Discovery is NASA's countdown to credibility

By Leonard David

updated 6:27 p.m. ET July 12, 2005

The impeding liftoff of Discovery is not just a return to flight of the American human spaceflight program. For NASA a victorious shuttle mission will be received by the public as a signal that the agency, shattered by the calamitous Columbia accident, is fixed.

Successfully returning the shuttle to active duty also means that the International Space Station can still be assembled in place… not abandoned in place.

Also, getting a shuttle off terra firma and safely back down again lends credibility to a visionary space quest: That NASA has the wherewithal to propel humans elsewhere, not only back to the Moon, but onward and outward toward the distant dunes of Mars.

But even with all the care that Discovery has received, the shuttle system remains a delicate beast of burden. One super-babied flight does not safeguard the human-rated space transportation system from problems down the road.

Just how important, then, is this shuttle liftoff to NASA’s long-term future?

Public confidence
The results of a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released July 11 found that most Americans say they have at least a "fair amount" of confidence in NASA to prevent another disaster akin to the Columbia disaster in February 2003.

Nearly three in four Americans favor a continuation of the space shuttle program. And a majority believes that NASA is moving at an appropriate pace in restarting the shuttle effort. A majority also evaluates NASA positively for the job it is doing overall. 

The poll, carried out June 24-26, found that 74 percent of Americans say the United States should continue the space shuttle program, while 21 percent disagree. "Historically, Americans have supported the program, even in the immediate aftermath of the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters," reported Jeffrey Jones of the Gallup Poll group.

While Americans express support for NASA in general and the space shuttle program in particular, the new poll found the public apparently less likely to favor a human trek to Mars, one of NASA’s — and President George W. Bush’s — future goals for space exploration.

Fifty-eight percent say they oppose setting aside the money for an attempted manned Mars landing, while 40 percent are in favor. Gallup pollsters asked the same question in 1999 and right after the touchdown of Apollo 11 on the Moon in 1969 and found similar results. 

Grandiose tales
Last month, the Washington, D.C.-based Citizens Against Government Waste also criticized plans to move forward with missions to the Moon and Mars. They cited an impending record deficit, chronic management problems at NASA, and unresolved questions about the cost and feasibility of human missions beyond Earth orbit.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is self-labeled as the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

They too criticized a humans-to-Mars program, questioning its scientific value.

"The immense technological challenges involved are expected to be overcome by an agency that currently lacks the ability to launch a shuttle beyond low-earth orbit," said CAGW President Tom Schatz.

Grandiose tales of bases on the Moon and trips to Mars are reminiscent of the International Space Station, "which was once envisaged as a beehive of research, a stopover service station for space travelers, and an assembly and manufacturing plant," noted a CAGW press release. The International Space Station "is a glaring link in a continuous chain of space projects that are either abandoned, end in disaster, or deliver far less than promised."

"Mankind’s future in space no longer depends on politicized bureaucracies and tax-funded boondoggles," Schatz concluded. "The success of SpaceShipOne, startup space companies, and the advent of space tourism have opened the door to an exciting future of private enterprise in space. Such endeavors are economical, realistic, and more likely to yield tangible benefits for mankind and taxpayers."

Symbol of national capability
Putting these criticisms of NASA aside, space experts say there are several reasons why returning the shuttle to flight is vital to the cause of human spaceflight.

For one, there’s the question of continued human spaceflight as a symbol of national capability, said Roger Launius, Chair of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

"Because of its technological magnificence, the space shuttle has become an overwhelmingly commanding symbol of American excellence for the world community. It shoulders the burden for U.S. national power and technological prowess everywhere," Launius noted.

Despite its problems, Launius continued, the space shuttle has proven itself as one of the most flexible space vehicles ever flown. Its large payload bay enabled satellite deployments, as well as the capturing and return to Earth of spacecraft, including repair and redeployment of such craft as the Hubble Space Telescope. All this became possible once the shuttle began to fly in 1981.

"Requirements to perform these tasks have ensured that the crew of every shuttle mission has a much broader range of required activities than the pioneering astronauts of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and even the Skylab programs," Launius said.

Shuttle: an honorable retirement
Then there is the shuttle’s ability to muscle up into space the ingredients to finish building the "puzzle palace" that is the International Space Station (ISS).

"Without it, it is problematic that ISS will be completed in a form that will enable it to fulfill any of its promise," Launius explained. "The sooner we are able to return the shuttle to flight, the sooner we will be able to continue work on ISS."

Even with this assignment, "the time has come to give the shuttle an honorable retirement and to move on to the next human space launch system," Launius added. "It will take years to bring that new system on-line, but in the interim I hope we will fly the shuttle successfully, complete the ISS in a manner that allows meaningful research to be undertaken there, and then transition to a new system."

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