defense Initiative and now he feels strongly about convincing the whole world that the U.S. and Russia can work together on projects that are beneficial to everybody.  Since NASA informed Congress in September 1998 that the U.S. might need to pay $1.2 billion over the next couple of years in order to keep Russia involved in the project, it seems like the project benefits Russia more than America. European and Japanese participation will effect the new space station, but most of the management, manufacturing, launches, and members of the crew will be American. NASA will have most of the control and the United States will provide almost all the funding.  The seven-year project began when the first launch containing the new station’s hardware was launched at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstam in November 1998.

January of 1998 was the Democratic Party’s set deadline for the United States Senate to finish its investigation in a presidential campaign scandal.  An article submitted to a magazine, Human Events, indicates that Clinton’s reelection campaign accepted money that was illegally funded from the Chinese government.  China’s assumed intentions were to loosen up the U.S. space technology trade restrictions so they could “be used to advance China’s efforts to build ballistic missiles that can accurately and reliably target U.S. cities for nuclear annihilation” (Globaloney 2).  Shortly after the Senate finished it’s failed investigation, NASA announced that on October 29, 1998 John Glenn, a ranking Democratic senator from Ohio, would orbit the earth once again on board the Discovery shuttle. A Public announcement was made stating that the purpose of Glenn’s participation was so that NASA could study the effects of space flight on the elderly. It became obvious to America that it was also an attempt to increase the public’s interest in the space program.  The fact that Glenn requested the opportunity and that a phone call from the White House to the NASA administrator, Daniel Goldin, made it possible for him to get his wish was not examined at first.  John Glenn is suspected of using his high position to have formed a cover up in the Senate’s investigation and in getting Beijing’s Communist regime off the hook as well as Clinton’s campaign.

In return for Glenn’s years of support and helping the administration cover up the Communist regime’s attempt to illegally influence the U.S. election, he requested a ride in the Discovery flight from President Clinton himself.  Because Daniel Goldin works for Clinton, the administration’s claim that it was purely Goldin’s decision to send Glenn up in the shuttle was not going to be enough to settle the matter.   In April, Bill Clinton admitted that Glenn had asked the for the opportunity in a speech at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas with John Glenn and Daniel Goldin sitting right behind him.  Mike Mullane, a retired U.S. Air Force Col., spoke up about his feelings on the John Glenn situation in the September before the liftoff.  He explained that to try “to escape from a shuttle in a time-critical situation with 831lbs. of equipment strapped to your body requires muscle and lightning-fast reaction” (Globaloney 3).  Being a former shuttle astronaut himself with 356 orbit hours under his belt, Mullane knows what he was talking about.  He warned that Glenn’s participation in the up-coming Discovery mission would surely be a jeopardizing factor.  Severe emergencies on launch pads and in-flight bailouts or crash landings are a reality in these kinds of missions and John Glenn could not be able to accurately perform under extreme conditions as well as some other more qualified men.  63-year-old Story Musgrave and 68-year-old John Young are more experienced, and NASA has medical records on them that are more appropriate for the research. If NASA really wanted to study the medical effects of space flight on the elderly, they would not have picked Glenn, who has spent only five hours in space 36 years ago.

History shows that success and patriotism can be achieved with money.  It seems that it takes more money than ever to make everybody happy these days.  Some critics say, “Apollo succeeded by drowning its problems in money” (Roland 3).  If that is true, NASA is finding it harder to gain comfort from America’s budgeting system.  The U.S. space program is making drastic efforts to gain the public’s acceptance and continue allied forces in the manned space program.  The International space station will either be a sight for sore eyes or a thorn in NASA’s side.  Only time will tell.

Works Cited

Easterbrook, Gregg. “Cosmic Clunker.” New Republic Vol. 219. Issue 22. 30 Nov. 1998:  1-3.

Freedman, Allan. “Space Station, Earth Mission Still Big Targets For Budget –Cutters.” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report Vol. 53. Issue 29. 22 Jul. 1995:  1-5.

“Globaloney In Orbit.” Human Events Vol. 54. Issue 42. 6 Nov. 1998:  1-5.

Guterl, Fred. “One Thing After Another.” Discovery Vol. 8. Issue 1. Jan. 1998:  1-3.

Roland, Alex. “Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S.

Space Program.”  Issues in Science and Technology Vol. 9. Issue 4. 1993: 1-3.

Smith, Jeanette. “As Space Program Approaches 21^st Century, Medicine

Plays Key Role.” JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 263. Issue 2. 12 Jan. 1990: 1-3.