When it comes to space travel, politics and technology go hand in hand. Political ambitions in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States helped make the Space Age, but now an age of political indifference seems to have dawned. Governments, including the traditional leaders in space -- the US and the USSR -- are dealing with problems on the ground.
The former Soviet Union doesn't have the funds or the internal structure right now to organize major missions. And the US's missions lately seem to involve technical difficulties. Even successful recent manned missions have revolved around making up for earlier embarrassments, like fixing a major problem with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Two large unmanned projects have had similarly embarrassing problems. NASA launched the Mars Orbiter in late 1992. It was supposed to map all of Mars. But, in August 1993, three days before the ship was supposed to begin orbiting the planet, Mars Orbiter went dead. A commission has reported that the probe was probably doomed from the start by leaky valves. NASA's Galileo craft heading for Jupiter also had structural defects that have crippled it.
Such events have caused friction among NASA, Congress, and scientists. The scientists particularly are frustrated. Even when they mount a highly successful, innovative, and inexpensive mission, like the Clementine project to map the Moon, they have no support. In fact, Congress almost pulled funding for Clementine in mid-mission, partly because the project wasn't spectacular enough.
Still, the fortunes of space missions may be taking a turn for the better. Plans for an international space station called Freedom are moving forward. The project calls for international cooperation to build and operate the station. In June 1994, NASA and the Russian Space Agency signed agreements for Russia to participate in the project.
Potential international cooperation may help revive space missions and also provide a way to pay for them. As people begin to talk again about large-scale manned missions, maybe such collaboration is the only way to make something happen.
