14 DAY TRIAL // The last Apollo Program astronaut ever to set foot on the Moon, Harrison Schmitt, is proposing that the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration be shut down entirely, and replaced with a new agency, that could be called the National Space Exploration Administration (NSEA).
The move would have the sole purpose of furthering the United States' involvement in space, the former astronaut said in an article he published online yesterday, on May 25. The main point of his proposal is that NASA has become stagnant.
Schmitt was a member of the Apollo 17 mission, which flew to the Moon in 1972. After completing his space career, he became a US Senator for a term. At this point, he says, NASA has become just a shadow of its former self.
The agency has literally lost its focus, as demonstrated by the hectic path it's had over the past few years. Unfeasible planning by the Bush Administration and the unwillingness to commit of the Obama Administration have drove the once-powerful agency aground.
Rather than having a strong leadership in space, NASA is now reduced to working with the private sector in order to get to the International Space Station, has no manned spacecraft of its own (once the shuttles are retired), and needs Russian space capsules to sent men to the station.
It is also allowing China, the emerging space power, to take over initiative. The Asian nation plans to finish constructing its first space station – which will also be used for military applications – by 2020, and to put a man on the Moon by 2025.
Schmitt, 75, says that a new direction is needed for space exploration in the US, since NASA is obviously unable to overcome the new challenges. “I don't blame NASA as much as I blame various administrations for not recognizing the geopolitical importance of space,” he tells Space.
The lack of focus on exploration is something that several Apollo astronauts complained about over the past decade or so. Even now, NASA's 2012 budget features negligible sums for this aspect.
“After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent,” astronauts Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan wrote in USA Today on May 24.
“This is not just a competition between nations; it's a competition between freedom and tyranny,” Schmitt added, obviously referring to China.
“The United States is the only power on Earth today that has in its DNA a protection of liberty, and if we decide to back off from space or any other major human endeavor, then we put that liberty in jeopardy,” he added.
“The Obama administration has basically said that they won't pursue an exceptional space program for the United States and that they're just as happy to have China move forward into deep space, and be dependent on Russia for transport to the International Space Station,” he concluded.