What If the Apollo Program Never Happened?

astroengine writes "In a recent debate, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said he would like to beat the Chinese back to the moon. He has even been so bold as to propose setting up a manned base by 2020, driven by empowering private industry to take the initiative. It's ironic to hear moon travel still being debated 40 years after the last Apollo landing in 1972. Between then and now, NASA's small space shuttle fleet filled in for space travel, but astronauts could only venture as far a low earth orbit — at an altitude much lower than the early pioneers reached. If there were no Apollo crash program to beat the Soviets to the moon, would we have planned to go to the moon eventually? But this time with a commitment of staying? Or would we never go?"

Comments

Ironic?

[Scutter]

It's ironic to hear moon travel still being debated 40 years after the last Apollo landing in 1972.

I think that word doesn't mean what you think it means.

Re:Ironic?

[similar_name]

When I look at Dictionary.com I find this for irony:

5. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

It seems reasonable that debating moon travel 40 years after Apollo might be considered unexpected. What am I missing?

Re:Ironic?

[Dogtanian]

He's probably gen-X. That stupid Alanis song ruined that word for an entire generation.

I doubt that. Do you realise how many times it's been pointed out by various parties how ironic it is that all "Ironic's" examples of irony aren't?

They've probably heard that more times than they've heard the song itself...

Re:Ironic?

[yotto]

I don't know. I think nobody expected it to take 50 years to get back (assuming Newt can do it, which even if elected he can't/won't) or more (see previous parenthetical)

And that thought amuses me in a sad kind of way.

Re:Ironic?

[Teancum]

The problem wasn't the creation of the Saturn V, but rather the cancellation of that rocket and shutting down the factories that built it. Werner Von Braun had the vision for an extensive program built upon mass production of that rocket, with the test stands in Texas, Alabama, and the facilities in Florida built to send hundreds of copies of that rocket into space at a rate of about one per month. There was even an "Apollo II" capsule design that could have held up to seven astronauts at the same time.

I've argued in a "what if" situation that for the money spent on the Space Shuttle program, an equal number or even larger number of astronauts could have flown on the Saturn V, build space stations much larger than the ISS, continued with manned exploration of the Moon, and might have even made the trip to Mars by now. Had the Space Shuttle never happened, the infrastructure to do everything else would have been in place. Skylab alone would have remained in orbit for likely another decade, or at least a couple more missions before its septic tanks finally filled up. Perhaps the Skylab backup that is currently sitting in the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC would have flown rather than rotting away as a tourist curiosity.

Some changes needed to happen and the same tempo that was going on in the late 1960's did have to change, but the Saturn V did not need to be abandoned. The Soyuz rocket and capsule, designed during the same era, is still going today and has proven to be a genuine workhorse of a vehicle. There is no reason why Saturn I/V rockets could not have been allowed to continue in their production queue once the infrastructure to make them had finally been built and the cost of making those factories had already been paid for.

Re:Ironic?

[lennier]

If America closes its frontier completely and doesn't move out to the rest of the Solar System...

And there I think you've hit the nail on the head.

The reason America has both dreams and handwringing about space in the first place is that it still is living on dreams of a frontier - and on an economic system adapted to 500 years of exploitation of that frontier. But the frontier has long closed. And yet, the frontier-capitalist hyper-growth model - "there's always somewhere new to move to" - has now been exported to the rest of the world. That's a problem.

We can't solve this, realistically, by going back into space, because space just isn't an exploitable frontier in the same way that the Americas were 500 years ago. It might become such a frontier in the future, but we can't get there from here using the exploitative, expansive, unsustainable economic systems we currently have.

We'll have to build closed life-support ships-in-bottles to do long-duration spaceflight, and those are likely to be the exact opposite of frontier communities unless we have some kind of near-organic magitech, on the order of Star Trek's Genesis bomb, which can insta-smelt biospheres out of lunar regolith. And if we had that on Earth, we could make the deserts bloom and bring back the whales first.

Well

[masternerdguy]

Without space exploration there isn't much point to our civilization.

Re:Well

[rubycodez]

is that sarcasm? most of human culture and endeavors and civilization had existed fine before there ever was space travel, and will continue to do so with or without it.

Re:Well

[jamvger]

I hate this "all-eggs-in-one-basket" argument for preserving the human race. It misses the point entirely, because in the bigger picture Earth is not a sustainable system. The Sun is getting brighter; in less than a billion years it will be too intense for Earth's oceans to continue to exist. Like Mars did in ages past, Earth is going to lose its water. On the other side of the balance, Earth's interior is cooling, geological activity is diminishing, and so volcanic replenishment of the atmosphere is slowly winding down.It is clear, at such time scales, that if the entirety of life on Earth is to avoid extinction then life must branch out off the planet. That means launching equipment and people to build massive, robust infrastructure. Crops. Botanical gardens. Zoos.

Except that space is HARD. It's really expensive to get there and it is a high-vacuum radiation hell. It would take a long time and an expensive, sustained effort to construct off-planet habitats - a *tremendous* amount of effort and money before there is any payoff at all.

On the other hand, for example the asteroid 16 Psyche contains enough metal to construct a solid cylinder fivekm in diameter stretching from here to the Moon. Or cover North America in a layer 280 meters thick.The resources available to an outer space civilization are great enough to insure that if outer space habitats do reach the point where they can expand and grow, the payoff would be big enough to sustain life past the death of the Sun.

We are half-way through the era of animals on Earth. There have been at least a half dozen mass extinctions since animals first started evolving a half-billion years ago; there will be more. The glaciers have grown and retreated dozens of times over the last two million years; they will return. Yellowstone is going to explode again. And again. And again. Time is not unlimited.

But we have time. Abundant fossil fuels, and the internet - we are right now living in the decades of maximum wealth. At some point, within a few decades, we will either run out of fuel or we will run out of the capacity to sink carbon emissions. When this happens, it will mean the end of a way of life. Maximum wealth *right now* means that *right now* is the best and possibly the only time to lift off. Life on Earth only gets one pass at the fossil fuel heritage; if the next extinction event brings us to a place where launching is not possible, life will have missed its chance.

I'm not a nutter, I am a realist. I'm certain that outer space settlements will not solve our current growth vs. environment problems - the payoff will come way too late for that. None of our current issues will be solved, or even mitigated, by vigorous and immediate launches into the great expanse. Nonetheless, if DNA is to avoid extinction we need to start moving now as rapidly as we can. Nothing else matters.

The cocoon we call Earth is going to wither; whether or not she gives birthbefore she dies is entirely in the hands of human civilization. Our civilization,right now, we're the only chance. Sure, leaving Eden is a horrible burden. Suckit up. We have to go. Now.

Or, we can continue toasting marshmallows at the planet's one-time-only oil burning party.

Re:Well

[elrous0]

Our civilization,right now, we're the only chance. Sure, leaving Eden is a horrible burden. Suckit up. We have to go. Now.

People who say stuff like this usually have no idea the distances involved. It would probably take us MILLIONS of years to reach the nearest planet that's even remotely habitable. We don't have any kind of technology that could possibly survive that long, much less that could keep fragile human bodies alive that long.

We're just stuck here. Don't feel bad, though. We're going to go extinct eventually, even if we made it out into space. If an asteroid doesn't get you, the heat death of the universe certainly will.

Re:Well

[jamvger]

I'm not talking about going to other star systems, I'm talking about settling within the solar system we already inhabit.

Succeed at that, and then we have a few billion years to find a way to get to other stars.

Succeed at that, and then we have time to explore ways to deal with the death of the universe.

Re:Well

[elrous0]

None of the other bodies in our solar system is habitable by humans. Terraforming is a silly fiction. Think about it. If we had the level of technology to radically transform an entire planet's atmosphere, generate soil and water, etc. it would be a LOT easier to use it on earth in the wake of anything short of an earth-SHATTERING asteroid than to use it on Mars.

Humans should make the most of our time here, and stop worrying so much about all the silly ways we can imagine our doom.

No

[paiute]

Without the lash of the Communist menace, Congress would not have spend trillions to shoot people into space.

Re:No

[cavreader]

Society has become too risk adverse to do anything as innovative and risky as the first moon landings. The minute something goes wrong everyone immediately starts arguing about whose fault it was instead of acknowledging the entire venture is risky so don't be too surprised if a couple of things blow up. The rocket disasters in the early space program did not shelve the project until endless analyses could be conducted to guarantee 100% future success. The astronauts who participate in the space program certainly understand and are willing to take the risk and as long as that is the case we should continue pushing outwards. Thousands of years ago people blindly set off to sail the oceans when they thought the world was flat but they went anyway and eventually new discoveries were made, Early scientific minds were willing to chance being charged as religious heretics in order to study and eventually publish information about the solar system and basic physics models. We can't depend on any politicians to say or support any risky venture because they are afraid of being blamed for any failures. The only way the US will get back to the moon is if China (or any other country) starts working in that direction. Then the politicians might be willing to fund and promote a risky project in the sacred cause of national security.

Re:No

[mcgrew]

Society has become too risk adverse to do anything as innovative and risky as the first moon landings.

No it hasn't. Yes, we've minimized risk where possible, but not minimizing risk as much as you can for a particular feat is just stupid. But people still bungi jump, climb mountains, do extreme motocross and snowboarding/skateboarding, drag racing 200mph in a quarter mile, etc.

The minute something goes wrong everyone immediately starts arguing about whose fault it was instead of acknowledging the entire venture is risky so don't be too surprised if a couple of things blow up.

I take it you weren't yet born when Apollo 7 blew up.

The rocket disasters in the early space program did not shelve the project until endless analyses could be conducted to guarantee 100% future success.

What early rocket disasters? Yeah, a lot of UNMANNED rockets blew up, why do you think they were unmanned? Apollo 7 set the program back by two years rather than their saying "well, accidents happen, let's launch another one."

Thousands of years ago people blindly set off to sail the oceans when they thought the world was flat

Sailors knew the world wasn't flat, as they coud see the land slowly sinking into the horizon as they got farther away.

Early scientific minds were willing to chance being charged as religious heretics in order to study and eventually publish information about the solar system and basic physics models.

Yeah, that's why Leonardo spoke in code.

The reason government isn't sponsoring moon exploration is because there's no need for government to do so, especially since robots seem to be doing a pretty good job on Mars and other planets.

We're not going to ever leave the solar system and colonize another one unless someone discovers a way around the lightspeed limit, and if it ever happesn it will be generations from now.

Politicians aren't afraid of dead soldiers in Iraq, or dead Navy Seals in Afghanistan and Somalia, are they? So why would they be afraid of dead astronauts? Rather than parrot what you hear, give it a little thought.

More pandering from candidates

[LastGunslinger]

Gingrich's speech was no more than pandering to the crowd ahead of the primary election. He's made bullshit promises in every state he's campaigned in so far. How does funding a new moon mission mesh with the Republican party's insistence on deep budget cuts on everything but military spending? Face it, we aren't going to the moon or Mars anytime soon. One side of the aisle wants to overspend on the military, the other wants to overspend on social programs. All the debate over taxes and discretionary spending is political theatre. Neither party is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to fix budgetary problems and neither really gives a damn about space exploration.

Re:Scientists did not want to send humans...

[Tastecicles]

No, the only reason the US sent *people* to the Moon was because the Russians had already beaten them to the punch regarding both farside orbit and robotic softlanding. Manned landing was the only milestone left.

Re:Travel Vs Base

[elrous0]

Well, that and the fact that he happens to be campaigning in Florida this week.

Space not pandering for Newt

[SuperKendall]

Gingrich's speech was no more than pandering to the crowd ahead of the primary election. He's made bullshit promises in every state he's campaigned in so far.

The idea of a more permanent return to the moon is something Newt has talked about for decades, and also pushed forward a bill or two on.

Newt has been really "into" space for a long, long time. I agree the timing of talking about this is pandering but fundamentally Newt really is interested in furthering space exploration.

How does funding a new moon mission mesh with the Republican party's insistence on deep budget cuts on everything but military spending?

Here is where your ignorance shows. You didn't even finish reading the SUMMARY much less the actual story!

Newt wants to take some small portion of the NASA budget to issue X-Prize style prizes that move private industry forward in the goal of a lunar space colony.

When put the way he actually means, does it sound so crazy? The tax payers pay very little, private industry takes all the risk. It would accelerate the already growing private space industry but with a very beneficial focus beyond just "going to space".

Regardless of who actually becomes president this is a very good idea to support private space travel and to reduce government spending in space at the same time.

44 years to return to south pole

[peter303]

The first & second south pole expeditions arrived exactly 100 years ago. But the third one was in 1956. The technology and motivations had improved by then.

Re:Newt. Nobody calls me Rebeca, except my brother

[icebraining]

Wasn't that more or less how the US went to the moon the first time?