On this Fourth of July, I am uploading some photos from our recent trip to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. This was more than just a tourist trip for me: this was a way to remember the history of the space program, and to share that history with my daughers, now ages 11 and 9. I saw it as a must-see place, considering that the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing was just 6 weeks away. I also see it as a glimpse of an America that is capable of doing great things, for we must do them again for the sake of the planet.
After you get through the security gates and ticketing, you see a large granite fountain with the image of President John F. Kennedy, and a quote from him about space: "For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace." Implicit in Kennedy's statement is the desire of the United States to succeed in space, seemingly to project the American notion of "peace" and "freedom" into the exploration of space. You can take it as a declaration that the future of space ought to be dominated by the United States. That was the concern at the time-- the launch of the Sputnik satellite in October 1957 shook the American political and military communities to the extent that the U.S. accelerated its efforts in space to "catch up" to the Soviets. So at first the Soviet Union was ahead in launching satellites and in sending the first human into orbit, Yuri Gagarin. But the United States was propelled to support the efforts in space by Kennedy and his famous mandate to send astronauts to the moon by the end of the 1960s. Everything that followed-- the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs-- was driven by this goal.
When you see the space capsules that the first astronauts rode in, you are struck by how small they are. I suppose that this was not remarkable to the first astronauts, who had backgrounds as pilots in one of the armed services and flew aircraft with cockpits that might have been a lot more primitive than the first Mercury or Gemini capsules. This photo is of my younger daughter inside the Mercury space capsule on the grounds of the Rocket Garden. The astronauts were actually seated with their back against the bottom of the capsule; the control panel is on the “upper” side. I got inside the Gemini space capsule in the Rocket Garden, and though it was meant to hold two astronauts, it would be really confining for two men to travel. The payloads of the earlier Mercury and Gemini missions were really small. When you look at the various rockets in the Rocket Garden, you get a sense of the relative size of the rockets for the different missions. What NASA started with essentially were rockets based on the intercontinental missiles used to launch nuclear weapons. The rockets were scaled up in size to handle larger payloads and to be able to handle launching into higher earth orbit and eventually to carry astronauts to lunar orbit.
This rocket is the Saturn IB ("one-B") SA-209. This particular rocket was never launched, but was a standby rocket in the event that a rescue mission for Skylab/Soyuz was needed. This is smaller than the Saturn V rocket used to carry astronauts to the moon. Earlier versions of the Saturn IB were used to test launching the command service module (CSM) into low earth orbit. Later, the Saturn IB was used to transport astronauts to the Skylab space station in the CSM. I have a faint memory of the later lunar missions from seeing coverage of them on television, but I have a better memory of Skylab when I was in the 3rd and 4th grade. There was a lot of excitement and interest in the science that was done on Skylab, and the fact that one of the Skylab crews set a record for humans in space at the time, 84 days.
Because the Rocket Garden was outdoors, and it is Florida in June (hot even at 11am), we sought to go indoors at least for a while. The Heroes and Legends Astronaut Hall of Fame is right next to the Rocket Garden, so we got on the ramp and joined a relatively small queue of people waiting to get inside. In the Astronaut Hall of Fame, they have an audiovisual presentation on the upper level, and then you go into a theater where they play a 3D film about the astronauts and the challenges they faced in the space race. After watching the film, we went down to the lower level of the Heroes and Legends Astronaut Hall of Fame, which features a plaque for all of the inductees to the Hall of Fame. There are also relics from the astronauts’ lives before they became astronauts— flight helmets from World War II and the Korean War, items from their childhood, and other things that outlined the character and background of the astronauts. There is also a mockup of Mission Control for the Project Mercury launches that illustrated what kind of technology and working conditions the ground crew experienced.
Here is a photo of the plaques for Kathleen Sullivan and Sally Ride, two female astronauts that are inducted in the Astronaut Hall of Fame. I emphasized to my daughters that women have been astronauts as well as men, and that they have varied experience as scientists as well as pilots.
After exploring the Heroes and Legends Astronaut Hall of Fame, we went out and got some ice cream (they call it “Space Dots”, the KSC equivalent of Dipping Dots). Then my daughters needed some time to play in the Children’s Play Dome. I suppose they still need some time to play after seeing all this stuff about space exploration! While my wife stayed with the kids, this gave me some time to look around the KSC Visitors Center to see what else we would like to do with our time visiting.
There are two theaters at the KSC Visitors Center, one has two IMAX screens. After getting lunch at the Orbit Cafe, we saw the movie Journey to Space, which features interviews with Chris Ferguson, the commander of the final Space Shuttle mission, and Serena Aunon, an active astronaut who may be part of the future Orion missions to Mars. This film drove home to me the fact that the last manned mission of the Space Shuttle was eight years ago, in 2011. Since then, American astronauts have only been in space on the Mir space station. The commitment of the GW Bush and Obama administrations for further manned missions wavered-- and so did the commitment of Congress to fund the missions.
For me, the most exciting thing to see is the Shuttle Atlantis pavilion. This contains the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and describes the shuttle program and the experiences of the astronauts during the U.S.'s longest running manned space program. I wish I had taken a photo of the Space Transportation System (STS) rocket mockup outside the Atlantis pavilion, but they were doing some painting of the STS mockup from a bucket crane, so we had to enter the building from the lower level gift shop. The STS rocket is big, with the two booster rockets on either side of the fuel tank.
I did get some shots of the Atlantis inside the pavilion. When you look at it close up, you can see some of the ceramic tiles on the outside, which protected the crew of the Atlantis from the radiation and cold of space. The size of the shuttle meant a much larger rocket would be needed to launch it, but the larger craft allowed NASA to do much more with the shuttle.
Having a cargo bay meant the Space Shuttle could launch satellites, planetary probes, and recover satellites for repair and upgrades. Probably the most well-known use of the Space Shuttle for this purpose was to launch, repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope over the course of six missions. Another mission that the Shuttles participated in was the ferrying of materials and construction of the International Space Station.
The ability of the Space Shuttle to be launched from a rocket, land like an airplane, and be re-used on multiple missions were major advances in space flight. The shuttle also had docking missions with the International Space Station and the Mir space station.
Atlantis flew 33 missions over the course of 26 years. Some of these missions served military purposes (launching military reconnaissance satellites), but most of them were either supporting the space program or science, or in support of space stations, transporting crew and equipment.
There have been many benefits from the space program that have translated to civilian life. The great advances in science, especially in our understanding of our solar system, our galaxy, and the universe, have been immense. In addition, the data that comes from satellites orbiting the earth also helps us understand more about the earth's atmosphere, especially in these times of climate crisis. NASA, through its Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was an important source of climate science going back to the 1980s. One of the chief scientists at Goddard, James Hansen, has been a prominent climate scientist and has publicized the risks from manmade climate change.
What is remarkable is that even the Space Shuttle was conceived back in the 1960s, took several years to design and build, and didn't see any sucessor spacecraft when the shuttle program ended in 2011. The lack of new space missions originates from a lack of national interest and political will to continue with more manned flights, originating with George W. Bush's cancellation of the shuttle program, and continuing with a lack of commitment in the Obama administration. What we have seen since the end of the shuttle program is a lower level of launch activity by NASA and the emergence of SpaceX in launching satellites for governments and research agencies around the world. When we look back at the commitments made in the 1960s with what we have seen in the years since, the space program is an indicator that we used to aspire to great things in America, but our commitment has wavered.
My wish is that we would make the same commitment to fighting the climate crisis that we made to the space program. Of course, fighting to stop greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of manmade climate change requires cooperation on an international scale. But the United States must lead. This requires a "moon shot" level of effort and energy. Most of all, fighting the climate crisis is not a matter of national pride, it is about saving the earth and all life on earth. We cannot fail at this.