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 |  | Current Spaceflight Is 'Mired In Mediocrity'
posted: 04:00 pm ET
16 February 2000
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becerra
To the Editor:
In response to Robert Parks op-ed piece, I disagree that human spaceflight is dead, though I will agree that the current human spaceflight program is mired in mediocrity. The International Space Station is an amazing engineering project, but aside from political reasons (multinational cooperation and harmony) the only reason to have a space station is to prepare humans for exploration away from Earth orbit.
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Rather than growing crystals, the International Space Station should be used to test centrifuges for artificial gravity to be used in deep space for astronauts. Construction of deep space vehicles, piece by piece, is another use for a space station. Even the construction of large robotic spacecraft in orbit, piece by piece, would be a worthwhile use of a space station so as to obviate the need for Titan 4- or Saturn 5-class boosters to launch heavy spacecraft into deep space. (The current method of getting space probes to the outer planets, using light boosters necessitating multi-year voyages involving multiple gravity assists, e.g. Galileo, Cassini, I think unnecessarily prolongs these missions.)
These uses I propose for the space station require that you actually have goals for human spaceflight -- whether it is to return to the moon or to go to Mars. (To me, simply hanging out in low Earth orbit in a space station is not a goal.) NASA apparently does not have such goals, thereby emasculating the reason for having a space station in the first place. This is the same problem NASA had trying to excite people about the space shuttle, which turned out to be a shuttle to nowhere; a truck with no destination.
The cost overruns referred to by Mr. Park in his argument against human spaceflight is a result of NASA still being mired in costly 1970s technology. NASA and private industry's recent efforts at revolutionizing space transportation will quantumly change the relationship between cost and the ability to place objects in space.
Lastly, there is no substitute for being there. Although we can, through virtual reality technology and robotic eyes, experience places second hand, it is not the same. Anyone who has ever visited the Grand Canyon understands that seeing it on a postcard or TV or video does not do it justice. Likewise, robots, though they make great advance scouts, ultimately will not do the moon and Mars justice either.
Robert Becerra, Esq.
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