The era of NASA's shuttles is over. And now, China and India's turn in space

It is understood that with the end of the era of the shuttle, a huge wave of layoffs and retirements of workers, scientists, engineers and technicians will pass over the USA * Training skilled personnel in the fields of space engineering and related technology takes a long time and is also extremely expensive.

After decades of American superiority in space, NASA is facing a difficult period of cutbacks and privatization. New actresses are entering this space

While the American space shuttle "Atlantis" returned from space for the last time in a flight that ended the era of the space shuttle, the world's space community looks ahead, and wonders - along with the general public - where NASA is headed the day after the shuttle.

The space shuttle era - 1977-2011

First, it must be remembered - the end of the operation of the space shuttles is not the end of the American manned presence in space. The International Space Station project is strong and exists, and many more years of diverse research activity are expected. The International Space Station is a joint venture of the USA, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, and has been manned continuously since 2000. Manned flights to the station will continue and be based exclusively on Russian spacecraft, in which American astronauts will also fly, for a fee (over 50 million dollars per seat in the spacecraft) .

In this context, the first ever Israeli experiment on the space station, which will be returned with the space shuttle Atlantis, deserves special mention - a biomedical experiment led by the Fisher Institute for Strategic Air and Space Research in collaboration with researchers from Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University and with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology, as well as another experiment that flew into space on the last flight of The shuttle - a collaboration between the Fisher Institute and "Strauss Water" from the Strauss Group, in which a new technology for purifying water under space conditions was tested.

It is understood that with the end of the shuttle era, a huge wave of layoffs and retirements of workers, scientists, engineers and technicians - who were associated with the shuttle program - will pass over the USA. No one can say today, what the size of the wave will be and for how many years it will affect the USA. It is important to note that training skilled personnel in the fields of space engineering and related technology takes a long time and is also extremely expensive.

As I recall, the intention of the US President in canceling the huge project "Constellation" (in the framework of which new launchers, a spacecraft and a manned landing vehicle are being developed for the exploration of the moon) was to divert funding from this project to diverse R&D programs in other subjects, and to base it on private industry - such as the SpaceX company, As the supplier of NASA's manned launches. It should be noted that about a year ago this company demonstrated the successful launch of a spacecraft capable of launching seven people into space, and in the near future it will begin launching unmanned supply flights to the space station, together with the Russian spacecrafts of the "Progress" series.

Currently, it is not known when the manned flights of the private/commercial spacecraft in NASA service will begin, and it is possible that for several years the USA will lack the ability to launch astronauts into space. As a result, a number of astronauts have already retired from NASA's workforce, and some have found their way to commercial space companies.

Atlantis: The Last Landing

Difficult times are also going through NASA's unmanned research projects - a committee appointed to examine the giant "James Webb" space telescope project (ironically, it commemorates the first director of NASA), which was supposed to be the replacement of The veteran "Hubble" space telescope recommended canceling the project - after investing billions of dollars (the decision still requires the approval of committees in Congress and the Senate and the signature of the US President). More planned space missions are at risk of cancellation. The accumulation of these events - near the end of the shuttle era and the feeling of a lack of vision in the field of space - arouses a lot of criticism among space scientists and American statesmen alike.

The Chinese space program is gaining momentum - soon China is expected to launch the first component of a space station, and in the coming years to build a space station in orbit - which will allow the continuous presence of manned crews. India is currently developing a manned launch capability into space. Russia is also promoting a new design for the old Soyuz spacecraft - and is even building a new giant launch pad that will be used for a variety of space missions. Against the background of the international momentum of space exploration in general, and the manned programs in particular, the future of the USA in the field is still shrouded in fog.

In an interesting coincidence, yesterday marked the day of the first moon landing by the Apollo 11 crew Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In US President Kennedy's famous speech on space exploration, delivered at Rice University in Texas in 1962, Kennedy quoted the famous mountaineer George Mallory, who died trying to climb Everest. When Mallory was asked why he risked his life climbing a mountain that exacted a terrible human toll, he replied "because it's there." "Well, the space is there, and we will climb it," Kennedy said. It seems that almost fifty years after his warning speech, NASA and the USA are still waiting for a new vision in the field of space exploration.

Tal Inbar is the head of the Space Center, Fisher Institute for Strategic Air and Space Research.