50 years since the space age - is humanity already there?

12 years after the start of the space age, its future looks very promising. Werner von Braun, the head of the American space program, says in 1969: "In the year 2000, we will undoubtedly have a very large activity on the surface of the moon, we will have a manned landing on Mars and it is absolutely possible that people will fly to other planets." Where did we go wrong? Part one of two

In the USSR and the countries of the communist bloc, they saw this step as evidence of enormous technological ability and the strength of the communist ideology, whose achievements are ahead of those of the West. In this period of the heating up of the Cold War, this was a significant milestone.

On the other side of the globe, the reaction of the American people was the opposite. Many citizens understood that the ability of the Soviets to put a satellite in space was equivalent to the ability to drop a nuclear bomb on any point throughout the United States. There is no need to expand on what this caused to the feeling of personal security, especially when the American leadership remained without answers.

This step of launching a small satellite (80 kg in total) motivated the two powers to invest the best resources in order to get ahead of their rival in the race to accumulate achievements in space. It was a race of giants into space and the whole world watched them in amazement.

Indeed, on October 4, 1957, the world rose to a new era. the space age The space age began together with another concept that we have already gotten used to forgetting - the space race. The United States and the Soviet Union, the two rival superpowers that survived the Second World War, immediately after it began an unofficial race between them for success in various different arenas, including success in the race to space.

The Russians continued their dizzying success after launching the first satellite. Two months later they already launched the second satellite, for the first time with an animal, Laika the dog. On April 12, 1961, the first man was launched into space, pilot Yuri Gagarin. After that they reached other achievements: two people in space, first exit from a spaceship and hovering in space, first woman in space, two spaceships connecting in space and more. The Americans also managed to achieve the above achievements, but later and less successfully. The countries of the world, and especially those that have not yet taken a clear ideological position, were greatly influenced by the Soviet success. The Americans, who received a lot of criticism as a result, began to build a plan aimed at turning the bowl upside down, and bringing the USA to victory in the race. Indeed, the project to send a man to the moon, his landing and safe return, the "Apollo" project, brought the USA on July 20, 1969 to be the first country whose citizen walked on the surface of the moon and said those eternal words; "One small step for man, one giant step for humanity", while the parallel project, run by the Russians, failed miserably in the early stages of the launcher's development.

12 years after the start of the space age, its future looks very promising. Werner von Braun, the head of the American space program, says in 1969: "In the year 2000, we will undoubtedly have a very large activity on the surface of the moon, we will have a manned landing on Mars and it is absolutely possible that people will fly to other planets."

Indeed, during the immortal flights of "Apollo" America had already seen the next stages. On the agenda was the cancellation of the horribly expensive disposable launchers and spacecraft, to make room for a cheap and reliable reusable spacecraft. The same spacecraft or shuttle, which will take off and land like an airplane, will be launched dozens of times a year. The plan stipulates that the shuttle will fly as a regular route to a large space station, manned continuously in orbit around the Earth, and to a small colony that will be established at the same time on the moon. The success of the program will very quickly pave the way for a manned landing on Mars and the beginning of activity there as well. Science and science fiction books were written at that time and they embraced the same plans that were made. This is also reflected in science fiction books, and in movies such as "A Space Odyssey - 2001", the "Star Trek" trilogy and the "Star Trek" series.

In fact, according to the plans drawn up in those years, today we were supposed to be in a world where flying into space is similar to flying in an airplane to the other side of the globe, space tourism is possible not only for those with a penny in their pocket and thousands of people, researchers, engineers and technicians settle in space on a permanent basis as if they immigrated to the country a neighbor

Of course, the vast majority of these predictions did not come true.

The technology to carry out those plans existed then, as it exists today, but in the end the will and the political willingness to mobilize the resources required to accomplish these tasks were not found.

why?

Did the Americans actually win the space race?

So that we can answer this, let us examine the following years after the end of the "Apollo" project. From 1973, a year after the last Apollo flight - No. 17 (missions 18, 19, and 20 were canceled due to lack of budget), the Russians seemingly began to lead again. They began to launch a series of space stations called "Saliot", while the Americans imitated them with the "Skylab" station, which was built mainly from remnants of the Apollo launcher and was partially manned in 73-74. The Russians owned their stations throughout the 70's and 80's. In 86, the well-known space station "Mir" (peace) began to be built, which was manned until the year 2000. In order to free up resources for the International Space Station, which began to be built at the same time.

In 1975, as part of détente (reducing tensions), and in order to show the world how much they want peace, the USA and the USSR sent two spacecraft to meet in space, connect and the teams could meet face to face. The USA launched into space one of the command modules left over from the "Apollo" era, while the USSR launched the Soyuz spacecraft, which began in 1973 to be the USSR's workhorse in space, and which was already its 19th flight.

For the USA, this was its last flight into space in the 70s. Skylab burned up in the atmosphere in 1979, two years before the Space Shuttle flew into service. The Soyuz has flown over 100 flights since then. Among her many roles in the Russian space program, she currently provides Americans with a ride to the International Space Station (next week, on October 10, the next flight). In addition, the Russian space station Mir represented to the Americans in the late 90s, for a fee of course, as a laboratory for studying human behavior in space for long periods of time in preparation for the construction of the space station.

The space shuttle - a white elephant

The space shuttle, which was planned to fly to the Skylab space station without waiting for it and ended its life prematurely, is in many respects a "flight to nowhere". Since 1981, over 100 successful flights have been made (the 2 failures, of the Challenger in 1986 and of Columbia with the late Ilan Ramon in 2003, are mainly attributed to failed management decisions) but no one knows what their purpose was and what Their contribution to space exploration and utilization. It is safe to say that the field of manned flights in the last 30 years of the US space program has been a colossal waste of public money. The shuttle program did not live up to expectations - a reusable, cheap and reliable spacecraft that will fly dozens of times a year and replace all other launchers. Beyond that, the many measures required by the shuttle fleet for its flight absorbed almost all of NASA's relevant budget, and there was no budget left to find a suitable replacement.

On the other hand, although the Americans made several serious mistakes in their space program, the Russians did not deliver the goods either. Apart from a number of very reliable manned and unmanned space launch vehicles, they have not provided humanity with any hope since the late 60s.

Why did all this happen?

After the success of the "Apollo" program, the American public and with it the administration, which was deeply mired in wars on the other side of the world, lost interest in space. The Russian government lost interest and the ability to carry out the tasks long ago.

Space has become a secondary story in the historical story of humanity. No one was more interested in the next thing that could be done in space that hadn't been done yet. No leader or businessman saw space as a locomotive that would push his country's economy forward. Space remains relevant and very important only to a handful of forward-looking dreamers and engineers and scientists who continued to be interested in space exploration for their narrow reasons only.

Space was deeply ingrained in a person's life in the world of the early 70s and the expectation of many advances and achievements in the field was evident, so there is no doubt that he would have found our world quite disappointing in terms of achievements in space.

The space age - a measure of its success

Indeed, on October 4, 1957, the world rose to a new era. the space age

But is humanity really living the new era in which it has been for 50 years? Other eras that humanity has entered such as the age of information and the era of nanotechnology are much more noticeable today, according to many, even though they started only in the last 20-30 years. How will we measure humanity's 'success' in entering the space age?

Let's "grind" a few numbers to explain the ear:

Well, just over 450 people who went into space and returned safely can proudly call themselves astronauts. Not a very high number for 50 space years. Only 12 people walked on the moon and that too happened only 35 years ago. No human has ever walked on another planet including Mars. Since the beginning of the 70s there have been about 2-3 people only partially continuously in the various space stations that have been built. Today there is one international space station where there are about 3 people continuously for several years. Certainly there is no colony in space where ordinary people live and work.

Only from 2001 did tourists start flying into space. The five happy tourists paid close to 20 million dollars for the flight. In about a week, this number will increase to six with the launch of the first Malaysian in space. In the coming years this number will increase and even jump thanks to the planned private and commercial suborbital and orbital flights. It is interesting to elaborate a little on the topic of private sub-orbital launches, such as Brett Rutan's Spaceship1, whose enlarged model will start flying tourists next year. The space plane will carry the Virgin Galactic brand of the well-known billionaire Richard Branson and will offer a ticket for a seat in the space plane at a price of 200 thousand dollars "only". Kita talks about about 40 different such projects around the world whose goal is to bring the rich tourist who is already fed up with all the attractions the world provides him to new attractions outside the atmosphere and outside the Earth's gravity.

Unlike in the past, today a number of large business entities and even private individuals with large capital are not afraid of the huge investments required to enter the space market, but rather are tempted by the considerable returns and large profits that will come to them if they succeed. Let's mention in this case the spaceX project of Elon Musk (not Israeli!), who made his fortune in PayPal and is currently developing, for the first time in history, a space launcher privately that promises to be much cheaper than other launchers.

Tomorrow: the space race is gaining new momentum

* The writer is the manager of the Amos 3 project at the Space Company and in his spare time is a member of the Space Association and active in the space and satellite forum in Tafuz. The article is presented on the website courtesy of the author.

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* The writer is the manager of the Amos 3 project at the Space Company and in his spare time is a member of the Space Association and active in the space and satellite forum in Tafuz. The article is presented on the website courtesy of the author.