At Tranquility Base when the Eagle landed 40 years ago this
month and astronaut Neil Armstrong took
”
one giant leap for mankind,
”
an adventure of manned space exploration was ignited. Humanity
was given a glimpse of a future where people might live in lunar
colonies and mine its resources and scientific knowledge for the
benefit of billions back on Earth.
At Tranquility Base when the Eagle landed 40 years ago this month and astronaut Neil Armstrong took “one giant leap for mankind,” an adventure of manned space exploration was ignited. Humanity was given a glimpse of a future where people might live in lunar colonies and mine its resources and scientific knowledge for the benefit of billions back on Earth.
Staring at the crescent moon hanging over the Diablo Mountains early one morning a couple of weeks ago, I pondered with disappointment what happened during the four decades since humans first walked on that orb’s dusty surface. A great promise was made to the world on July 20, 1969. That promise remains unfulfilled.
Something died at NASA when, in the early 1970s, Congress cut funding for the Apollo program. Since then, the government agency has drifted without a clearly-defined purpose for humans venturing into space.
The problem came from how Apollo was packaged. In his famous 1962 “We choose to go to the moon” speech at Rice University, President Kennedy gave America a clear goal and reason for his proposed space adventure. Once the Armstrong and Aldrin splashed down in the Pacific, however, Kennedy’s objective was fulfilled.
After Apollo 11, NASA never again basked in radiant public glory. If there’s no deadline or danger, there’s no drama. The space shuttle for most people is merely a rocket-launched cargo plane. And the International Space Station laboratory fails to capture the attention of an America public too easily bored by science.
President Bush in 2002 encouraged a manned mission to Mars. A journey to the red plant – which might cost up to $450 billion, according to some NASA estimates – would certainly generate drama when, decades hence, astronauts stride across Martian soil. But soon after the fire of that venture burns out, the public’s attention will drift and Congress will, like it did with Apollo, cut further manned Mars missions.
Fortunately, we have another potential project to inspire us toward the next step in manned space exploration. Abraham Lincoln’s vision for national train travel provides us with an excellent model for this project.
In the 1850s, Lincoln worked as a corporate lawyer for the railroads. This work enabled him to see that rail transportation could unify the United States as a society and also stimulate economic development in the frontier regions of 19th-century America.
Based on his lawyer work, in 1862 President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act which ignited the government-sponsored enterprise of building America’s first transcontinental railroad. That project was ceremoniously completed with the driving of the “Golden Spike” by Leland Stanford at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869 – 100 years and a couple of months before Apollo 11’s famous lunar landing.
Highly efficient railroad transportation technology enabled Americans to settle frontier land far more quickly and efficiently than they ever could using old-fashioned wagons. In the course of three or four days (instead of nine moths by oxen), ordinary people could journey across the continent safely and comfortably riding inside train cars providing panoramic views of the American West. Towns – including Gilroy, Morgan Hill and Hollister – grew along the tracks as people poured into the West.
A similar benefit might come about in settling the frontier of space if some imaginative leader ever gives America a goal to build a vertical railroad taking ordinary people into orbit. This “space elevator” idea was first conceived near our own South Valley region in 1969 when an engineer Jerome Pearson at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View came up with a fantastic concept. He proposed carrying cargo and people into space using elevator cabs climbing a 22,236-mile long tether stretching from Earth to an orbiting counterweight.
Carbon nanotubes could, in theory, provide the material to build this cable because they have the necessary tensile strength and light weight qualities. With an economical method to spin a carbon nanotube tether to Earth from orbit, we could start building space elevators within 10 years. The capitol cost, NASA researchers estimate, would be $20 billion for the first tether. Subsequent elevator systems would cost $10 billion or less.
Like the transcontinental railroad, highly efficient space elevator transportation technology would enable Americans to settle the frontiers of space far more quickly and efficiently than they ever could using old-fashioned rockets. Ordinary people could journey into orbit comfortably and safely in elevator cars providing panoramic views of Earth. Space tourism would flourish as Mars and the moon become vacation destinations. New space-based industries and technologies would ignite economic prosperity.
With inspiring leadership, America can build a space elevator. I’d like to imagine that, similar to the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 and the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969, it might be finished in 2069. Call me a romantic, but that year would provide it with a poetic tie to the past.
