The Myth of What Might Have Been in Space

After Apollo 17, back in 1972, the space program was scaled back.? We had three flights on Skylab, one flight on Apollo-Soyuz and then took a six year hiatus before a 30 year mission with the space shuttle.

Finally, private enterprise in stepping into the picture, with companies like SpaceX and Boeing, funded by NASA, now providing space taxis and cargo ships to the International Space Station (ISS).? Other private launch companies are also stepping up to the plate. ? Space tourism has already gotten started with tours on the ISS, with more private suborbital tours next in the agenda.

In a few years, space development will be up and running.

This is 2024, as of this writing.? Apollo landed on the Moon in 1969, and completed its last manned lunar mission in 1972.? It’s been 52 years now, and during all that time, we, in the space community, have bemoaned the fact that we, the United States have reached the Moon, and then abandoned it.? Many of us, myself included, felt that this was one of the most foolish moves the U.S. government ever made; cutting back on the space program.? We had two major proposals after Apollo, both of them similar to each other in a way.? The were the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) and the Report on the Space Task Group, 1969, made after the first lunar landing.? President Richard Nixon wasn’t interested in either one, but he did later accept the proposal for the space shuttle that flew from 1981 to 2011.

Because what followed wasn’t that ambitious, many have lamented the fact that we had big plans after Apollo, but we threw them away in favor of a space shuttle that only orbited the Earth.

“We are way behind, and finally, after 52 years, we are beginning to catch up,” is now the statement of today.

If only Nixon had been more ambitious about space and had not cut back on it in the early 1970s!

If we had stayed the course after Apollo, with a follow-up program like the proposed Apollo Applications Program or the Space Task Group, with a fully reusable two staged space shuttle, a space station that can house up to 50 people, a transportation system of Moon bound ships, and a base on the Moon for six to 12 astronauts, we would be far out in space by now.? We would have build a Moon base in the 1970s, expanding into a city, landed on Mars in the late 1970s or early ‘80s, and would we now would have space cities, industries, and ships traveling from planet to planet from Earth to way beyond Mars.

But would we really?? Would we have really had the civilization that you only read about in science fiction novels, RIGHT NOW?

Be in for a surprise.? The answer would have been NO, we wouldn’t, and for a reason that can be stated in one word - MONEY!

That’s right, money, as in government funding, being part of the federal budget; money and lack of enthusiasm.

Does this make any sense to you?? Most of you would probably say yes, but you wouldn’t know the exact details.? I am here to tell you.

First of all, I use to believe all this myself about us being out beyond Mars, until, at a space conference, I talked to someone about this at a banquet, and a month later, to the head of the Space Frontier Foundation, and after what I’ve heard from both, and what I’ve seen go on with the shuttle and the ISS all these years, I got to thinking that they may be right.

If the Space Task Group of 1969, or even the Apollo Applications Program had proceeded as planned, there is a chance that, regardless of what might have been chosen, the program would have failed, big time. There would be two reasons for this. First, the public was losing interest by the final flight of Apollo 17.

Second, the cost of these projects would have been exponential, and Congress, the General Accounting Office (GAO), and the public would not have supported this.

Let’s start with the proposed shuttle. Originally, the shuttle would have been twice as large than the one that materialized. As for the shuttle we used, NASA, back in the early ‘70s, asked the GAO for $10 billion to fund building the new shuttle. The GAO responded by giving them $5 billion, hence the shuttle we had.

The proposed space/way station, being far bigger than the ISS, would have supported 50 people, and cost far more money. Remember how the ISS was to originally cost $8 billion, and ended up costing $100 billion, and rising?? Different parts of the space station were built by different companies, but NASA had to constantly change the design to accommodate more countries joining in on the project and the cost had risen, and Congress kept cutting back the budget for it, delaying completion.? Again, costs rose as a result.

With the proposed way station, the problems manufacturing, launching, and assembling it would have been equal to that the of ISS, possibly worse (and don’t forget lunar space station and the two Moonbound ships, or more).

As for the Moon base, if we ever made it that far, money would have been pouring down a black hole, with costs increasing for Moonbound ships and base components, all made by different companies, and everybody wanting a big piece of the pie.? If completed, how many astronauts would have inhabited it, and what kind of work would they have performed? If it was to hold, say six to 12 people, would the government have supported it indefinitely? If so, money from the federal budget would have keep going into this venture, and the costs would have increased year by year. Congress, then would have started to cut back on it, and there would have been some serious debates about the base versus other badly needed federal programs (make up your own mind on what these programs are).

Would Congress have put up with it? Would the public have put up with it? I don’t think so.

Most likely, no matter what mega-project that would have been chosen, it would have been cancelled long before it was to have been completed, either by Congress or some president after Nixon.? If we made it to building a space station, I don’t think we would have had a lunar base.? Even if we had a small lunar base, as described in the Apollo Applications Program, it would not have lasted.

Don’t forget launch costs, especially that of the Saturn V. The Saturn V, though back then the biggest and heaviest lift launch vehicle, was very expensive. Parts of the rocket was hand made, for example. The cost of a Saturn V, including launch, was in 2024 dollars about $1.60 billion, a little cheaper than a shuttle launch, but expensive nonetheless. How much money would the government have had to spend should any ambitious project after Apollo been undertaken?

Costs DO matter, and neither the government, nor the American people, would have tolerated it for long. Cut backs would definitely have been made, and private industry would not have stepped in, not during that point in time (the 1970s). The reason for that is that no industry is going to invest in anything in which they cannot profit. So, we would have been where we are now.

In other words, it would not have made any difference.

One footnote: no other government would have long supported an ambitious project like this either; not alone, and not at this level of expense.

Project Apollo was a result of the Russians sending cosmonauts up ahead of the Americans, and President Kennedy’s response to the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba.? He wanted to both beat the Russians and cover up his blunder and show how strong he was, so he decides on challenging American ingenuity by “sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth,” “before this decade (the 1960s) is out.”

It took a lot of motivation, and for us to achieve that goal, the order was to “waste everything but time.,” meaning money? We did, and it took us $20 billion in 1960s dollars (over $200 billion in today’s money).

We achieved the goal, but we had no ambitions on what to do after that.? The Moon landings were the end all, and a dead end at that.? I will say that it is one of humanity’s greatest achievements nonetheless.

The entire space program, from Apollo to the shuttle, was run by the government, and it was financed by the taxpayer.? Remember the order, “Waste everything but time”?? We can no longer do that.? We have an annual deficit to contend with, and even more frightening, the national debt, which, as of this writing, is over $34 trillion and growing.

In this day and age, costs do have to be taken into consideration. The government cannot, and should not, forever support a space program like we had with Apollo. The Apollo and shuttle days are gone, forever!

But that is not a bad thing.? We now have private enterprise taking over, and this never would have been done at any other time, because of lack of accessibility to space.? There is now big money in space, in the form of minerals, energy, and zero gravity made products, to name a few.

Today, with the shuttle out of the way, private launch companies are moving into the fold, with much cheaper launch rates.? With that, other interests, such as energy, asteroid mining, and space tourism are taking advantage of this new opportunity.? The time for the space entrepreneur has arrived, and it is time for all governments to lead, follow, AND get out of the way.

Alastair Browne

#CosmicCareersBook