Thanks a Lot Barack Obama...The Whole World Watches As American Astronaut Begs a Ride To Space With the Russians

I'm not kidding you - I saw this news piece this morning on the television news and it made me nauseous - an American astronaut reduced to hitching a ride on a Russian spaceship.  So, we now have the entire world watching as the premier pioneer of space, the United States of America, has succumbed to begging Russians to bring our astronauts to space.  Thank you very much, Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama's plan was to obliterate America as the world leader in the economy, in space exploration and military power and he has succeeded.  And some Americans, after all of that, will vote for this treasonous piece of shit in November.

The story comes from Business Day.

p.s.  Imagine ... U.S. space exploration is now only being covered by the likes of "Business Day" ?

Soyuz launches new crew to space station


A TRIO of Russian, Japanese and US astronauts blasted off aboard a Soyuz spaceship yesterday for a four-month mission on the International Space Station that Moscow hopes will help restore confidence in its space programme.

Veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide launched successfully aboard the Soyuz TMA-05M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

They are scheduled to berth early tomorrow, joining Nasa flight engineer Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin aboard the space station, a $100bn research complex orbiting 385km above earth.

"The Soyuz had a very smooth ride into space," a spokesman for Nasa said during a live broadcast on the agency’s television channel.

Since the retirement of the space shuttles last year, the US is dependent on Russia to fly astronauts to the space station, which costs the country $60m per person.

Moscow hopes a successful mission will help to restore confidence in its once-pioneering space programme after a string of launch mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos.

The previous Soyuz launch on May 15 was delayed by more than one month to allow Russia’s partly state-owned space contractor, RKK Energia, to prepare a new capsule for launch after an accident during pressure tests damaged the Soyuz crew capsule.

There were no such delays with yesterday ’s launch.

"The most tense, the most difficult part (of the launch) has been successfully implemented," said Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russian space agency Roscosmos.

"I have just spoken to the crew. They are feeling great," Russian news agencies quoted Mr Popovkin as saying. "I have no doubts that all will go according to plan."

Asked by m ission c ontrol how the crew was feeling, Mr Malenchenko, a cosmonaut on his fifth space voyage, said: "Good." A doll given to him by his daughter dangled from the roof of the capsule.

Ms Williams and Mr Hoshide are both on their second space flight and their first aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. They, with Mr Malenchenko, are to return to e arth in mid-November. The previous crew of three at the station returned on July 1.

Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Nasa astronaut Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers helped to dock the first privately owned spacecraft during a six-month stint in orbit.

At the end of May, this crew released Space Exploration Technologies’ unmanned Dragon cargo, which arrived as part of a test flight and was the first privately owned spaceship to reach the 15-nation international space station project.

Yesterday’s launch took place less than three weeks after China’s Shenzhou 9 spacecraft returned to earth, ending a mission that put the country’s first woman in space. It marked China’s fourth manned space mission since 2003.

Reuters

While Obama Has Turned NASA Into a Ghost Town, China Plans Space Labs, Moon Shots and Space Stations

A Long March 2F rocket carrying China's first space laboratory module lifts off on September 29, 2011 in Jiuquan

We all know why Barack Hussein Obama nixed most of our NASA program...because he wanted to follow through on his dream of leveling the playing field around the world...reducing America from the pinnacle of exceptionalism and leadership to just the same old same old as the rest of the planet. Well, apparently, the leadership in China has seen Obama's degradation of American superiority in space as a chance to take that spot and as this article at CNN points out, the Chinese have some very aggressive plans for THEIR space program.

From the article:

China plans to put laboratories in space, collect samples from the moon and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to an ambitious plan released this week aimed at putting the country on the global map for space exploration.

China also plans to launch manned-vessels and freighters into space during the coming half-decade, according to a government white paper. The country's eventual goal in the longer term is a manned lunar landing.

"With economic progress, also comes the need for scientific development and exploration," said Jiao Weixin, a professor at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Beijing University. "By investing in space exploration, China wants to contribute and be a major player in the world on more than one level."

The Chinese plans announced this week come as the United States has been scaling back its ambitions and funding for space exploration.

Since day one of his Presidency, Barack Hussein Obama has shown an interest in cutting spending in only two areas - one was NASA and the other is defense. Consider that for a bit. The cuts at NASA will easily put China in the lead in space exploration and the defense cuts, well, we may just see the power edge for America there go the same way....in case you haven't heard, China is pumping money hand over fist into it's navy and other military aspects.

Barack Obama's cuts in spending at NASA weren't used to pay off our debt...they were funneled into more reckless spending on the behalf of the unions and other special interests, but the net effect is another blow to the pride of each and every American.

Imagine in 2013, school children in America in every classroom huddled around television monitors to see ......CHINESE astronauts achieving the next milestone in space. American children sitting there with eyes wide open saying...."boy, I wish America could do something like that someday!"

Fuck this President.

China unveils ambitious plan for space exploration


(CNN) -- China plans to put laboratories in space, collect samples from the moon and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to an ambitious plan released this week aimed at putting the country on the global map for space exploration.

China also plans to launch manned-vessels and freighters into space during the coming half-decade, according to a government white paper. The country's eventual goal in the longer term is a manned lunar landing.

"With economic progress, also comes the need for scientific development and exploration," said Jiao Weixin, a professor at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Beijing University. "By investing in space exploration, China wants to contribute and be a major player in the world on more than one level."

The Chinese plans announced this week come as the United States has been scaling back its ambitions and funding for space exploration.

Since 2003, China has made major breakthroughs in its space program, including becoming the third country after Russia and the United States to put a human in space. It successfully completed a spacewalk in 2008.

In November, the successful automated docking and return of an unmanned spacecraft, Shenzhou-8, paved the way for the creation of China's future space laboratory. The spaceship blasted off from a launch facility in the Gobi Desert in northwest China, one month after the first space laboratory module Tiangong-1 was launched into space.

China says its military-run space program will be used for peaceful purposes. But its activities have set off controversy in the past, like when it shot down one of its dead satellites in 2007, for example. That move alarmed some officials in the United States and other countries and raised concerns about the militarization of the space race.

Some experts say a critical gap in Chinese-U.S. space relations is the absence of regularized talks on space security, which took place between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War.

"In this regard, the Obama administration has made overtures at the military-to-military level," Clay Moltz, an professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif., said in an e-mail response. "The ball is now in China's court to respond. How it responds may say a lot about its true intentions in space."

Two more space docking missions are planned for 2012, with at least one of them manned. But despite the progress, some experts say China still has a long way to go in developing its space technology.

"China is still catching up to countries that began their space programs in the 1960s," said Jiao. "It may be impressive to see what China has done in the past decade, but there is still a long way to go."

The paper also says China will develop technology to monitor space debris, study black holes and develop small satellites for environmental and disaster monitoring and forecasting.

In The Beginning...

I originally published this post in 2008 on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission.  I feel that tonight is a good time to repost it.  I do hope you enjoy it.

Three words read by William Anders aboard the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve 1968.

1968 was our Annus horribilis. It was a year of unrest at the Democratic National Convention. It was the year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It was a year in which riots and protests were the daily fare on the nightly newscasts. It was a year in which America felt at its lowest point. And America needed a boost.

When the Apollo 8 mission was originally planned the mission was not suppose to go to the moon. It was suppose to be in a low Earth orbit checking out the systems on the Command module and possibly the lunar module if one had been ready by then. Instead the mission was changed and Apollo 8 would be the first manned mission to go to the moon. In itself it would be a very dangerous mission, the first of anything is alway a dangerous mission to accomplish. Because of the nature of the mission and the decision to change it, the true mission was kept a secret from the public until the official announcement on 12 November 1968, less than 40 days before the scheduled launch.

Apollo 8 launched at 7:51:00 a.m. on December 21, 1968. During the flight, three fellow astronauts served on the ground as capsule communicators (usually referred to as "CAPCOMs") on a rotating schedule. The CAPCOMs were the only people who regularly communicated with the crew. Michael Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty and at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch radioed, "Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI". This communication signified that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo 8 to go to the moon. Over the next twelve minutes before the TLI burn, the Apollo 8 crew continued to monitor the spacecraft and the rocket. The S-IVB third stage rocket ignited on time and burned perfectly for 5 minutes and 17 seconds. The burn increased the velocity of Apollo 8 to 35,505 feet per second (10,822 m/s) and the spacecraft's altitude at the end of the burn was 215.4 miles (346.7 km). At this time, the crew also set the record for the highest speed humans had ever traveled.

Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB booster to vent its remaining fuel through its engine bell to change the booster's trajectory. This S-IVB would then pass the Moon and enter into a solar orbit, posing no further hazard to Apollo 8. The S-IVB subsequently went into a 0.99 by 0.92 AU solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° and a period of 340.80 days.

The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15,000 miles (25,000 km) from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1 milligray (during the course of a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy.

At about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion-1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a Go/No Go decision, the crew was told at 68 hours, they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find". At 68 hours and 58 minutes, the spacecraft went behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth.

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an event no one had ever seen — Earthrise. Borman saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photo as he did so: Earthrise, seen for the first time by human eyes. In the ensuing scramble Anders took the more famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.



As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the second television transmission began. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read the story of creation from Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth"

After 10 lunar orbit, Apollo 8 returned to Earth on 27 December 1968. A successful and historic mission.

So on this Christmas Eve, we should remember a historic moment in Human history that took place 40 years ago.


William Anders

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

View at YouTube

On this Christmas Eve I wish to again recall the words of Apollo 8 in wishing you a Merry Christmas.

And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

STS-135

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

On July 20, 1969 10:56 PM EDT, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. landed on the Moon.  The fulfillment of a commitment to human space travel by President John F. Kennedy:

For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the Moon and the Planets beyond.


We Choose to go the Moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that challenge is one we are willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win.

John F. Kennedy 12 September 1962 Rice University

It has been 42 years since the first Moon landing and 49 years since President Kennedy spoke those moving words.  Yet recently President Barack Hussein Obama not only cancelled the Constellation program, scrubbing the US return to the Moon and then Mars.  And has saddled the US with an enormous cost to send our astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).  The Russians will do it for $50 million dollars each astronaut.

President Obama claims that his plan will create jobs.  He is right.  Jobs for Russians, not Americans as the people of NASA will be downsizing and 1/3 of the NASA work force will be out of work tomorrow.



Ironic isn't it.  When President Obama first took office he was compared to John Kennedy as the second coming of JFK.  I can now paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen with accuracy:

Mr. President, you're no Jack Kennedy!

Indeed not!  Leadership is not his forte.  He has no idea what it is to inspire an nation, to unite a nation, to make us dream.

I was going to make this post one that would look back on the last 30 years of the shuttle program.  Instead I have changed this into a harangue against Obama's NASA policy.  The typical Progressive policy of destroying those programs that don't give funds directly to his cronies (SEIU).

I will leave you with this last landing ever of the Shuttle:

As the Space Shuttle has pulled into port for the last time, an era has come to an end.

When will America send her best and bravest back into space?  How long will it take?

Russians, Now In the Driver's Seat In Space, Stick It To NASA For Price of Transportation For U.S. Astronauts

If you ever were looking for the defining portrait of what Barack Hussein Obama has done to the prestige and standing of the United States of America in just two short years, then look into space. I'll paint this portrait for you, painful as it is for most red-blooded Americans to view.

You see, come this summer, American astronauts will literally have no way to get into space. That fancy schmancy space station that orbits the Earth...well, American astronauts won't have a way to get to it come the end of this summer. Barack Hussein Obama has seen to it that America no longer has any space shuttles or rocket ships or whatever the next generation would have been. So, come the end of the summer, American astronauts will have to take a hired taxi into space and those "taxis" are Russian spaceships and the deal has just been announced regarding how much the Americans will have to PAY to hitch those rides. And the Russians are sticking it to us. Big time.

From the article at The Telegraph:

With the US shuttle programme due to formally end this summer, Nasa has had little choice but to agree to a £470.6 million two-year deal with Russia to deliver twelve astronauts to the ISS from 2014-2016.

The deal, which includes training, a return ticket and a rescue service if needed, means that Nasa is paying almost £40 million per astronaut for what the Russian media have dubbed the most expensive taxi ride in history.

Nasa is paying just over £30 million per astronaut now so the new deal represents a price hike of almost twenty five per cent and is the fourth price increase in just five years.

Okay, back to what Obama has done to all of us. Think about the portrait I've drawn...we have a country like Russia, one that is as close to collapse as any in the world...a country with a population declining and Muslims taking over their military and yet these are the new pioneers of space. Barack Hussein Obama didn't just let this happen...hell no...he designed this to happen.

You see, Barack Hussein Obama simply hates American exceptionalism. He's never been a winner, he's always been a loser. Throughout his life, Barry Soetoro has lost and felt that sting of defeat - he's simply never been successful and he blames it on America. So, in his new position of authority, Obama has set out to make his "bully" pay for what it did to him. We've not only seen this in Obama's attack on the space program but in his entire foreign policy and we saw it just this week. You think it was just a coincidence that France took the reins of the Libyan offensive? Hell no. Barack Hussein Obama wants you and me to become comfortable with the once most powerful America sitting on the sidelines. You see, the once young Barry Soetoro sat on the bench during basketball games, because he wasn't good enough to start...and he sat on that bench and he stewed and he smoldered and he vowed one day to get back at "all of them."

Russia takes advantage of end of space shuttle programme


With the US shuttle programme due to formally end this summer, Nasa has had little choice but to agree to a £470.6 million two-year deal with Russia to deliver twelve astronauts to the ISS from 2014-2016.

The deal, which includes training, a return ticket and a rescue service if needed, means that Nasa is paying almost £40 million per astronaut for what the Russian media have dubbed the most expensive taxi ride in history.

Nasa is paying just over £30 million per astronaut now so the new deal represents a price hike of almost twenty five per cent and is the fourth price increase in just five years.

Charlie Bolden, the Nasa chief, said it would buy America breathing space to develop its own spacecraft to transport US astronauts to the ISS.

He said plans were in place "to ensure that American astronauts and the cargo they need are transported by American companies rather than continuing to outsource this work to foreign governments."


In future, private US companies will design and build spacecraft to get astronauts to the ISS, while NASA will focus on the development of more ambitious projects.

"This new approach in getting our crews and cargo into orbit will create good jobs and expand opportunities for our American economy," Mr Bolden said. "If we are to win the future and out build our competitors, it is essential that we make this program a success."

Russia's own space programme, a shadow of its Soviet predecessor, needs all the money it can get as it prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's 1961 space flight next month.

Sergey Ivanov, Russia's powerful deputy prime minister, last month accused the Russian space agency of committing "childish" errors after a string of failed satellite launches. It had also failed to build enough spacecraft, he added.

Despite the high price tag, Russian experts believe the Kremlin could have got even more money from Nasa.

"We could have got more," said Andrei Ionin, a member of Russia's space academy. "But in the current situation, it is better not to spoil relations."

How America Surrendered Space Exploration To the Russians and Chinese

I think most of us will remember how in 2010 President Barack Obama basically sealed the fate of America's space program by basically issuing its death sentence and in the wake of NASA's neutering, we have seen the Russians become number one in space exploration and unbelievably, we are seeing third place China now poised to surpass the U.S. in the area of space.

Personally, I never thought I'd see the day that proud Americans...the people who sat around television sets in office buildings and schoolrooms to watch the moon landing ...sit idly by and let America's status as the supreme leader in space technology and exploration simply fade away like a retired horse put out to pasture.

A lot of this has to do with dreams of men. Along the way, and this goes back nearly 8 years ago, we started seeing the dreams of American leaders shift - shift away from putting men on Mars, putting more probes on Saturn. And what we see now is an American President whose dream of union workers rejoicing in victorious revolution in the streets is more important than millions of school children huddled around plasma tv's as American astronauts set foot on Mars.

It seems we no longer can look to space for some of the answers to our biggest problems...unless, that is, we want to rely upon handouts from the Russians and Chinese.

Here's the article from Family Security Matters:

Forfeiting U.S. Leadership in Space


The space shuttle "Discovery" is scheduled to complete its 13 day supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on March 9. It is the 135th space shuttle mission since the "Columbia" first lifted off on April 12, 1981. There are only two missions left in the program, one in April for the "Endeavor" and one in June for "Atlantis." The shuttles will have flown for over 30 years, during which time it should have been expected that a replacement system would have been developed. But it has not been. Even the loss of "Challenger" in 1986 and "Columbia" in 2005 did not spark action. When the shuttles are retired this summer, there is nothing to replace them; indeed, there is not even anything close to being ready. Presidents George W. Bush (2003) and Barack Obama (2010) cancelled shuttle replacement programs. The great lead that the United States has enjoyed in space since the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969 has been thrown away due to a lack of imagination in Washington.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has put out its 2011 Strategic Plan. Its first goal is to "extend and sustain human activities across the solar system." As the lead civilization of the current era, it is America's duty to advance human achievement. Yet, there is very little in the NASA plan or budget to fulfill this noble goal. The NASA plan relies first and foremost on "expanding efforts to utilize the ISS as a National Laboratory for scientific, technological, diplomatic, and educational purposes and for supporting future objectives in human space exploration." But without the shuttle or a replacement space vehicle, the U.S. will be dependent on the Russians for access to the ISS.

Yes, the Russians, who lost both the Space Race and the Cold War in the last century, are now poised to control the ISS. The Russians, it should be remembered, were invited into the ISS because the U.S., even though it was the richest nation on the planet and the world's most advanced scientific state, was looking for other countries to put up money for the ISS to lighten its own "burden." It would be hard to find a better example of the old adage "penny wise, but pound foolish."

NASA notes the danger. Its strategic plan has as a goal "reducing the risk of relying exclusively on foreign crew transport capabilities." But the road to that goal will be a long one. The report talks about creating"architectures" that will then lead to a "roadmap for affordable and sustainable human space exploration." So after 30 years of relying on shuttles that were designed in the 1970s, NASA is back to square one.

NASA knows, "The core elements to a successful implementation are a space launch system and a multipurpose crew vehicle to serve as our national capability to conduct advanced missions beyond low Earth orbit. Developing this combined system will enable us to reach cislunar space, near-Earth asteroids, Mars, and other celestial bodies." Tragically, no one higher up in Washington, either at the White House or in Congress, has cared enough about the nation's future in space to do anything about funding such a project. As long as there are still satellites that can beam down episodes of "American Idol" to a nation of couch potatoes, who cares about achieving anything more?

NASA is one of the few government programs than actually deserves to be called an investment. Its 2012 request of $18 billion is only 0.4 percent of a $3.7 trillion Federal budget. The bailout money given to the AIG insurance company would have funded NASA for a decade. Yet, the technology the space program has generated for society has rewarded taxpayers many times over. And developing new generations of scientific breakthroughs will continue to be a major strategic goal of the program.

NASA's role extends beyond the agency's own work. It has served as a stimulus for education and industry. It's 2011 report states, "One of NASA's top strategic goals is to Inspire students to be our future scientists, engineers, explorers, and educators through interactions with NASA’s people, missions, research, and facilities." At a time when the performance of American students in math and science has fallen behind that of most of the world, there needs to be a new push to stimulate the public imagination and to provide rewarding careers for a new generation of innovative thinkers. But with NASA doing less in space, from where is the inspiration to come? Designing more video games?

The NASA report raises concerns about how to keep even its current high-skilled workforce employed, noting. "The retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 is ushering in a tran­sition period for the Nation’s human space flight workforce." New programs, such as "development of a heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule to carry explorers beyond Earth’s orbit, including a mission to an asteroid next decade" are supposed to provide some jobs, but not enough. Shifting work to "green technology" and the study of "global warming" will not lead to new adventures in manned space exploration

Meanwhile, China is positioning itself to lead humankind' further into space. The state news agency Xinhua reported Friday, "The world's largest design, production and testing base for rockets is being built in Tianjin" as part of China's expanding space program. Twenty of the 22 plants have been completed, and some of are ready for operation. The base is designed to meet China's growing demand for space technology for the next thirty years. By integrating the industrial chain, the base will be able to produce the whole spectrum of rockets for China's lunar missions, its own space station and other ambitious projects according to Liang Xiaohong, deputy head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.

China is still behind the United States, having only sent its first multi-man orbital mission aloft in 2008, but it has big ideas. Beijing plans 20 space missions this year, and wants to land an unmanned vehicle on the Moon in 2013. China sent a spacecraft to orbit the Moon last October.

The stirring vision of giant space stations, commercial shuttle flights and extensive moon bases given to the public in the classic 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey has become a sad testimony to three decades of lost American opportunities. I have seen this once great American spirit of adventure reborn in China. I have been amazed (and alarmed) by displays of Chinese plans to build bases on the Moon, then move farther into the solar system. I grew up in a confident America animated by futuristic thinking, but that drive has faded. Beijing is now the home of energy and ambition.

What happens in space is not divorced from what happens on Earth. Though clearly helpful to military space projects, NASA is charted as a civilian organization in line with idealist notions about the heavens being a clean slate free of power politics. There are no such illusions in China. Beijing's manned-space program is placed under the General Armament Department within the Ministry of Defense. The Long March rockets used for space launches are similar in design to China's nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. More important, is the spirit demonstrated in the space effort. History has not been kind to nations that stagnate in the face of a rising competitor. The desire to succeed is the most important element in any strategy.

The NASA strategic plan claims, "Humanity’s interest in the heavens has been universal and enduring. Humans are driven to explore the unknown, discover new worlds, push the boundaries of our scientific and technical limits, and then push further. NASA is tasked with developing the capabilities that will support our country’s long-term human space flight and exploration efforts." But where is the higher national leadership with the vision to back these efforts? The frontier spirit that built America has waned. Both political parties are too busy looking at the mud around their feet to look up at the sky.

So much for the "giant leap for mankind" so bravely stated over 40 years ago. But what can be expected in a country where Buzz Aldrin, who with Neil Armstrong were the first men to walk on the Moon, ends up on "Dancing with the Stars" performing for an audience most of whom had never heard of him. Nothing could better portray the decline of American civilization.