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9 July 2011 | NewScientist | 3
THE end of NASA’s shuttle programme has prompted much hand-wringing in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s speech announcing plans to land Americans on the moon.
Many believe the space age has failed to live up to the promise of Kennedy’s grand challenge, let alone the fantasies of Star Trek. Others rake over the ashes of two shuttle disasters and condemn NASA as a sclerotic bureaucracy that belongs to a bygone age. A few fear that the space race is finally over. They are wrong.
After decades of astonishing achievements, from Apollo to the first interstellar mission, it’s true that the US space agency is at a crossroads. President Barack Obama’s direction for NASA is short on specifics, talking only vaguely of missions
to an asteroid and Mars, and under-resourced. NASA, after cancelling the Ares launcher, is turning shuttles into museum pieces without a clear idea of what comes next. The US now has no means to get astronauts into space other than Russia’s ageing Soyuz spacecraft. A question mark hangs over US ambitions.
Charles Bolden, NASA’s administrator, believes the agency must cede low-Earth orbit missions to the private sector so it can free up resources to explore deep space. That’s reasonable in the light of growing commercial space activity (see page 6), notably in the US where, tellingly, internet
entrepreneur Elon Musk was inspired to set up SpaceX by the estimated billion-dollar-plus cost of a shuttle flight.
Bolden has also pledged American leadership in space travel for the next half century by stating that “failure is not an option”. That aim looks optimistic, but only because NASA is not alone in exploring the final frontier. In all, nine countries have placed payloads in orbit. Dozens more design, deploy, own or operate satellites. Citizens of 38 countries have now flown into space. Asian nations, in particular, have shown huge ambition.
Given the developments of the past 50 years, who can say where today’s visionaries, innovators and entrepreneurs from all around the globe will take us by 2061? The real space race has only just begun. n
The next space race
EDITORIAL
A new chapter of exploration opens with the final shuttle mission
EVEN environmentalists do branding. They nurture iconic species that bring adoration and dollar donations in equal measure. Pandas, elephants and tigers get the lion’s share – along with lions, of course.
Faceless ecosystems, which are arguably what really matter, are a harder PR exercise. That said, green campaigners cracked it
with “rainforests” – an inspired rebranding of hateful jungles.
The problem comes when the lack of donor enthusiasm stymies the conservation priorities of NGOs. Selling the virtues of small, uncuddly creepy-crawlies is hard. So is selling the planet’s “Cinderella” ecosystems.
Take the Paraguayan Chaco, a featureless thorn forest in one of
the most extreme climates on Earth (see page 43). You may not have heard of it, yet it is possibly as important as the neighbouring Amazon rainforest. And while decades of rebranding have helped slow Amazon deforestation, the ignored Chaco is disappearing ever faster. So: save the Chaco, Earth’s forgotten Eden!
Meanwhile, many more endangered ecosystems need a makeover. Save the Cuatro Ciénegas valley, anyone? n
Rebranding ecosystems
“The US’s aim of leadership in space travel for the next half century looks optimistic”
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SCIENCE can be a surprisingly dangerous endeavour that involves performing risky experiments, attacking the status quo, provoking the wrath of colleagues, and new and hitherto
unacceptable ways of thinking about the universe. It’s not for the faint-hearted, and our feature on page 40 singles out some of the more colourful members of this perilous profession.
Some of our most successful scientists could justly be labelled as drug-takers, anti-authoritarian, brawlers, lawbreakers, liars, cheats
and thieves. Highlighting the more iconoclastic side of science may help tap a new pool of much-needed talent. As we reported last year, extroverted schoolchildren tend to drop science subjects at the first opportunity. Though research often needs quiet, conscientious types, there is always room for rebels too. n
In praise of the maverick
