After the shuttle Discovery landed today, I asked NASA Administrator Mike Griffin a rather flip question: Doesn't an admittedly unemotional space agency chief feel even a little bit of emotion over such a successful space mission? In response, I got an answer that wasn't flip at all, but instead sounded like a heartfelt rationale for taking on the risks of human spaceflight.
For the benefit of all those who have been debating the merits of space exploration, here's Griffin's answer, plus some comments in the same vein from Discovery commander Steve Lindsey. After you've read them - or after you've seen the videoversions - feel free to weigh in with your own comments.
I started out by alluding to Griffin's earlier comment that "it's a thrill and a pleasure to be here again, especially under these circumstances ... in fact, it's such a great day that I don't think even a press conference can spoil it."
"You said that you really 'don't do emotions,'" I said, "but it sounded like you were doing a little bit of emotion at the top of the show here," I said. "Do you feel like a weight has been lifted, or can you try to do a little bit more emotion?"
"Please forgive me if I showed any emotion. It was an oversight," Griffin replied with a smile. Then he continued:
"I certainly do not feel like a weight has been lifted, other than to recognize, as I continually do ... I think the words 'routine' [and] 'human spaceflight' don't go in the same sentence. Every one of these things is, if not frankly experimental, right on the edge of that.
"A comment that I'm fond of, and I've made before, but some of you may have forgotten so I'll make it again: I was a teenager, or a very young engineer, when we were flying the X-15 - and we flew 199 flights with that vehicle. And ... of course, its performance envelope was a small fraction of what the shuttle achieves. Nobody ever thought that that was anything other than an experimental vehicle - and that's what we have here.
"I think I also said, not terribly long ago, that if you think about it ... it took Western Europeans, and then North Americans, 1,000 years from being able to put Viking ships out into the open ocean to get to the point where nowadays we can load up cargo in an oil tanker and sail it halfway around the world, and almost every single time we do that, it gets there. But it took us 1,000 years to learn how to do that.
"We've been doing this stuff for 50 years. I think that is the perspective that we have to get. The enterprise is eminently worth doing. It's part of what makes us human. It is crucial that this nation does it. But we should recognize where we are in the process. We are just learning. And that's what you see us doing here today."
Later, Lindsey was asked how he would explain the importance of continuing with the shuttle program and finishing the space station to a neighbor who was concerned about the Middle East situation and $3-a-gallon gasoline.
"What I would say is that spaceflight is an investment in our future. We invest in universities for research, to make technological advances that make our life better here on earth. When you go after a task that's difficult - and spaceflight is difficult, it's hard, it's challenging, it's dangerous - when you go after a task that's difficult, and you have to use new technologies and new operational concepts to get there, inevitably you learn a lot of things about yourself, and you learn a lot of things that have applications in your own world ... that you would never think of before.
"If you look back to all the things that have come out of the space program, there's probably not an activity you do at any time during the day where there isn't something that [came about] as a result of investing in the space program. So I think it's a great investment in our future. If a company spends no money in research and development, then their product stands still and eventually that company dies. We all know that, and they invest a certain amount of their earnings in future technologies.
"I think the space program is the same thing. What we're doing right now is a little too expensive for a corporation to take on. And so I think it's a useful role for government in this case, to do that and go after those hard tasks. And it's also an inspiration to people.
"I rarely get a negative comment about the space program. I usually always get a positive comment. If you really want to know, go to a school. Go with us when we go talk to kids at a school. I've never been at a school that wasn't just absolutely, totally enthusiastic about the program - about the advances, about the science, about their opportunity to participate in the science."
British-American astronaut Piers Sellers chimed in with an extra bit of perspective:
"... What does the space station, what does the space program do for us as humans? An important insight is that it's about peace. It's about international cooperation, nations coming together to do stuff. It's about the future, it's not about the past. That's where we're going."
There wasn't much talk about what astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has said are the three drivers for the great works of civilization: defense (let's build the Great Wall!), financial gain (let's take over the New World!) or praise of power (let's build the Pyramids!). Is that a problem?
Now it's your turn to keep the discussion going, by sending in your comments.
