Sometimes, it helps to look to the past to see where we are heading.
In 1968, three astronauts made the quarter million mile trip to the moon and orbited it ten times. The spectacular earthrise photo, taken by William Anders on Christmas Eve, remains one of the most instantly recognizable photographs in NASA history.
The final three proposed trips to the moon were cancelled: Apollo 18, Apollo 19, and Apollo 20. Some of the remaining parts were used for the Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab missions in low earth orbit. Some of the parts were put on display, like the Saturn 5 exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center.
Fast forward over a half century later and we once again have a crewed moon ship on its way to the moon. I now have a granddaughter who is the age I was when that final Apollo mission went to the moon.
Our human history is filled with examples of how intrepid explorers first visited a new place with others following years later. The people who would become the Native Americans came to the new world thousands of years ago. It appears nobody followed until a thousand years ago when the vikings made a visit. Columbus and his crew arrived five hundred years after the vikings and settlers arrived sometime after that. Things changed, but it took time.
In 1973, OPEC responded to the Arab-Israeli war by turning off the oil taps and leaving us with spiking fuel prices, long lines, and specific days of the week when we could buy gasoline. Detroit cars with fuel consumption measured in single digit miles per gallon where suddenly not as popular as they had been. The small cars the Japanese companies were importing here suddenly got our attention. The Japanese companies stepped up their game and build quality soared. They ate Detroit’s lunch.
In recent years, Detroit has taken advantage of differing efficiency rules for cars and light trucks to encourage American car buyers to step up to bigger and bigger trucks and ignore the small car market. Why build cars when you can make more money selling big trucks loaded with optional features to the folks walking in your door? It has gotten so bad that your local Ford dealer has exactly one car model on the lot, the Ford Mustang.
Electric vehicles have likewise been slow to arrive at Ford, GM, and Stellantis dealerships. With the loss of incentives and relaxation of federal efficiency rules, the car companies have been cutting back on their electric and hybrid offerings, making fuel efficient choices even harder to find. Toyota now offers hybrid or electric drive options on most of their vehicles. The Korean twins, Hyundai and Kia, are moving in the same direction. Add in the Vietnamese and potentially the Chinese car companies and Detroit could see a rout that will make the 1970’s look like child’s play. The longer the current gas prices stay sky high, the worse things are going to get for Detroit.
Another example: In response to the energy crisis of the 70’s, Jimmy Carter famously put solar panels on the roof of the White House. Ronald Reagan took them down.
You can draw a straight line between our involvement in the middle east and gas prices and the terrorist threats we face, including 9/11. Maybe, just maybe we will start electing leaders across the political spectrum who are willing to get serious about weaning us and our allies from oil and the global petroleum market. We shouldn’t be funding countries that want to destroy our way of life.
Solar panel technology has come a long way since the days of Jimmy Carter, as has the battery technology necessary to store electricity when the sun isn’t shining on the US. Wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power all have their place. Coal has been in decline for decades and we’ve likely already hit peak oil consumption.
We should be working hard on making fusion power a commercial reality. That will require investments in STEM programs that are once again on the budget chopping block.
Coming full circle: In the 1950’s and 1960’s we were heavily investing in education, science, and technology. Those early space flights were plotted out with slide rules and human “computers” (see: Hidden Figures). The smart phones, microwave ovens, and quite a few of the other things we take for granted all came out of research and development from the space program and related programs of that period.
Instead of looking back longingly at a mythical era when America was supposedly “great”, perhaps we should be making the investments necessary to take the bold steps necessary to guarantee that we once again take the role of technological leaders for generations to come.
In my view, the past really is prologue.
Rob
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