China recently announced that it plans to land a rover on Mars by 2020. The Russian Federal Space Agency is working with the European Space Agency. Every major power in the world has some form of interest in Mars. Like 1961, when Russia first rocketed Yuri Gagarin into orbit and the U.S. was afraid that Russians would beat us with the first actual man on the moon, the race is on.
The U.S. should again set its priorities to one day be able to claim that it first stepped foot on the red planet. Unfortunately, we’re not doing this.
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, Americans dreamed of the possibilities in spaceflight. We were certain that in the not-too-distant future, an astronaut would land on Mars. However, 47 years after the moon landing, the U.S. is no closer to that goal.
The U.S. still has its eyes on Mars — at least that’s what the government leads us to believe. Astronaut Scott Kelly was back on Earth after spending 340 days in space on March 2. His year in space was part of a NASA study involving both him and his twin brother, Mark, a former astronaut, on space travel and the human body in space versus on Earth. This was in preparation for a theoretical Mars mission.
The problem is, there has been no mission.
Mark Kelly and Col. Terry Virts, a former Air Force pilot, attended a “breakfast from space” presentation in person on the mission to Mars at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15. Mark’s brother, Scott, also spoke at the event, live from the International Space Station.
There is a “lack of political will” to generate public support for funding, according to Mark Kelly and Virts. We have spent countless trillions of dollars on failed wars with wasted results, but we have spent nowhere near what we need to accomplish manned science in other parts of our universe. This could have amazing givebacks in resources and knowledge.
NASA’s budget is less than half a percent of total federal spending.
According to Virts, technology has a lot of promise in a journey to Mars. He also said that based on the progress between 1961 and 1969, from Earth orbit to manned lunar landing on Mars is not far-fetched. But it can be done only with a green light from Congress and the White House.
Neil Armstrong famously declared that his landing was, “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” That joy of pure science and exploration is a great hope. However, since those first steps, the U.S. has barely crawled toward anywhere else.
ROBERT WEINER is a former spokesman for the Clinton White House and House Government Operations Committee. LILE FU of Beijing is policy analyst at Solutions for Change. BEN LASKY is senior policy analyst at Solutions for Change. They wrote this for the Orlando Sentinel.