Forty years after the first moon
landing on July 20, 1969, SPACE.com asked Apollo astronauts and leaders of the space community
to ponder the past, present and future. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse
Tyson, host of PBS's television series NOVA scienceNOW
and the new StarTalk radio show, worries that
Americans view spaceflight as a luxury rather than a fundamental science
driver:
SPACE.com: Do you see a big difference
between the public's involvement and interest in the space program back in the
1960s as compared to today?
Tyson: Back then, there was a keen
awareness expressed by the public as well as by our lawmakers in Washington of
the correspondence between creative investments
in science and technology and our self image as scientific and
technological leaders of the world. There was also an awareness of the role
that those investments would play in our economic growth.
One of my worries in recent years
has been the loss of that awareness. That absence of awareness is catching up,
and it's holding us back while other nations are fully aware of this
correspondence.
The trend lines in research and
innovation look good for places such as India and China and less good for
America as we go forward. So even if you're not enchanted by the prospect of
cosmic discovery, the prospect of dying poor may be what it takes to understand
the role of this adventure in the future of the natural world in which we live.
S: Do you think the public
undervalues space exploration now?
T: Too many people view
it as a luxury rather than as a fundamental driver to stimulate interest in
science to everyone in the educational pipeline. It's vital to our prosperity
and security.
S: Can the U.S. recover its status
as a scientific leader?
T: While we may lose track of certain goals
intermittently throughout
the decades, I think we as a nation can be nimble when we need to be. All the buzz today is on the need for science literacy. That
is on the agenda in ways it hasn't been in previous decades.
There is a growing awareness that
we're losing our technological competitive edge. I think there's an awareness that we're losing our leadership, and that
maybe our self image over the past several decades has been a little bit
delusional. We tell ourselves we are leaders, and if you tell yourself enough
you start to believe it.
S: Is part of the public apathy
toward space exploration now because we don't have a goal as exciting as being
the first nation to land on the moon?
T: There are countless space activities that would be
no less exciting than the moon missions were, I have no doubt. The search for life
on Mars, for example. We have some asteroids coming our way, why
don't we deflect them?
It's like building a house in the
middle of a huge continent, and then going into the backyard and saying,
'There's nothing more exciting than this. I'm done. I see stuff out there, but
that's not going to be as interesting as this boulder right here.'
I can't think that way. I can't
think that leaving Earth once is enough. How shortsighted would that be? We've
never been that shortsighted before.
So I believe that the manned space
program can engage the public by advancing the space frontier. Every next
mission takes you farther out in space than you were before, either
technologically or in terms of distance. For example the Gemini launches - none
of them left Earth orbit but each was more ambitious. Each mission was
something the press could talk about.
When you don't advance a frontier
how could you possibly expect the public to be interested?
S: Were you inspired to pursue
science at all because of the Apollo missions?
T: No, actually. My interest in the space program has a certain purity to it because I recognize the romance of it
but I was never seduced by it. That allowed me to view it through a more purely
scientific lens. My interest in space while in school came about through my
scientific activities. (Editor's note: Tyson is the also director of the
Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City).
S: What do you think of NASA's
current plans for manned spaceflight?
T: It looks pretty clear that the budget is not
commensurate with expectations on NASA.
Either the portfolio must be tuned
down or the budget is raised, or both. But something has to happen for NASA to
go places.
I agree that we should go back
to the moon and on to Mars. We should treat all objects in the solar
system, including comets and asteroids, as exploration targets.
It is very possible that it can
happen in my lifetime and I think it should. It's a matter of aligning the
technological and political funding pistons to fire in harmony with each other.
When they all fire together you can accomplish great things.
S: Do you think the current economic
downturn presents a major roadblock to aligning those pistons?
T: It's not as though we didn't have problems before.
It's not as though the '60s was some tranquil time of prosperity. One could
argue it was one of the most troublesome decades in the history of the country,
yet it was in that decade that we went to the moon.
As important as the civil rights
movement was, I think what will rise to the top is that we left Earth in that
time.
Forty years after astronauts first
set foot on the moon, SPACE.com examines what wešve done since and whether America has the
right stuff to get back to the moon by 2020 and reach beyond. For exclusive
interviews and analysis, visit SPACE.com daily through July 20, the
anniversary of the historic landing.
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