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TAMPA – Sixty years ago, spurred on by competition with the Soviet Union, the United States created NASA, launching a journey that would take Americans to the moon in a decade
. overwhelming successes and failures in his efforts to push the boundaries of space exploration, including a lethal deadly fire in 1967 that killed three and two deadly shuttle explosions in 1986 and 2003 that cost the lives of 14
Now, NASA is struggling to redefine itself in an increasingly crowded field of international space agencies and commercial interests, with the goal of returning to distant space.
These bold goals make rhetoric, but experts worry that the money is not there to meet deadlines. reach the moon in the next decade and March by the 2030s. And the inability of NASA to send astronauts into space – a capacity lost in 2011 when the space shuttle program ended, as expected, after 30 years – is a lasting stain on the stellar image of the agency
NASA still has to pay Russia $ 80 million per seat for US astronauts to visit in the US Space on a Soyuz capsule. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in space with Sputnik 1, while American attempts failed miserably. The US government was already working to reach space, but mainly under the guise of the army. President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked Congress to create a separate civil space agency to better focus on space exploration.
He signed the Aeronautics and Space Authorization Act on July 29, 1958. NASA opened its doors in October 1958, with approximately 8,000 employees and a budget $ 100 million. The Soviets won another key part of the space race in April 1961 when Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth. A month later, John F. Kennedy unveiled plans to land a man on the moon at the end of the decade. "No single space project in this period will be more impressive for humanity, or more important for the long-term exploration of space, and none will be as difficult or costly to achieve", said the US president. The Apollo program was born
In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. In 1969, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. The American astronauts of the time were national heroes – military pilots with a combination of brains, guts and dirt that became known as "The Right Stuff", the title of Tom Wolfe's clbadic book.
The lunar surface – "a small step for man, a giant step for humanity" – has been heard by millions of people around the world. "Apollo was a unilateral demonstration of national power," recalls John Logsdon, professor emeritus at the George Washington University Space Policy Institute.
"Kennedy decided to use the space program as an instrument of overt geopolitical competition. He told AFP
that five percent of the national budget had gone to NASA at the time of Apollo. Today, NASA receives about $ 18 billion a year, less than half of the federal budget, "and this is no longer the same instrument of national policy," said Logsdon
. NASA's shuttle program, a reusable spacecraft the size of a bus that was carrying astronauts into space, and finally to the International Space Station, which began operating in 1998. [19659002] But what is NASA today?
a return to the moon, calling for a lunar gateway that would allow a steady stream of spaceships and people to visit the moon, and serve as a starting point for Mars. Trump also called for the creation of a "Space Force," a sixth branch of the military that would focus on defending US interests. NASA has long been considered a world leader in space innovation, but today the international field is much more populated than it was 60 years ago.
"Now you have something like 70 countries that are involved in space activity," says Logsdon. Rather than compete with international space agencies, "the focus has been on cooperation" to reduce costs and accelerate innovation, said Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator at the National Museum of Science and Technology. air and space
. NASA's director, Jim Bridenstine, said at a recent roundtable that he wanted to work with other countries that are striving to conquer space. .
He mentioned the possibility of strengthening cooperation with China. meet commercial interests working on a lunar lander. Bridenstine said the reason for her visit was "how are you doing this, what are you doing and can NASA benefit from it?"
NASA moves away from the low Earth orbit, seeking the space station's hand to commercial interests after 2024, and spending millions in starting money to help private companies like SpaceX and Boeing to build capsules to transport humans to space in the years to come. In this environment, Bridenstine said that determining what NASA does, compared to what it buys as a service from commercial vendors, will be "one of the fundamental challenges I will have to face during my mandate ".
NASA's demands were "very generous."
With his eyes on a crew mission on the moon in five years, NASA plans to spend about $ 10 billion of its $ 20 billion budget on lunar exploration. 1965-19002] The predecessor of Bridenstine at NASA, retired astronaut Charles Bolden, warned against the repetition of errors of the era of shuttles, when the United States put an end to their human exploration program with no other satellite ready to take its place. "It is really essential for NASA to facilitate the success of commercial entities to take over" in low Earth orbit, 400 miles (400 km). Above the planet.
"And then for NASA to do what it does so well, be the leader of the lunar orbit."
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