The anniversary celebrations for Sputnik raise questions about the future of space exploration

Has the conquest of space stopped? On the occasion of Sputnik's jubilee celebrations, there are those who fear that in our lifetime we will not see humans walking on the ground of Mars

Fifty years ago, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik-1 into space - which was not much more than a beeping metal ball. It was the first time that a man-made object circled the Earth.
This achievement, on October 4, 1957, stunned and startled America. It was the starting shot for a high-dimensional space race between the world's superpowers. This race came to an end 12 years later, with the Apollo spacecraft, when astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The Soviets never got there. "Sputnik-1 changed the world," says Michael Griffin, director of NASA, "it changed history."

However, in an article published in the American newspaper USA TODAY, it is written that today, as we approach the anniversary year of the birth of the space age, frustration is evident on the part of the people who were involved in the beginning of the process and on the part of the people who want to continue space exploration. Interviews with scientists, astronauts, bureaucrats and historians reveal regret over America's decisions about space travel, and disagreement about its current goals - which are currently to return to the moon, rather than focusing on Mars. The same people wonder: Has America's enthusiasm for solar system research missions been lost in space?
"Americans are less interested in doing bold things," admits Griffin, but maintains that public support for further solar system exploration remains strong. Griffin sees NASA's plan to return to the moon in the next decade - a plan costing 100 billion dollars - as an important first step on the way to Mars. Others are not impressed by NASA's plan and believe that the United States should continue to demonstrate the same ambition it had half a century ago, after the shock of the Sputnik launch.

The BBC website reports that on Tuesday, October 2, 2007, graduates of the Soviet space program gathered at the Star City cosmonaut training facility near Moscow for the unveiling ceremony of the monument commemorating the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Other participants in the event said, paraphrasing Neil Armstrong's words, that actually the launch of Sputnik was a big step for man and an excellent means of propaganda for the Soviets at the height of the Cold War. During the launch, millions of people around the world watched the twinkling dot (which was apparently the third stage of the launcher that lifted Sputnik into space) and the realization that something very basic had changed.

Fifty years later, over 800 satellites orbit the Earth, and are used for communication, intelligence and navigation. The launch of Sputnik. "The launch of Sputnik was a significant landmark in the history of mankind, like the discovery of America by Columbus," said Yuri Kars, an expert on the Russian space program.

After Sputnik, there was a series of successes in space by the Soviet Union, driven by the rivalry with the USA. Among the successes are the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin and Leonov's first spacewalk. Now, after a long period of cuts in the Russian space program, the scientists and cosmonauts in Russia have finally promised to secure a significant budget from the government - 12 billion dollars in the next ten years - a tiny budget compared to that of NASA, but enough to allow the Russians to carry out several ambitious programs, including launching Humans to Mars in 2020.

However, senior officials in the space industry doubt the possibility that the US or Russia, or any other nation, will reach Mars in the foreseeable future. Elon Musk, who founded a private company that hopes to use its rockets to help NASA carry cargo into space, says that although most technology has advanced, the technology of The USA for flying people in space has dried up and wasted away. "We used to be able to get to the moon ... now all we can do is get to orbit around the Earth in these old, creaky space shuttles," says Musk. "We took a step back."
NASA's most ambitious plan for the next decade is lunar exploration, with Mars being the second main goal for human exploration. Griffin says he wants to direct the space agency to send astronauts on a three-year journey to Mars in 2030. "In 1960 we imagined we would send people to Mars in 1980," says Louis Friedman, head of the Planetary Society, a group that supports space exploration. "In 1970 we imagined that we would do it towards the end of the century... It seems that the road to Mars is still long, and it is getting longer all the time."

Budget problems have caused delays in plans to fly astronauts in 2012 aboard a new spacecraft to the moon and Mars. The design of the rocket to the moon will only begin in 2011. Today, NASA's biggest problem may be the lack of public interest in space exploration, at a time when Americans are more focused on war and terrorism.

"Peoples and cultures lose focus very quickly," says Alan Bean, a 75-year-old former astronaut and one of the 12 men to walk on the moon. "That's just the way it is." Fifty years ago, America's attention was captured by Sputnik - a flying metal satellite not much bigger than a beach ball. "Our leaders kept assuring us that our technology and our socioeconomic system were better than the Soviets'," says space historian Howard McCurdy of American University. "And then they got ahead of us! … It was a shock.” According to McCurdy, Sputnik also added fuel to the flame of fear of an atomic attack. "If you can fly a satellite over the United States, you can drop a missile on New York City."
National pride did not improve when the United States tried to launch its own satellite two months later. The missile rose several meters above the launch pad, burst into flames and crashed.
America caught up with the Soviets in the end thanks to German space pioneer Wernher von Braun and his team of engineering geniuses. Four months after Sputnik, the von Braun rocket put a satellite into orbit.

The race continued to its climax, ending with Armstrong's speech - "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" on the moon, on July 1969, 95. According to one of von Braun's team members, the Soviets actually helped the US by getting ahead of the Americans in the space race, Although it didn't seem that way at the time. "It really focused everyone's attention, including the president, on the problems we had," says Conrad Dannenberg, XNUMX, who now lives in Madison. If it weren't for Sputnik, the Americans might never have reached the moon. At the very least, "we wouldn't be doing it on the same schedule," says space historian Roger Leonius of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. Space exploration received unrelenting political support as long as the space race continued. When the victory is achieved, the matter is over.

NASA killed the Apollo program while astronauts were still exploring the craters and plains of the moon. Two rockets that were ready to carry crews to the moon were left to rust, orphaned, when NASA canceled the trips to the moon. "In the early 70s, we had a transport system that was the nucleus for exploring the inner solar system," says NASA's Griffin. "We threw it all away... The more I know, the more stupid this decision seems." Not only the politicians were bored. Even at the time, most Americans thought the Apollo program wasn't worth the cost, according to a Leonius study.
Public support for human exploration of space was and still is "a mile long, and an inch deep," Leonius says. Americans like the idea in theory. They don't like paying for it. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll in 2003 showed that 53% of Americans viewed the idea of ​​a new trip to the moon favorably, but only 31% agreed to pay billions of dollars for such a trip. After the Apollo era, most astronauts reached space aboard the shuttle, which began flying in 1981. Despite being a marvel of engineering, the shuttle only circled the Earth in all of its hundred-odd flights. She is unable to do anything else.

"The shuttle was great on the first flights," says Thomas Stafford, who flew on the Apollo and Gemini missions. "Then she started repeating herself." No wonder, he said, that Americans today largely ignore the shuttle missions. Today, when the geopolitical competition that pushed politicians into action is over, it is hard to find people who believe that America will return to the moon soon. "I don't see much coming out of us," Bean says, "until someone threatens us."
Some critics say that NASA's plans for the moon - which include semi-permanent bases - will not allow us to reach Mars. "We could get into trouble... and never get to Mars," says Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. "We will look at the Japanese and the Russians trying together to find a way to get to Mars." Griffin argues that NASA should test equipment and procedures on the moon before undertaking a mission to Mars. "On the moon we will learn things that would be foolish to give up," he says, calling the moon "a huge tool for reducing risks."
Regardless of the benefits received from the trip to the moon, the 36-year-old Musk and the 67-year-old Friedman do not think that they will get to see humans walking on the red and dusty surface of Mars in their lifetime. "There's nothing I want more than to see a human journey to Mars," Friedman says, "but I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime."

For review in USA TODAY

For news at the BBC
to a special website established in honor of the event as part of the European Space Agency website