A giant leap, then the long fall

Amid the bitter war, in the Age of Aquarius, with fire in the streets, astronauts flew to the moon and stepped onto the trackless dust of the Sea of Tranquility... What's amazing is that I (over)wrote this sentence 20 years ago to mark the Apollo 11 anniversary. Nobody can outdo John Noble Wilford of the New York Times for his historic lede when the event happened: "Men have landed and walked on the moon." But my forgettable column from 1989 is a reminder of how fast time passes, for a man, for a nation.

You either got the space program or you didn't. I was a child of the Space Age, a rocket boy, minutely following every mission: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, as America raced the Soviets to the moon. I had NASA Facts films that the TV studio downtown had given me, sheaves of photos and publicity directly from the space agency, models of every rocket and spacecraft. I watched Neil Armstrong step out that July night in the company of my grandmother, a woman who had been born on the frontier, who had witnessed the invention of the automobile and the airplane -- and now she had lived to see this.

It remains one of the most moving moments of my life. I also choke up re-reading about the Apollo 8 mission, with the revolutionary photo Earthrise, when humans first saw their precious blue planet from afar, alone in the vast emptiness of cold space. When the astronauts read from Genesis on Christmas Eve and concluded with, "And from the crew of Apollo 8 we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth."

You get it or you don't. But either way, at what a remarkable place we find ourselves 40 years -- 40 years! -- out.

We're stuck in low-earth orbit -- John Glenn/Project Mercury territory -- using space shuttles that will soon be retired with no immediate replacement. We built no moon base, made no leap to Mars. 2001 came and went with no odyssey. There have been impressive unmanned flights, to be sure. But to the surprise of most Americans living in 1969, Project Apollo was not the beginning, but the end, of America's inspiring, heroic space program. That this was allowed to happen is a staggering symbol of national failure.

A different country accomplished Apollo. A different country from where we now live.

The country that pulled off this achievement for the ages was deeply troubled by political assassinations, urban riots, a foolish, divisive and mortally wasteful war in Vietnam, upheaval on college campuses, authority and norms under siege like never before. We were in an apocalyptic face-down with a totalitarian empire. Our leaders were deeply flawed, even criminal: LBJ and Richard Nixon. And yet, we did this. We flew astronauts to the moon. We made the giant leap for mankind. We did this despite these convulsions. It made no business sense; there was no great economic gain awaiting us on the moon. It did not promise a 20-percent additional return on investment next quarter, tax free. We did this while also fighting poverty, putting in place major environmental protections, making historic progress on voting rights and inclusion that would lead to the election of the first African-American president, and -- in no small part thanks to the space program -- preparing the way for the computer and biosciences revolutions to come.

We did this. It seemed perfectly natural. Perfectly American.

We were the people who had liberated a continent, rebuilt our enemies as model democracies and friends and, at home, created the most prosperous and socially mobile society in the history of the world. Of course we could go to the moon, and farther.

Project Apollo will be remembered for many things beyond its singular place in history. It was sadly the end of the Age of Exploration. It was the end of the kind of national mobilization that began with World War II. It marked the zenith of American industrial and economic might -- we were still even a petro-state then, several years from national peak oil. It showed the strength of America that would inevitably triumph over communism, without the need for nuclear war, just as the wise men of the 1950s knew it would. If America continues on its trajectory of recent years, it will also be remembered as the end of national purpose, when triumphant liftoff and ascent were followed by drift and then a slow, selfish burning up on re-entry into the flames of history.

The years since Project Apollo was cut short have seen a parade of massive financial schemes and bubbles, ending in ever greater disaster until we now face not recession, but contraction. The Great Disruption. Everything must be measured against the great Free Market god, as interpreted by the business and economic elite that has given us these calamities and profited so mightily from them. Everything squeezed and crushed, the national wealth created by generations sold off, to increase profit margins of giant, transnational corporations and the power of the super-wealthy. Average Americans seemed to grow richer -- that was the new national purpose, such as it was. Yet sobering up, we find our nation considerably poorer and weaker than in 1969, and income inequality is at historic highs. We are the largest debtor in the world and our might in manufacturing has been replaced by manufacturing financial swindles. Our research and technology prowess hangs in the balance, and in any event, combined with our educational and trade-accord failures, does not create widespread economic prosperity.

The great civil rights movement that reached apogee in the 1960s gave us a much more inclusive society. Yet meritorcacy is pretty much dead in America -- you wouldn't have a farm boy from Ohio rising to walk on the moon today. Also dying are the good jobs, pensions and security that allowed for the 1960s economic upward mobility. And we must endure days of white Southern senators, Republicans now, sounding much like their racist Democratic progenitors, questioning the uppity Latina who might show empathy for average people instead for of the powerful and propertied.

We have turned inward to a few truly great accomplishments, especially the mapping of the human genome, and a multitude of small, wondrous, distracting amusements and conveniences. We have more information sources than ever, yet know less -- indeed, one major political party's star revels in ignorance. Our medical advances have been impressive -- if one can afford them. Ironically for the "space program was a waste of money" crowd, most of the groundwork for these contemporary achievements was laid by the science of the 1960s that was exemplified by Apollo.

We're not "wasting" money on space -- NASA's budget has been repeatedly slashed -- yet we have not ended misery in the world or expanded opportunity at home. We have 1969's road transportation system, crumbling now and overwhelmed with 100 million additional people -- but with fewer trains than 40 years ago. We lack the advances common in Europe, be it bullet trains or universal healthcare -- and don't get out enough to know it. Our state governments are falling apart. We are mired in something much worse than Vietnam -- and we weren't dependent on southeast Asia for the oil to continue our car-centric "lifestyle." To keep the bubbles going and get away from integration, we have desecrated the countryside with sprawl that is already decaying or turning to slums. Our government is owned by big business in a way that was unthinkable in 1969.

In 1969, most Americans could look at recent history and expect a better life ahead. Today, for the first time in history, perhaps a majority of Americans will not do as well as their parents or grandparents. Low-earth orbit, indeed.

These may be the small things by comparison. Climate change is happening much faster, and with more severe readings, than scientists expected. Inspired by American selfishness, the developing nations refuse, along with us, to take meaningful action to stop it (China recently passed us as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases). Peak oil is coming -- which is why China has designated renewable energy a strategic asset and is using protectionism to go for world dominance in it. America is doing nothing to prepare for this. Even if it were 20 years out -- the highly and questionable optimistic view -- we would need frantic effort now to begin the great transition. The crises over drinking water, fisheries and other environmental degradation of the good Earth are only beginning.

So here we are. Our fate is still what we make it. I do wonder if we still have the right stuff.

Read Tom Wolfe's magnificent meditation on Apollo here.

Comments

[Derrick Bostrom]

As someone who spends much of his work week trying to get a large team to work together (and to understand why it's to their advantage to do so), I disagree that going to the moon made no "business sense." It stands as a model of sheer large-scale collaboraton. As I put it so poorly in my own sad little blog a couple months ago:

"Over the years, we’ve forgotten the true lesson of the Apollo missions. Nowadays, people would rather believe that the moon walks were faked. Or we miss the point altogether, second-guessing NASA’s share of our resources. But the true beauty of our space program lies not so much with its specifics, but with the idea that when given a clearly stated goal, and the passion to reach that goal, humans can whip up the will and the discipline to do just about anything.

"It starts with leadership: “We choose to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade.” Simple, clear, concise. No room for misinterpretation. No points for wriggling out on a technicality. “Get it done — find a way.” If the public of the 1960s were awed by the technical mastery and gratified by our winning “the space race,” they were also inspired by the sight of a team making it happen, right before their very eyes."

[Emil Pulsifer]

Mr. Bostrom, it made no business sense because it was not a capitalist venture motivated by the prospect of private profit -- at least not directly -- but by idealistic and ideological goals.

America's space program was a combination of the romantic spirit of dreamers and adventurers, and partisan competition with the Soviets.

Military uses for rocketry were, initially, of primary importance for both governments, both of which tried to capture the secrets (and personnel) of the Germans at Peenemunde at the end of WW II.

The development of missile and rocketry technology for the purpose of delivering warheads was a major factor in the development of technology capable of delivering men to outer space.

Studies of the upper atmosphere (poorly understood then, but important for understanding radio propagation) lead to Sputnik, the first space satellite, in 1957.

The Soviets, who were competing for public opinion not only in the Third World but, at the time, in parts of Europe, were quick to see the propaganda value of their success, in a competition pitting the two systems against one another on technological, cultural, and ideological grounds. Indeed, any startling success, by either side, was quickly claimed as evidence of the superiority of that side's system.

Four months later, the U.S. tried to launch its own satellite, called Vanguard, which failed at launch.

The success of the Soviets and consequent failure of the Americans, was a great motive for the American space program, and more broadly, to higher education: within a year, in response to the "Sputnik Crisis", the Eisenhower administration passed legislation creating NASA; also the National Defense Education Act, which authorized more than a billion dollars (a fortune back then) to fund school construction, fellowships and loans, an expansion and coordination of vocational training, and much more, all aimed at ensuring American domination in the sciences, especially those of use to the defense industry.

So, the program, which as Mr. Talton has pointed out was scarcely an exercise in profit taking, nor even in constituent building by providing tangible benefits here on Earth, was motivated by military and ideological considerations; and of course, the underwriting of such projects, thus motivated, gave romantics a highly valued place, provided they brought with them the skills needed to turn their dreams into reality.

Surely, Mr. Bostrom, you see that "large-scale collaboration" is not exclusive to business models, since the Soviet space program saw considerable success, including the first artificial satellite, without any profit or business considerations whatsoever. The U.S. was forced to follow suit, or be left behind (actually or perceivedly) on several levels.

[Mick]

When I was a kid, I watched the lunar landing with great excitement. The entire family watched it, with immense tension and emotion.

As an adult, I worked at the Kennedy Space Center. President George Bush sent Sean O'Keefe to tell us that US engineers were dinosaurs and were no longer needed. On the grounds of KSC, in a trailer that had been a center of activity during the Apollo program, we were told that "engineering is for Indians" and that Americans needed to "accept their destiny" and work at Wal-Mart, cleaning toilets.

My NASA manager, who had worked there during the Apollo program, went out to a parking lot in front of the VAB and wept like a baby.

Imagine what would have happened if the NASA chief had said that in 1969.

O'Keefe told us that "George Bush believes in globalization" and that a natural consequence of globalization was that American engineers would lose their careers, and that Americans in general would have to accept poverty-level wages and low-skill jobs. He told us that global wages would have to settle to about the same level, and that Americans would lose ground until we were working for Chinese wages. Bush wanted this.

Imagine saying this during the euphoria over the lunar landing. What would Walter Cronkite have said? I wish that Walter Cronkite could have reported on that story in 1969!!!

It is important for people like you and me, who remember when the US wasn't a filthy, corrupt nation, to pass this knowledge down.

We also need to scream the truth -- Bush and his cronies are despicable. They deliberately ruined good people and an entire nation.

While I worked at KSC, several of us visited the Gemini program launch site. It was in ruins. The gantry had collapsed. Weeds were all over. There was only a tiny sign and you almost had to know where it was to even find it. One guy picked up a piece of the gantry and took it for a souvenir. I guess that old gantry is a good metaphor for this country. Something that used to be proud and signify achievement is now a rusting wreck. Achievers are vilified, hated and told to clean toilets.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Mr. Talton wrote:

"To keep the bubbles going and get away from integration, we have desecrated the countryside with sprawl that is already decaying or turning to slums."

There is an interesting question to be asked in the context of urban growth, decay, and income distribution -- factors which I consider to be inextricably intertwined in the context of economics.

In the same context, there exist, roughly, three socioeconomic classes (though with some overlap): (1) a relatively small number of capitalists who own/control the means of production; (2) a somewhat larger class of gatekeepers who, in managing the economic concerns of the owners, distribute the results while skimming off a fraction of the profits for themselves; (3) a majority class consisting of the so-called proletariate, who do most of the work which provides the profits of the owners.

On the one hand, there is the tendency for the individual income shares of the proletariate to be reduced to tiny proportions by their numbers: the tendency, if unopposed by other factors, for individual members to get poorer as their numbers increase, while the capitalists get richer through their means of control.

On the other hand, there is the expansion of the economy, the proverbial growth of the pie, such that, at least in theory, even though the number of slices may grow as the population grows, the area of the least of these slices need not shrink, due to the general growth of the pie: the idea is that a rising tide lifts all boats, or if not, at least keeps them afloat.

The question, which one might suppose to receive more discussion than it has, given its importance, is this: At what point does the growth of the pie fail to preserve the area of the smallest slices, without cutting into the area of the bigger slices? (One supposes that the slices of the proletariate are the first to shrink, and shrink the fastest, as a percentage of their initial size; and that the slices of the gatekeeper class are the next to stagnate or shrink, due to the economic dominance of the owner class.)

Quantitatively speaking, what is the balance point, between population growth and economic growth, at which this crisis occurs? And what factors combine to take the economy beyond the tipping point?

If, on the other hand, population growth stagnates, how does economic growth continue, sufficient to keep the economy on the safe side of the tipping point?

The economy must grow at a rate sufficient not merely to prevent the decay of what has already been built, but to provide additional economic growth, so that the slices of the proletariate, at minimum, don't shrink to the point of political inconvenience; and this while giving the owner class the income growth THEY want, while simultaneously preserving the positions of the gatekeeper class they employ to manage their affairs.

Otherwise, pervasive political dissatisfaction sets in, and there's big trouble, which at first may be dealt with using information control, but which threatens eventually to require the systematic use of repressive force, as individuals get fed up and begin to organize.

The only alternative is for the owner class to allow their own shares of the economic pie to be eroded for the benefit of the lesser classes, or to have such an outcome forced upon them by governments fearful of popular dissatisfaction, by means of progressive taxation and income redistribution.

[Emil Pulsifer]

"...the so-called proletariate..."

More properly, the so-called proletariat.

[Republitard]

It figures that a fellow traveler like Mr. Talton would support a SOCIALIZED space program.