Lunar Missions are Lunacy

[Guest guest]

Lessons for India from the tragedy

 

February 2, 2003 5:43pm

 

 

N.S. Rajaram

02/03/2003

 

"There is some talk in circles that India should undertake a major

programme involving lunar exploration. This ignores the lessons of

history. Far from helping space exploration, a massive program like

landing men on the moon is likely to cripple it. This has been the

experience of the U.S. (and Russia) with vastly greater technical and

financial resources. In the face of this, lunar exploration by India

would be little short of lunacy."

 

The Columbia disaster is a tragedy that will live in the minds of

people all over the world for a long time. For those who had

associated themselves with the United States space programme, and

witnessed a similar tragedy involving the space shuttle Challenger in

1986, it brings back painful memories and debates.

 

Then, as now, the tragedy was the result of human folly and entirely

avoidable. It also poses a challenge to the policy-makers and

scientists - whether they can recognise the reality amid the cloud of

trauma and sorrow. For, the truth is, the manned space programme of

the U.S. that includes space shuttles and space station is the

product of pride, politics and careerism, more than anything else. It

has no scientific value; if anything, these mega projects have hurt

science by consuming resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

The question is whether the international space community will face

this truth and take rational decisions. (This, in no way, is a

reflection of the heroism or spirit of adventure of the astronauts.)

 

 

I was associated with the U.S. space programme for over a decade

(1980 - 1992), first as an employee of a major aerospace company on

contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and

later as an independent academic consultant in the area of automation

technologies. My work was largely with the NASA Mission Control

Center in Houston, which controls manned missions. At that time,

shrinking budgets had forced all government agencies, including the

NASA, to cut programmes that were seen as less productive. A major

victim of this exercise was the satellite remote sensing programme.

In general, the debate was over manned versus unmanned programmes.

 

Scientists have repeatedly pointed out that the manned programme

involving the space shuttle was enormously expensive, while unmanned

programmes such as the Hubble Telescope, the Voyager and Galileo

space probes have yielded much more in terms of scientific return.

Judged purely on their scientific merits, the shuttle and space

station are almost worthless. On board "experiments" by astronauts,

scientists said, were trivial and even contrived. To take an example,

manufacturing crystals and alloys in "zero gravity" is at best a

curiosity, an exercise in public relations. Gravity is a weak force,

which is negligible compared to the forces involved in manufacturing.

 

There has always been a policy debate between the advocates of the

manned programme and its opponents. This became particularly

clamorous after the Challenger disaster. The whole shuttle fleet was

grounded for reasons of safety, as has happened now after the

Columbia disaster. Many of the assumptions and promises made by the

advocates of the space shuttle were shown to be optimistic or false.

For example, with the shuttle fleet grounded, the NASA promise of

launching communication and other satellites using the shuttle

instead of unmanned rockets had left the Department of Defense (DoD)

with no launch vehicles for its crucial missions. The folly of using

astronauts to launch satellites, endangering their lives, while the

same could be done safely using unmanned rockets was thoroughly

exposed. Following this, the DOD refused to allow any of its payloads

to be launched by the shuttle. With this, the NASA lost its single

most important customer. It looked as though the shuttle programme

and with it the space station would be cancelled.

 

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At this moment of existential crisis, what saved the manned space

programme (and the shuttle) was not science or technology, but

politics. To begin with, the manned programme had its origins in

politics: it was a response to the erstwhile Soviet Union's success

in launching the Sputnik before any U.S. satellite. This led to the

Apollo programme that resulted in the moon landings, winning

the "space

race" for America. This was a massive government-funded programme

that provided employment to a huge number of engineers, technicians,

administrators and other support personnel in two major states -

Texas and Florida. Cancelling the manned program would have meant

massive unemployment in these two large and influential states that

are crucial in every presidential election. To avert this, a major

new program involving the "reusable space vehicle", now called the

space shuttle, was put in place by the NASA and its political

supporters.

 

Scientists pointed out that this was an unsound programme with no

clear goals, but in vain. After the Challenger disaster also, it was

this political dynamic that saved the space shuttle programme. It was

an unsound program, but no politician, especially the presidential

candidate, wanted to run the risk of antagonising this powerful vote

bank, not to mention the powerful defence and aerospace industry

lobby.

 

The Columbia disaster is likely to see a replay of the same scenario.

Scientists and independent policy analysts will point out that the

space shuttle and the space station are a liability in more ways than

one. They have consumed the lion's share of NASA resources, producing

little in return beyond starving scientifically more worthwhile

projects. Even for earth observations they are in the wrong orbit.

(The reason for placing them in a near equatorial rather than a polar

orbit is again political, not technical.) In addition, the shuttle

and the space station constitute a security risk. Flying in low earth

orbit near the equator, they are attractive targets to rogue

missiles.

 

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It is doubtful that politicians are sensitive to the reality that the

shuttle is an experimental vehicle and not a commercial airliner. On

its record, the accident rate for the shuttle fleet is more than 2

per cent or 20 out of every thousand. Probably a thousand flights

take off every day in India and such a high accident rate would be

unacceptable under any circumstances. There is no justification for

endangering the lives of astronauts when the scientific return of

such missions is negligible to non-existent.

 

There is some talk in circles that India should undertake a major

programme involving lunar exploration. This ignores the lessons of

history. Far from helping space exploration, a massive program like

landing men on the moon is likely to cripple it. This has been the

experience of the U.S. (and Russia) with vastly greater technical and

financial resources. In the face of this, lunar exploration by India

would be little short of lunacy. It will become a white elephant that

will soon acquire a political lobby that will make rational decision

making all but impossible. Worthwhile programmes will suffer as this

white elephant becomes a black hole that consumes ever more resources

while producing little in return. The lesson is clear. Pursue smaller

but clearly defined goals with projects that can be cancelled on

their merit without major political repercussions. A lunar mission,

or any manned space mission is a delusion of grandeur that carries

the seed of its own destruction - and the destruction of the space

programme. This is the reality that confronts the U.S., which India

should learn to avoid.

 

Copyright 2003. .

 

Financial Times Information Limited - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire