At 1:47 a.m. eastern time yesterday, after a hydrogen leak delayed it in early September, then a hurricane later the same month, the United States finally launched the first Artemis spacecraft to the moon. The most powerful rocket in the history of the American space program turned night into day.
But beyond the spectacle….
…. why should we care?
The short answer in my mind is, because man was meant to explore. When I started covering the space program in 2005, I asked Michael Griffin, then NASA’s chief, essentially the same question: why should we care? His answer was, “Throughout history, the nations that put their men and money into ships that sailed across uncharted oceans became the leading nations of their times. Not to mention beneficiaries of the riches with which those ships came home.”
For more than half a century now, as those uncharted oceans have become uncharted skies, we have been one of those nations. For Americans, exploration— into a new kind of government, into new forms of transportation and communication and so much more— always has been a hallmark of our character. We always have been a people who were not just curious, but took risks to find out.
Space is just the most dramatic example. It stirs up qualities that distinguish man from every other species on earth: profound intellect, boundless invention, insatiable curiosity, bold exploration. I don’t ignore the adverse implications for America’s native peoples, but where would we be today without the inquisitive adventurers of centuries past who “sailed across uncharted oceans” and found new worlds?
True, after six manned missions reached the moon, we sailed no farther. Twelve men walked on the lunar surface, but almost fifty years have passed since the last ones landed and none has ever gone back.
Today, that begins to change because, as some argue, we need to. Those courageous missions a half century ago answered questions about science, and the missions now, beginning with Artemis, might actually answer questions about survival. (Artemis is so named, by the way, because in Greek mythology, she was the twin sister of Apollo, after whom the rocket was named more than a half century ago that took those men to the moon). As our population continues to expand, we might some day depend on what astronauts can learn about growing food on another planet. As we continue to age, we might some day depend on what they learn about developing medicines millions of miles from home.
And that begins with establishing a manned base on the moon as a launch pad for deeper space, with an eye on Mars. In terms of energy (which can be airlifted or even potentially beamed from earth to moon) and gravity (which has only about a sixth the pull it has on earth), spacecraft won’t need colossal quantities of fuel to blast off for the cosmos.
Yes, there are risks. There always are risks. The program manager for the space shuttle once held his hand about a foot from my face at the Kennedy Space Center, put his forefinger about a millimeter above his upturned thumb, and told me, “We are always about this close to catastrophe.” Nothing about that has changed. But from the first American in space to the astronauts now traveling on commercial spacecraft, the risks have been worth taking.
I remember the awe I felt, the awe everyone felt, when Alan Shepard became that first American to break the bonds of earth. He launched in a capsule not 12 feet tall that he named “Freedom 7.” His whole sub-orbital flight traveled just over 300 miles and lasted less than sixteen minutes from liftoff to splashdown in the Atlantic.
Now more than 60 years later, compare his rocket to the one that late Tuesday night launched the Artemis mission toward the moon. Shepard’s Redstone rocket was 69 feet high, weighed roughly 62,000 pounds, and reached a top speed of about 5,000 mph. The rocket for Artemis stood 322 feet high, weighed almost six million pounds, and already is speeding through space at almost 25,000 m.p.h.
But Shepard’s mission was brave and breathtaking for its day and what’s important to remember is, he wouldn’t have flown at all if he, and the American people, were risk-averse.
With the risks come rewards. When NASA chief Griffin talked to me about “the riches with which those ships came home,” he went on to explain about the riches, large and small, that space exploration has spawned. From robotics to satellite telecommunications, from cardiac tools to cancer therapies, from home insulation to fire retardants, from water purifiers to solar panels, from polarized sunglasses to freeze-dried foods, and last but not least, to the Dustbuster.
So we’re headed back to the moon. It has taken so long because scientists and engineers had to turn inventive again— new materials, new fuels— for long term travel. But that’s the goal, long term travel to distant bodies in the solar system, not just one more American flag on the lunar surface. I once asked Griffin’s successor at NASA, Charlie Bolden, himself a four-time shuttle astronaut, whether we’d ever go back to the moon and he said, “Yes, but we’re in no hurry. Maybe someone will even beat us there. But do you know what they’ll find when they land on the lunar surface? Six flags. And they’re all ours.”
So far, our record seems safe. China… and decades ago, the Soviet Union… have landed robotic vehicles there, but making spacecraft safe to put humans on the moon requires a magnitude of knowhow they evidently haven’t achieved.
Which puts the U.S. in the lead to land men on Mars.
Scott Carpenter, who was the second American to actually orbit our planet after John Glenn, once told me why Mars matters, and he spoke with the kind of pioneer spirit that got us to where we are: “Because it is inevitable that we will go there. That’s what humans do.” If you are an explorer, no more need be said.
No one alive on January 20th, 1969 will ever forget Neil Armstrong’s immortal words as he put the first human foot on the moon: “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Today we are taking the next small step in the final frontier of space. The plan, by 2025, is to send two astronauts for a week-long stay.
That’s how we secure our place in the forefront of discovery. That’s how we secure our place as one of the leading nations of our time.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies and politics at home and international crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Thanks Greg.... we needed to be reminded why these efforts are so necessary
Mankind is innately destined to explore. Even though we will look back on this time and say "how primitive", it is a step toward our goal of interplanetary and intergalactic exploration. If our species is to flourish into infinity we must learn how to safely escape the bonds of our earthy gravity.