Published: November 07, 2009 10:36 pm         

America’s space program is standing at a crossroad

When he was 8 years old John Herrington flew to the moon, in his mind at least, in a cardboard box with a couple of friends.

“I dreamed about being an astronaut in the 1960s,” he said Friday during a visit to Vance Air Force Base. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could accomplish it.”

Herrington never got to the moon, but spent 14 days in space as part of the crew of the shuttle Endeavor in the fall of 2002. A member of the Chickasaw tribe, Herrington thus became the first American Indian to fly in space.

More than 40 years since first putting a man on the moon, America’s space program is limited to low earth orbit through the space shuttle and International Space Station. Any future attempts to once again leave this planet behind are more than a decade away.

Herrington has seen America’s space program from the inside as a shuttle astronaut, and from the outside as a test pilot for the failed Oklahoma-based commercial space flight company Rocketplane Limited Inc.

He believes in the value of continued exploration of space, but knows one of two factors will drive man’s future ventures off the planet — politics or profit.

“Going back to the moon and Mars is great, it’s nice to say we are going to do it, but what’s the purpose behind doing it?” he said. “Is it a commercial reason, is it a political reason? If there’s not a political reason to do it there had better be a commercial reason to do it or you’re not going to do it. You can’t just do it for the fun of it.”

America’s manned spaceflight successes in the 1960s and 1970s, Herrington said, were driven by politics. But in the decades since, Herrington said, NASA’s manned spaceflight goals have not been as clearly defined or articulated.

“In the ’60s there was a goal and a challenge that had to be accomplished,” he said. “The nice thing about this country is, people rise to the challenge. If something’s put in front of them they’ll do their very best to achieve whatever goals they set for themselves.”

Herrington said he shared in the experience of other astronauts who have been struck by the fragile nature of the planet while flying high above it in space.

“There’s an overlying sense of we need to expand our reach into the solar system because we’re not doing a very good job here,” said Herrington. “The nice thing about being in space is it gives a chance to look back and see what we are doing to our own planet.”

The space shuttle fleet is slated to be grounded in 2010 and the Ares I-X rocket that is slated to carry astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars won’t be ready to fly until 2017. Once the shuttle is retired the only way to take new crew members or supplies to the ISS will be through Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

“Are we willing to put all of our eggs in the basket of a foreign government, given the political ramifications of all of that?” said Herrington.

The commercial aspect of space travel has a tremendous upside, Herrington said. Recently, Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque de Soliel, paid $35 million to fly aboard a Soyuz craft to the ISS.

“There’s money to be made flying people to space and bringing them back,” Herrington said. “We pay the Russians millions and millions of dollars to do it, why can’t we pay someone here millions and millions of dollars to do it?

“That’s the commercial reason to go, and that allows NASA to use their budget to do the exploration, to look for water on Mars or life on Mars. Find life on Mars and we fundamentally change the way we look at our place in the universe. Then we are not alone and that changes the game. Then there would be a reason to go.”

And perhaps once again young boys in cardboard boxes could dream of traveling to distant planets.



Mullin is senior writer of the News & Eagle. E-mail him at jmullin@enidnews.com.