Mars, Bitches! Comrades!

For those of us who dreamed of growing up to be American rocket jockeys, this is a heartbreaking reminder of just how far we have fallen...

(from the NYT)

The Long Countdown
One Way Up: U.S. Space Plan Relies on Russia
By JOHN SCHWARTZ

STAR CITY, Russia — This place was once no place, a secret military base northeast of Moscow that did not show up on maps. The Soviet Union trained its astronauts here to fight on the highest battlefield of the cold war: space.

Yet these days, Star City is the place for America’s hard-won orbital partnership with Russia, where astronauts train to fly aboard Soyuz spacecraft. And in two years Star City will be the only place to send astronauts from any nation to the International Space Station.

The gap is coming: from 2010, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shuts down the space shuttle program, to 2015, when the next generation of American spacecraft is scheduled to arrive, NASA expects to have no human flight capacity and will depend on Russia to get to the $100 billion station, buying seats on Soyuz craft as space tourists do.

As NASA celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, the time lag in the Bush administration’s plan to retire the nation’s three space shuttles and work on a return to the Moon has thrust the United States space program squarely into national politics and geopolitical controversy.

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have denounced the gap and promoted their commitment to the space program while on trips to Florida, where thousands of workers will lose their jobs when the shuttle program ends. And antagonism between the United States and Russia, over the conflict in Georgia and other issues, is clouding the future of a 15-year partnership in space, precisely when NASA will be more reliant on Russia than ever before.

The administrator of NASA, Michael D. Griffin, has called the situation “unseemly in the extreme.” In an e-mail message he sent to his top advisers in August, Dr. Griffin wrote that “events have unfolded in a way that makes it clear how unwise it was for the U.S. to adopt a policy of deliberate dependence on another power.”

Dr. Griffin is worried enough that he ordered his staff to explore flying the aging shuttles past 2010. He did so, he said in an interview last month, “about five minutes after the Russians invaded Georgia, because I could see this coming.” But he warned that any extension would be costly and could further delay NASA’s return to the Moon and threaten America’s role as the leading space power.

China’s Gains

Last month, China made the third successful launching of its Shenzhou VII spacecraft and the first spacewalk by one of its astronauts. The Chinese government has said it hopes to establish a space station and eventually make a Moon landing. The United States plans to return to the Moon by 2020 at the earliest; some observers believe China might get there first.
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In terms of its hard-dollar value in national security, spin off technologies and industries, education and national prestige, NASA was one of the very best investments this country ever made.

But it also represented something more; something to do with a sense of national vitality and pride, and a hopeful vision of the future.

Something that felt a little like this:

And I do not believe in these things because I have come to believe in certain other things--in the coherency and purpose in the world and in the greatness of human destiny. Worlds may freeze and suns may perish, but there stirs something within us now that can never die again.

-- H. G. Wells, 1902

And this:

"... the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward, and so will space."

-- President John F. Kennedy, 1962.

The future used to be a place that America rushed confidently towards.

And while I'm sure that somewhere deep in the heart of the Jesusland,

the search for a faith-based alternative is proceeding, I cannot help but note that a nation which once routinely drove to the Moon, parked, did a little science, played a little golf and then came rocketing back, now has to bum money from the Chinese to buy rides from the Russians to get to the Final Frontier.

And I find that incredibly sad.