The year 2008 will be remembered as a time of glittering advances in space and missile defense programs, a time of bright horizons and goals fulfilled.
But 2009 at this point is filled with uncertainty, with no guarantees that Democratic President-elect Obama will continue funding for space and missile defense programs, amidst a worsening economy that is shriveling revenues for the federal government even as its spending on the unemployed begins to soar.
While President Bush, as he heads for the White House door to end an eight-year Republican reign, has the government on course to chuck more than $1 trillion at various industries, with little economic stimulus or vitality to show for it.
There was $17 billion for the auto industry, and more likely to come (with strings attached). Billions more for AIG, the staggering insurance giant. Some $29 billion to bail out Bear Stearns. Up to $700 billion for the financial industry overall (no strings). Maybe $850 billion for state and local governments, and others, to stimulate the economy. On and on.
If Uncle Sam could come up with just 3 or 4 percent more, he could double annual budgets for both NASA and the Missile Defense Agency ( MDA). And they could use it, especially NASA.
An extra $20 billion for NASA could let it spend $2 billion to accelerate development of the next-generation U.S. spaceship system, so that Orion-Ares could fly its first manned mission in 2014 instead of 2015. And there could be $2 billion to fly more space shuttle missions, and perhaps $1 billion to improve Kennedy Space Center launch facilities to eliminate a conflict between shuttle missions using buildings and launch pad assets, and the needs of Orion-Ares for facilities.
Maybe this could shave three or more years off the gap between the current 2010 space shuttle retirement that Bush mandated, and the first manned flight of Orion-Ares.
That would be three fewer years when NASA, the agency that put men on the moon, wouldn’t be grounded like a teenager who didn’t do his homework.
Put another way, that would be three fewer years when the United States would have to hire Russian Soyuz vehicles to taxi American astronauts into space.
Not incidentally, if Obama is interested in “creating or saving jobs” in a cratering economy, as he has pledged to do, then continuing to fly shuttles would — for the time they continue to operate — mean thousands of NASA and contractor employees in central Florida won’t wind up in unemployment lines.
That also would mean a cutting-edge scientific device, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, would be taken to the International Space Station to perform its intended mission, instead of being left on the ground, a useless $1.5 billion waste.
While Obama promised Florida voters as he campaigned for election that he would provide $2 billion to help close the gap between the shuttles retiring and Orion-Ares beginning to fly astronauts to the heavens, an Obama aide since has asked what would be saved by canceling at least part of the Ares rocket program.
Further, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee commerce, justice, science and related agencies subcommittee overseeing NASA, proposed $1 billion for a partial repayment of unavoidable and unexpected NASA costs in recovering from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. So far, almost six years later, Congress has yet to pony up, meaning that NASA still is left robbing science programs to fund the return to flight. An extra $1 billion could reimburse those programs.
And NASA is operating under a continuing resolution that, if it continues through the end of September, will mean that the space agency budget for 2009 will have been frozen at the old 2008 level, with no allowance even for inflation, causing real damage to programs.
In missile defense, some Democrats in Congress have demanded that MDA perform far more testing of missile defense systems. But there has been no corresponding flow of funds to pay for a huge increase in tests. The missile defense effort especially could use money to buy some new, dependable target missiles. Repeatedly, missile defense interceptors have been set to fly, only to have target missiles malfunction so they don’t fly, or don’t fly high enough, or don’t emit countermeasures … you get the idea.
So NASA and MDA certainly could use more funds. Whether they will get them, however, will only become clear after Jan. 20, when Obama raises his right hand on the Capitol steps and becomes the 44th president.
2008: A Stellar Year
Looking back over 2008, however, the growing gloom in the economy was definitely offset by the brightness of accomplishments in both the space and missile defense areas.
In space, the year began with Space Shuttle Atlantis grounded, with engineers and experts taking weeks and weeks to discover an elusive problem in wiring on a fuel gauge in the external fuel tank.
The shuttle only flew after the problem was diagnosed and fixed.
And the shuttle fleet made safety strides in other areas, including innovations that meant far less chances of foam insulation or ice breaking off from the fuel tank and damaging the orbiter vehicle that contains the crew.
So shuttles continued flying to the International Space Station, adding to its gigantic (as big as a house) size, a fitting way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the orbiting laboratory. In the coming year, the station will have something else to celebrate: a doubling of its crew capacity to six people, so that far more experiments can be performed in the weightless environment.
In the Orion-Ares spacecraft development program that someday will replace the shuttles, the Ares I rocket in 2008 passed its preliminary design review, the first PDR for a NASA spacecraft system in 35 years.
And the J2X engine that will be part of Ares passed engine tests.
Much farther away, the Phoenix spacecraft made a breathtaking powered-and-parachute landing on Mars. Then the geologist came up with spectacular finds, including the discovery of vast amounts of ice, frozen water that would be critical to any human habitation on the red planet.
Another first for NASA came when the Hubble Space Telescope snapped a picture of visible light coming from a planet circling a star in the heavens, a planet called Formalhaut b.
In the private sector, billionaire space buff Richard Branson kicked off 2008 by unveiling his WhiteKnightTwo mother ship for launching the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft that would open commercial space travel, foreseeing a time when thousands of people will be able to fly into space.
NASA hopes that it may be able to buy commercial orbital transport services from private, U.S.-based firms instead of the Russians, at least for cargo deliveries to the International Space Station. And, perhaps later, private firms might transport U.S. and other astronauts to and from the space station, leaving NASA free to focus on missions to the moon.
That might be well, considering that 2008 saw problems with the Russian spaceship, the Soyuz, which on two consecutive missions experienced steep and frightening ballistic reentries and hard landings that left some crew members with back injuries.
Nonetheless, Congress voted legislation to permit NASA to buy more Soyuz transport flights after an earlier cutoff in 2011, and the U.S. space agency in 2008 began buying more Soyuz flights running into 2012. (They aren’t cheap.)
Clearly, if NASA Administrator Mike Griffin had led the agency when decisions were made that created the space gap, it wouldn’t have occurred. The blunt-spoken leader, in a private email, also expressed heartfelt concern that the White House Office of Management and Budget was on a “jihad” against space programs. And he had a frank exchange of views recently with a member of Obama’s transition team. But many in Congress respect this highly intelligent man, and the advances he has wrought at NASA.
Looking beyond 2009, however, very real questions have arisen as to whether NASA will continue to lead in space exploration in coming decades.
China in 2008 launched its third manned space mission on Shenzhou-7, and also launched a small satellite that might foreshadow a space-based anti-satellite capability. (Please see separate story in this issue.) China is expected to put taikonauts on the moon before the end of the next decade.
And India has launched a spacecraft to orbit the moon. Europe, for its part, sent up an unmanned cargo ship that docked successfully with the International Space Station.
Clearly, the United States is entering a time when questions are being raised as to whether Americans will lead in exploring the final frontier, or be eclipsed, watching other nations and their ascendant space programs pass NASA by in the next decade.
Missile Defense
In missile defense, each of the separate systems comprising the overall U.S. missile shield saw major progress.
The Airborne Laser saw installation of the laser in the Boeing 747-400F aircraft, and inclusion of other items, leading to the laser firing onboard the jumbo jet. That leaves the ABL headed for a critical 2009 test, shooting down a target missile. It is the only missile shield designed to kill enemy missiles in their most vulnerable phase of trajectory, while the enemy weapon still emits an easily-tracked flaming exhaust, before the missile can emit multiple warheads, decoys or confusing chaff.
In the Aegis/Standard Missile sea-based system, an Aegis-equipped ship, after modification, was able to shoot down an out-of-control, nonfunctional U.S. military satellite filled with toxic hydrazine fuel. The sea-based system is, obviously, mobile so that it can move to the most pressing trouble spots in the world.
The Ground-base Missile Defense system shot down a target missile representative of the sort of weapon that might come out of Iran or North Korea, a win marred by the target missile failing to emit countermeasures. This is the only system designed to annihilate long-range enemy missiles.
And NATO and administrations in the Czech Republic and Poland approved plans for the European Missile Defense system to guard against hostile missiles flying from the Middle East toward Europe or the United States. Only full Czech and Polish parliamentary approval is needed now, but the U.S. Congress has demanded testing of interceptors that could delay the European system being built for years.
Meanwhile, missile threats around the globe became ever clearer and more palpable in 2008.
The International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran already has produced sufficient nuclear material to make one atomic bomb, and by the end of 2009 may have enough for several, an ominous outlook for the new year.
Also, North Korea at first demolished part of a nuclear reactor at Pyongyang producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, and was rewarded with food, fuel oil and removal from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, only to go back on its word and threaten to begin rebuilding the reactor.
And Israel had to take emergency action to destroy a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria, which involved a design from North Korea.
Speaking of Israel, the United States moved to supply Israel with an advanced radar, so the Israeli forces can spot incoming missiles in the unceasing bombardment of the tiny nation, from nearby areas such as Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and from Iran.
Meanwhile, China began deploying new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking targets in the United States, and commissioning nuclear powered Jin Class submarines with ICBMs boasting a range of almost 5,000 miles. China also increased the number of short- and medium-range missiles pointed toward Taiwan to a total of more than 1,400.
And major reports in 2008 from expert commissions found there is a rising chance of terrorists loosing attacks with weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, in the United States, there were attacks by some on the missile defense shield, such as a claim that an enemy could defeat the ABL laser beam merely by painting a missile with white paint, a claim contradicted by a white-painted missile that a laser beam blew apart.