To understand the present, examine the past. To reach the future, design the future. Let us take some time to do each of these things.
First, the past:
In the 1960s many of us eagerly supported the emerging space program of the US. Men were launched into space. Men were able to rendezvous in space. Men circled the Moon. Men landed on the Moon.
Clearly, a large government program is capable of a proof-of-concept. No longer can anyone look to a dreamer and say, "He wants the Moon." Well and good. Bravo NASA.
Then came the hiatus. Skylab was abandoned in orbit in 1974. Apollo-Soyuz was the final Saturn-class mission in 1975. No American flew in space until 1981. That shocked me. Angered me. Frustrated me. And tens of thousands like me.
We helped get the Shuttle funded. We helped get the Enterprise named. We helped fight the fights in Congress.
And in 1981, we saw an opportunity. We were pushing the Reagan Administration to make a lunar base its top priority. They chose a middle course, the development of a space station.
And I did not give up. I helped fund that space station. Tens of thousands of us wrote letters, pleaded for funds, worked our butts off. We organized a phone tree, we activated it at every threat.
And in 1988, our interests were completely betrayed. We, who want people to live and work in space, would have benefited enormously from the private efforts of Space Industries to develop a commercial man-tended space platform. Funds were allocated for that project to provide an anchor tenant. Four Senators led an effort to kill it. And the leadership of one of the largest space activist groups chose to let it die.
We have all seen the subsequent events. NASA is now threatened not by battles for funding allocation, but by the loss of its arch-rival and the end of the Cold War. The space station has been transformed so many times that it makes some of us weep, but it seems to be on the path to completion. The NASA space science program fell into disarray with Galileo and Mars Observer (and Hubble), and had already pissed away half the science of the Ulysses mission by not requesting funds for the Solar Polar Probe. Perhaps that space science program will be fixed with the call for Faster, Cheaper, Better.
But we have all lost an incredible amount of time. All of the momentum of Apollo is gone. In 1970, we were going to the Moon. In 1995, this country is going into Earth orbit. Then we dreamed of going on to Mars, with hundreds living in Earth orbit and dozens living on the Moon. Today we dream of keeping the flame lit, we hear about "next logical steps," and we wonder why no one shares our dreams.
What conclusions can we draw? Several spring to mind:
How does all this help us design the future? It doesn't. You have to stand in the future to design the future. You can't stand in the past, because if you work from the perspective of what you've always gotten, then what you get is more or less what you had before. We don't want what we had from 1973 to 1994. We want no more of that level of space effort, nor indeed to we want any less. We want something COMPLETELY different.
Understanding how we got here may suggest things to avoid doing in the future. It may suggest courses of action. But the only real way to reach the future we want is to design it from the perspective of where we are going. Designing from the past often leads to being trapped in the past. The past didn't work, so let's move on.
The future which I want is one in which people have access to space. It is my vision that by 2050, tens of thousands of people are living in cities in space, on the Moon, and across the Solar System. In that future, the Moon has been thoroughly explored, surveyed, mapped, settled, industrialized, mined, and developed. The Far Side of the Moon is a haven for astronomers using huge optical and radio telescopes to survey the heavens. Very long baseline interferometry is possible using telescopes on the Moon and Mars as a baseline. Humanity is multi-planetary, with settlements on the habitable asteroids and Jovian moons. Comets have been visited and exploited. Some are talking about the stars. The first unmanned probe is sent towards the nearest star system, and more will follow.
Most important, the industrialization of space has brought vast new resources to bear on the problems of Earth. Pollution is decreasing rapidly as energy from space makes the commodity price of electricity rather than oil the determining factor in the energy industry. Mining on Earth continues, but at a vastly reduced pace as lunar and asteroidal resources feed the industries of space which make far more of the technically sophisticated products of the future.
Tourists from each planet visit exotic locations on others. In downtown Houston, children from families which settled on the Moon are a sight to make heads turn as they tour the city in their power-assist suits. Hotels on the Moon are a favorite for honeymooning couples, and the first bed and breakfast overlooking the Valles Marineris has just opened for business.
You fill in the rest. That is a future worth dreaming about. It is a future worth working for, fighting for; it is a future that cries out like a wild thing in a wilderness, begging to be seen, felt, heard, touched, made real.
You and I can make it real. We can take the present and mold it, shape it, bend it, and break it until that future is available, real, inevitable.
Do you want to go? I want to go. Millions want to go. We can make that dream live. We can show the way, lead the way, stand for what we believe.
If we don't, no one will notice. The world will go about its business, pursuing other dreams, making them real, and watch us die a little every day. If we try but half-heartedly, the world will nod its collective head knowingly, encourage us a little, and go about its business.
We must promote a human settlement on the Moon. That is our goal, that is a goal that inspires, that is a dream that can live.
Help others with their goals, sure. Be useful to those who support Lunar Prospector if you wish. Call the relevant Congresscritters. But don't imagine that to be sufficient. It may be a step along the way, and it may be necessary for that step to be carried out by NASA. If you think so, great, act accordingly.
But don't lose sight of the larger vision. Keep that dream alive.