WASHINGTON -- You need to use a little imagination. As a space shuttle arcs its way through Florida skies, the smoky, twisted trail it leaves forms a huge question mark that seems to ask: Where is human space exploration really headed?
This month, there is synergism in two anniversaries. Both events took place on April 12 -- but two decades to the day apart.
Riding in a single-seater space bathyscaph, 27-year old Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took flight in his spherical Vostok 1 capsule on April 12, 1961. Gagarins one-orbit, 108-minute mission marked the first human to venture into space.
On April 12, 1981, 20 years to the day after Gagarins epic journey, Space Shuttle Columbia winged its way into orbit. Aboard that first shuttle flight, John Young and Robert Crippen put the spaceplane through its paces during a 54-hour long sojourn.
Russias Vostok and Americas space shuttle represent extraordinary flying machines. They are historic bookends for both the beginning and the blossoming of human prowess in space.
Despite the fact that human footprints dot the dust on the Moons ancient, cratered surface, when, where and how 21st-century spacefarers will next travel beyond low Earth orbit is more hypothesis than hyper-velocity.
Station stink
At NASA, one finds a space agency seemingly afraid of its own future.
Visionary ideas at NASA appear to be placed in neutral parking orbit. For now, there is an overriding urgency to better manage the building of the International Space Station (ISS).
Recent revelations that the mega-project is suffering from a cost overrun likely to tally more than $4 billion "is probably the most pressing issue facing NASA today," said Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York), chairman of the House Science Committee.
A senior space agency official responded, "As a first step, I think we need to clear the station stink.
The head of NASAs Office of Spaceflight, Joseph Rothenberg, offers a look at the itinerary for human space travel. "Clearly, one of the biggest challenges of human spaceflight is to try and manage programs and deliver them within some predictable cost," Rothenberg told SPACE.com. "Weve got to get out of the penalty box and restore our cost credibility over the next several years before we can take the next step," he said.
Rothenberg said that in the future, "we cant just do exploration for explorations sake. I think that were going to start to see more and more commercial ventures for human spaceflight. NASA needs to help enable the
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