TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/072489/07248900.063

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SPACE, Page 50

The Next Giant Leap for Mankind

Two decades after its first moon landing, it is time for the U.S.

to head for Mars

By Michael D. Lemonick


    Three-quarters of a billion people peered at the murky images
on their television screens on July 20, 1969, as Neil Armstrong
became the first human to stand on another world. To Americans, the
spirit-lifting achievement was well worth the cost and effort. The
quest to reach the moon had revitalized U.S. science and technology
and yielded countless benefits to industry and the military. Most
amazing of all, the Eagle landed only eight years after John F.
Kennedy proclaimed the moonshot a national priority.

    But after Apollo, something went wrong with the nation's space
program. Despite successes -- such as the Skylab space station and
the series of unmanned missions that will reach its climax next
month when Voyager 2 arrives at Neptune -- the program seemed to
founder. The space shuttle, for example, was oversold as the one
answer to U.S. space-transportation needs. But it is too big to put
astronauts in space efficiently, too small to launch the largest
payloads and too unreliable to live up to the 60-flight-per-year
schedule once promised. The result, even before the Challenger
accident: a backlog of unlaunched missions.

    Now NASA is poised to make a similar mistake with its next
major project, the $32 billion Freedom space station, scheduled to
go into full operation in the late 1990s. Like the shuttle, it is
being presented as a widely versatile project that will provide for
the needs of scientists, engineers and space explorers. But without
a focused, long-range program, those needs are not clear.

    The crux of the problem is that the leadership Presidents
Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson gave the Apollo program was not
continued by their successors. That leadership gap may soon end,
though. As early as this week, President George Bush is expected
to announce his vision for the U.S. space program. No one knows
what Bush will say, but some members of his National Space Council,
chaired by Vice President Dan Quayle, reportedly favor a return to
the moon, followed by a manned trip to Mars.

    That would be ambitious and expensive -- up to $150 billion.
But the payback would be great. Such a specific, long-term goal
would invigorate NASA. It would revive public interest in science,
providing new pep for a sector of the educational system that has
become disturbingly weak. It would stimulate innovation in
everything from materials science to computers to communications.
It would create jobs. And, least tangible but perhaps most
important, it would add enormously to the nation's prestige.

    Moreover, points out Eugene Cernan, who walked on the moon in
1972, with such a long-range goal "we can then work backward and
take the steps to get us there." That would eliminate the
let's-build-it-and-see-what-it's-good-for approach. Far from
withering, other space initiatives would be lifted by the rising
tide of national interest and funding. Unmanned probes to the
planets would continue, and NASA would still be able to launch the
Mission to Planet Earth, a series of satellites designed to study
the planet's environment and give scientists the information they
need to head off ecological disaster.

    The most reasonable date for a Mars mission is 2020. That
allows plenty of time for a measured approach and spreads the
expenditure over a sensible period. It also gives NASA ample
opportunity to choose the next goal after Mars -- exploration of
the asteroid belt, for example, or a manned trip to the outer
planets. Robot probes would have to study the Red Planet in depth
first. One, the Mars Observer, is scheduled for a 1992 launch, and
others would have to follow.

    Another logical stepping-stone is a lunar base, which could be
built by 2000, as a testing ground for technologies necessary for
a Martian sojourn. In particular, astronauts would experiment with
living quarters in which air and water are recycled. Inhabitants
of a lunar base would also begin learning how to mine the moon for
raw materials, including trapped gases and minerals, that would
permit the base to become almost entirely self-sufficient and thus
permanent.

    Before such a moon base can be built, NASA will have to get
some kind of space station: the massive components needed for a
lunar habitat are too heavy to lift from earth and will have to be
assembled in space. The station will also be needed for assembling
a bulky Mars vehicle and studying the effects of long-term space
flight. But a single station may not be the best option. Several
experts have suggested breaking it down into smaller units. One
such station, the Industrial Space Facility, has already been
designed by a Houston firm, Space Industries Inc. At $900 million,
it could be launched by 1994 and take over most of the Freedom
station's proposed experiments in space manufacturing. Another
mini-station could handle biomedical studies, and others could be
used as assembly and takeoff points for the Mars and subsequent
missions. Just as with the moon base, these stations would operate
indefinitely. Being smaller and less complicated than Freedom, the
mini-stations could presumably be launched and built at a lower
overall cost.

    NASA and the Defense Department have already begun work on two
new launchers to make space-station construction feasible. One is
a heavy-lift unmanned rocket for massive payloads. The other is
the National Aerospace Plane, or "Orient Express." Smaller than
the shuttle, it would take off like an airplane from a runway, soar
into space to deliver its human cargo, then return and land. And
NASA has plans to convert the present shuttle into a cargo-only
model, with a larger payload than the manned version. Together,
these launchers would give NASA much needed flexibility.

    The cost of such a multi-step project would be large -- at
least $5 billion a year and maybe considerably more. But unlike the
$35 billion spent on the shuttle program, the expenditure would
produce a return not just in prestige and technological leadership
but also in the establishment of bases and stations that can be
used for future space projects. In order to ease the costs, the
U.S. should encourage as much participation as possible by foreign
governments. The Soviets, Europeans and Japanese all have active
space programs, and duplication of efforts will increasingly be
seen as an unnecessary waste. Many countries are interested in
participating in the Freedom project or Mission to Planet Earth or
both, and the Soviets have accepted international help on their
Mars probes.

    NASA's budget will have to be raised to pay for such an
ambitious program, perhaps even doubled from its current $11
billion a year. That will be hard in an era of budget deficits. But
there is support for a Mars mission in both the House and the
Senate. If the President comes out strongly for the mission,
Congress should be able to find a way to fund it. One option: to
siphon the money from Star Wars and other questionable defense
programs.

    The U.S. cannot remain a leading force in technology, industry
and science unless it is in the forefront of space exploration.
Throughout its history, America has been a nation of discoverers
and achievers. If it fails to take the next major step in space,
it will have given up an essential part of its national character.


-- Glenn Garelik/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Houston