January 23rd, 2004

by Eric 'Renderking' Fisk  

There was a time in my life around the mid to late 1990’s where I was a huge space enthusiast. I would be at the hobby shop on Saturday before it would open so I could get my hands on the latest model from every science fiction franchise and fresh bottles of paint. The best color for doing starships was a combination of “Flat Gull Gray” and “Robin’s Egg Blue”. I was such a perfectionist.  I took up the airbrush to get the detailing and the weathering on these craft to look just right. I also had a collection of various pins and badges from “Starfleet” to show my support for the future of our current space program.

My home page was “NASA.gov” or “NASA.org” and first thing in the morning I would check out the “columns/img of the Day”. I took up computer graphics as a way of exploring strange new worlds.  I would use my artistic abilities as a means of expressing my yearning for space travel. I wanted so badly to be the Indiana Jones of the space era, uncovering lost alien civilizations…

Then, it all changed. I woke up one morning and I realized that it was nonsense. It was garbage. We were not going anywhere. There were no real goals, no real reaching for the stars. There was no striving for exploration. “To Boldly Go…” was nothing more than the opening lines to an American iconoclastic television series that cashed in on our aspirations to sell soap and new products we can no longer afford in our deficit way of life.

Then, last year, the world witnessed a truly tragic catastrophe that is also symbolic of America’s dying fascination with space. It would be cruel to call this a comedy of errors, but the fate of those astronauts were sealed in a troubled system that was more interested in validating itself the performing real science and real exploration. There is blood on a lot of hands, and not just for those who work at NASA and the contractors, but on the hands of those who should have provided the funding for a newer, better space craft.

The Shuttle Blame Game

By the third month after the Columbia incident, the folks at NASA were playing the Watergate Game.  Everybody was producing memos to prove who knew what and when. Fingers were pointing at everybody else while a handful of people were saying, “I told you so.” Some of those people who were running around saying “I told you so” may be justified in doing so, but also revealed themselves to be part of a bigger problem.  An excellent example comes from Bill Anderson of the United Space Alliance LLC, who was quoted in a memo about the debris hitting the underbelly of the shuttle: "Why are we talking about this on the day before landing and not the day after launch?" Mr. Anderson makes an excellent point, not just to the specifics of the problem but to the greater problem with the space program as a whole.

The greater problem was that the" work culture" of NASA  didn't have the vision that John Kennedy gave it when he challenged the United States to go to the moon almost four decades ago.  At the time of the Columbia loss, NASA was an organization without a goal and a self-serving bureaucracy. It has been an organization that has the giant dead albatross around its neck, otherwise known as the Space Shuttle Fleet. Reading some of the reports the first few weeks after Columbia came apart in the atmosphere, they stated how the Shuttle seems to have taken over the vast majority of the space program’s resources while not really having a mission besides building the International Space Station. The International Space Station [ISS] seems to be little better then another “make work” project… build a place in space so that later the Shuttle will have somewhere to go.

Granted, I’m well aware that for us to even consider more grand visions of the future, we must build the infrastructure… much like building the shipyards and the docks before building the ships to venture off to new continents ages ago.

To be fair, the blame cannot honestly be held on NASA. If anything, their only sin is that of a selfish desire to survive with what little support they were given. The real blame doesn’t lie in either Houston, Texas or Cape Canaveral, Florida. The real blame for starters lies at the feet of every administration that has occupied the White House since and including Jimmy Carter. More so, the deaths of those seven astronauts are on the hands of every President, every Congressman and every Senator who has held office since the original Challenger disaster back in 1986.

Shortly after the Challenger accident, NASA and the American public should have demanded an overhaul of the Shuttle. Everything about the Shuttle should have been redesigned or a totally different approach to how we send our brave men and women into orbit should have been implemented. The design of the shuttle was already around 20 years old at the time of the Challenger disaster back in January 28, 1986, meaning that some time ago the remaining antiquated ships in the fleet should have been retired and put on display at the Johnson Space center and the Smithsonian. A specific example that the shuttle is no longer state of the art is in fact that NASA has to find spare computer parts for their archaic systems on the Shuttles on eBay.

Since the Columbia disaster this past February I was able to find six different magazines with cover stories on the next step in the evolution of orbital spacecraft. Both the Challenger and Columbia disasters are clear calls and signs that a new system should be developed and used starting immediately.

Ironically, year after year we’ve been reading how programs were cut in favor of the already trouble plagued Shuttle. Most notably according to an article found on “Space Ref” [http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=9105] reporting on the House Science Committee’s  “NASA's Integrated Space Transportation Plan and Orbital Space Plane Program”, Quote: “In March 2001, NASA canceled the X-33 single-stage-to-orbit program and the X-34 technology demonstrator after spending $1.4 billion (not including $356 million spent by Lockheed on X-33). NASA concluded that the technical barriers of the X-33 were too great and that the benefits of the X-34 did not justify the cost.”

Many of these problems with the space program need to be corrected, starting with a new approach to spacecraft. Perhaps almost a year later after the loss of Columbia, the President of The United States is trying to do just that.

True Space Exploration versus “The Roddenberry Factor”

Last week, George Bush laid out his plan for his new Space Exploration initiative. What he proposes is a strategy and goals for the next three decades. Both bold and daring, the Bush program harkens back to the era of John Kennedy who challenged a nation and the world to set foot on the moon before the end of the decade of the 1960’s. President Bush’s plan as an outline might pave the way towards a future that is full of promise and will take “The War On Terror” off the front page week after week.

An outline of President Bush’s Space Exploration initiative.*

• 2005 Return the current fleet of remaining Space Shuttles into service
• 2008 Send robotic probes to the moon and begin tests on a new manned space exploration vehicle.
• 2010 – Retire the current fleet of Space Shuttles and begin using the new Crew Exploration Vehicle’s (CEV), fulfilling the United States commitment to the International Space Station (ISS) while focusing research on the ISS towards the long term effects of space travel on astronauts
• 2015 – Establish a permanent lunar base
• After 2020 - Lunar-based probes, landers explore the solar system
• Circa 2030 – Men land on Mars.

*Source – CNN and FOXnews.com

There is criticism that maybe this is not the right time, but I’m not amused by someone’s notion that they think that exploring is a waste. The space program CHANGED THE WORLD in vast ways we can’t measure, mostly for the better. The next phase of the Space Program will change life here on earth again in immeasurable ways, as well. 

When someone made the statement that we don’t need to spend this kind of money on a new space program, someone else asked this person doesn’t she have a sense of wonder and yearns to know what’s “out there”? She responded by saying that she does, but she has science fiction and fantasy to satisfy those needs. I don’t want to live in the kind of world where watching STAR TREK is enough to satisfy the sense of wonder. Living vicariously through fictional characters isn’t enough for me. If we have a shot to “Boldly Go”, then we should be going. The benefits far out-weight the cost.

As we tackle problems such as prolonged weightlessness, maintaining and sustain life in inhospitable territory, and energy needs there will be real-life applications here on earth. Many of the problems we’re facing here on this planet may be solved from spin-off technology developed for the space programs. It’s inevitable that societies that don’t thrive and try to exceed their grasp fail and die. The United States and our allied countries need to exceed our grasp and venture out beyond. As we venture out and encounter problems and try to solve them, the human knowledge base grows and our lives will be enriched by those labors.

The Raiders Connection?

Many of you who are reading this article are no doubt wondering what this has to do with “Indiana Jones” or the type of man personified in Raiders, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade.

For me, the answer is pretty simple. This new space program may lead to a new era of heroes who became household words in decades past. Men like Chuck Yager, Alan B. Shepherd, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldren, Michael Collins, Jim Lovell and the rest of the Apollo 13 crew were well renowned for their achievements as well as many men behind the scenes such as Gene Krantz at Mission Control.

This type of adventure needs unique men and women who are rugged individuals, intellectuals and team players. People who dare to do what has never been done before while knowing the dangers that lie ahead, whether it’s a thousand year old crypt protected by booby-traps or worlds never visited before. It takes a special kind of character who wants to risk these hazards for more then just “fortune and glory”.

As I was listening to President Bush’s speech a few things struck me. I was looking at my son and thought that this might be an outline of his future, something that he can look forward to. For him, he could possibly go... while I might be too old when the time comes for space travel to be commonplace. He's a year an a half old as I try to imagine how far we will have gone with in the next 34 years… the age that I am now. It’s doubtful that in the driveway of every home there will be “X-Wing Fighter” Sports Cars or Space Craft Mini-Van – Millennium Falcon Hybrids, but there will be types of spacecraft that will be part of our daily vocabulary in the decades to come that are beyond our imagination today, beyond the aforementioned X-33 “Venture Star”.

With all this new talk of space travel… I’ve made room on my workbench for my Airbrush and looked at some of the models left uncompleted years ago. As I’m stirring new jars of “Flat Gull Grey” and “Robin’s Egg Blue”, a thought occurred to me. If we are going to do this, and some of us are going to go… I would like to know how some of you would be able to handle wearing a fedora in zero gravity. Any ideas? You can drop me a line at renderking@theindyexperience.com and let me know.