{"id":59,"date":"2011-07-21T16:55:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/the-death-of-a-dream-and-the-need-for-manifest-destiny\/"},"modified":"2011-07-21T16:55:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T16:55:00","slug":"the-death-of-a-dream-and-the-need-for-manifest-destiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/the-death-of-a-dream-and-the-need-for-manifest-destiny\/","title":{"rendered":"The Death of a Dream and the Need for Manifest Destiny"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"I always knew I would see the first man on the moon.\u00a0 <\/span>I never dreamed I would see the last.<\/i>
<\/p>\n

<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Dr. Jerry Pournelle<\/i><\/p>\n

Tomorrow, as I write these words, and earlier today, as I post them (thank you software glitches for the delay),\u00a0the last Space Shuttle, Atlantis<\/i>, will land for the final time.\u00a0 <\/span>And then, for all practical purposes<\/i>, it will be over.\u00a0 <\/span>America<\/place><\/country-region>\u2019s manned space program will be gone.<\/p>\n

Yes, I know we\u2019ll still have an astronaut corps.\u00a0 <\/span>They will still fly, on other nation\u2019s launch systems, to the International Space Station.\u00a0 <\/span>At least until it\u2019s deorbited in a few years.\u00a0 <\/span>But we won\u2019t have the capability to send our people into space.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll simply be hitching rides on some else\u2019s rockets.\u00a0 <\/span>Like other countries used to do on ours.\u00a0 We will no longer be the wold’s leader in manned space exploration.
<\/a><\/p>\n

The government, through NASA,\u00a0originally said that a replacement launch vehicle will be built and are continuing to say that.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s ignore for a moment that retiring your launch vehicles without having a replacement is akin to quitting your job without finding a new one or selling your car when you haven\u2019t bought a replacement and are a few hundred miles from home, shall we?\u00a0 <\/span>These are the same people who have been promising for decades to balance the federal budget and reduce the national debt.\u00a0 <\/span>Given the negative progress they\u2019ve made, I\u2019m not holding out hope for a replacement vehicle from the government.\u00a0 <\/span>Especially since our leerless feeder<\/strike> fearless leader last week said that it was time for private industry \u201cto capture the flag<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

That\u2019s almost certainly the only way we\u2019ll ever get back into space.\u00a0 <\/span>Through private industry.\u00a0 <\/span>Our government won\u2019t do it.\u00a0 <\/span>The Chinese might.\u00a0 <\/span>The Russians will probably keep something going not only to service the Station, but as a matter of pride.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe Americans beat us to the Moon, but we\u2019re still in space while they\u2019ve quit and gone home.\u201d<\/p>\n

If our government wants to implement a real stimulus package, perhaps our elected officials might like to consider this little fact:\u00a0 <\/span>For every dollar spent on the space program, the government has received approximately $7 back in corporate and personal income tax due to the development of spinoff technology.\u00a0 <\/span>For that type of increase in taxes, there would have to be more money circulating in the economy.\u00a0 <\/span>There are several websites that list some of the things we enjoy today that came out of research and development in our space program.\u00a0 <\/span>For starters try this one<\/a>, and this one<\/a>, and this one<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I know that we\u2019ll send probes on various missions.\u00a0 <\/span>At least for a while.\u00a0 <\/span>And I know all the arguments for using robots and unmanned probes rather than people.\u00a0 <\/span>And to a point, they\u2019re valid.\u00a0 <\/span>But there are some things robots can\u2019t do.\u00a0 <\/span>Do we quit when we get to the point that we\u2019ve done all we can with robots?\u00a0 <\/span>Or do we keep going?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something in the human spirit that needs frontiers.\u00a0 <\/span>Well, the healthy human spirit anyway.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s why as a species, we\u2019ve always been explorers.\u00a0 <\/span>America<\/place><\/country-region> was settled in part due to a belief in a Manifest Destiny, that it was our God-given duty to tame the wilderness.\u00a0 <\/span>Now I realize that attitude is about as politically incorrect as you get these days.\u00a0 <\/span>And I\u2019m not issuing a call to return to imperialism or rampant environmental desecration.<\/p>\n

Just the opposite in fact.\u00a0 <\/span>We have only a limited amount of resources here.\u00a0 <\/span>There are plenty of resources out in the inner solar system, in the asteroids and comets.\u00a0 <\/span>If we are going to be good stewards of what we have, part of that stewardship could, and should, involve using the resources available off-planet.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

We need to recapture that sense of Manifest Destiny.\u00a0 <\/span>Only instead of taming the wilderness, we need to see space as the focus of that Manifest Destiny.\u00a0 <\/span>Our future lies not only on Earth but in this solar system, and hopefully others one day.\u00a0 <\/span>Cheesy Hollywood movies are probably not the way to instill that dream.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s become pretty clear that in the area of space exploration, as in most areas, government isn\u2019t the best choice either.<\/p>\n

Private industry on the other hand\u2026private industry can provide the motivation.\u00a0 I pray that it happens.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s money to be made in space, just like in the 1500s and 1600s there was money to be made in the New World<\/place>.\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, it will be expensive.\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, the risks are great.\u00a0 <\/span>But I\u2019ll take risk over stagnation any day.\u00a0 <\/span>If there\u2019s one thing we learn from biological systems, it\u2019s grow or die.\u00a0 <\/span>There is no such thing as stasis.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s a book I\u2019ve been meaning to read entitled When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433<\/em><\/a>, about how the Chinese turned from being a society of explorers to isolationism.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s a lesson here for the Space Age.<\/p>\n

I grew up dreaming of one day living in a spacefaring society.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll die doing the same.<\/p>\n

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn\u2019t do than by the ones you did do.\u00a0 <\/span>So throw off the bowlines.\u00a0 <\/span>Sail away from the safe harbor.\u00a0 <\/span>Explore. Dream.\u00a0 <\/span>Discover.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Mark Twain<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always knew I would see the first man on the moon.\u00a0 I never dreamed I would see the last. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. Jerry Pournelle Tomorrow, as I write these words, and earlier today, as I post them (thank you software glitches for the delay),\u00a0the last Space Shuttle, Atlantis, will land for the final time.\u00a0 And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[97,96,100,99,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jerry-pournelle","category-mark-twain","category-nasa","category-space-program","category-space-shuttle"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-X","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}