NASA’s Bolden: American Space Exploration Isn’t Dead — We’re Planning A Mission To An Asteroid

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Former astronaut and current NASA Administrator Charles Bolden hit back at the media on Friday for characterizing the space shuttle’s last flight as the end of the American-led age of space exploration.

“President Obama has given us a Mission with a capital ‘M’ — focus again on the big picture of exploration and the crucial research and development that will be required for us to move beyond low Earth orbit,” he said in a speech delivered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station for the last time on Friday, July 8.

He added:

“He’s charged us with carrying out the inspiring missions only NASA can do that will take us farther than we’ve ever been. To orbit Mars and eventually land on it. He’s asked us to start planning a mission to an asteroid.

The president is asking us to harness that American spirit of innovation, the drive to solve our problems and create capabilities that is so embedded in our story and has led us to the moon, to great observatories, and to humans living and working in space, possibly indefinitely. That American ingenuity is alive and well, and it will fire up our economy and help us create and win the future now.”

If Bolden sounds a bit touchy, he was probably reacting to The Economist, which has dedicated the cover of next week’s edition to the end of the shuttle program, and the symbolism that holds for America’s place in the world.

The Economist refers to space enthusiasts as “space cadets,” and basically says that the era of exciting human-led space exploration is over, and that all the cool, useful stuff is going to happen in orbit around Earth.

And any future exciting exploratory trips will probably be undertaken by the Chinese or robots, its writers add in a couple of articles.

And that’s just as well, argues The Economist, because manned space flight is a waste of time and money, and “the benefits are hard to measure.”

“The heroic phase of space exploration, with chiselled-jawed astronauts venturing where no man has gone before, inspiring schoolchildren and defending democracy (or socialism,) is now a thing of the past. Mr. Obama’s plan may revitalize NASA and send American astronauts into the solar system once again. But the agency’s history as a political football suggests it is unlikely.”

Latest Idealab
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: