A Giant Leap, And Then A Sputter

40 years ago today, NASA landed men on the moon for the first time in human history. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history walking the dusty Sea of Tranquility while Michael Collins orbited the moon, setting records of his own for being the most distant solo astronaut in history. Collins also designed the mission patch.

From that moment of glory, set in motion less than a decade before by JFK's stirring words to go to the moon, and just 66 years since man first took to the skies in powered flight, we've seen the US squander that technological capacity and the NASA mission has become a muddled mess. The last men set foot on the moon in 1972. We have not been back since.

Following the end of the Apollo program, we've seen NASA fumble with Skylab and then the shuttle program. Sure, NASA has gotten some spectacular achievements with its unmanned scientific programs, including the Viking missions to Mars, the Voyager probes, and various other solar explorers, and then with the Hubble space telescope, but the manned program has been in search of a mission that could give NASA needed direction.

Going back to the moon seems likely, although it is possible that the Chinese might get back there first. President Bush called for a mission to Mars, but that is quite unlikely in the current economic climate and NASA still can't quite figure out how to build the capabilities to return to the moon.

Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins, who circled the moon alone while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on it, said the moon was not interesting, but Mars is.

"Sometimes I think I flew to the wrong place. Mars was always my favorite as a kid and it still is today,'' Collins said. "I'd like to see Mars become the focus, just as John F. Kennedy focused on the moon.''

The man who founded and directed Mission Control Houston, Christopher Kraft Jr., also jumped on the go-somewhere-new, do-something-different bandwagon.

"What we need is new technology; we have not had that since Apollo,'' Kraft said as part of the lecture at the Smithsonian. "I say to Mr. Obama: Let's get on with it. Let's invest in the future.''

As the men of NASA of the 1960s talked about new technology and new goals, the current NASA is still looking back at the moon.

NASA is still marching toward a goal of returning to the moon of Armstrong and Aldrin and this time putting a base there. The current plan is based on building new rockets that the former NASA administrator called "Apollo on steroids,'' with an alternative -- a derivative of the space shuttle -- floating through the space agency.

That is the greatest shame of all; we were there, and we didn't know what to do next. It's past time to figure out the next step and to get it done.

UPDATE:
Here's video of that momentous event: