Ask the Men Who Would Be President About Rescuing Us From the ‘Space Gap’

An eminent astrophysicist in his middle 40s (I am not at liberty to reveal his name or present position) is debating whether to leave his important research post in the United States and accept an offer by the European Space Agency.

Were he to accept the European post, his departure would be a grave loss to what remains of America’s space program.

Five years ago, such an offer could not have been made because the European Space Agency had little status compared to American space activity. Today, however, the offer is under active consideration because Western Europe is where the action is. The only active commercial satellite launcher in the West is the European Space Agency.

Another agency with lots of action is the Soviet Institute for Space Research. Its director, Roald Sagdeyev, is a frequent visitor in Western capitals. He recently led the 30th anniversary celebration of the Sputnik launch, the space shot heard round the world.

Yet the decline of America’s space program, which became visible to lay persons following the Challenger disaster two years ago, is one of the two major issues to have been ignored by the presidential candidates this year. The other, of course, is the disappearance of the Soviet Union and its imperialist policies as a debatable issue.

It is not widely realized that although there has been little U.S. space activity since the Challenger, not much had been going on in space under U.S. direction well before that debacle on Jan. 28, 1986. The Apollo moon-landing program had ended early in the 1970s. The Saturn 5 rocket was junked.

On a recent tour of NASA, I looked at the vast emptiness and thought of Shelley’s poem, “Ozymandias, King of Kings”:

“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains, Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

But the symbol of Ozymandias has no application to the Soviet Union. As of 1986, the Soviets had logged 12 years of space travel while the United States in 55 manned missions has accumulated less than five years. The vast majority of Soviet space missions involve carrying aloft military hardware: surveillance satellites that can be used for electronic eavesdropping, for tracking U.S. fleets and for supporting Soviet and Soviet-allied ground forces.

Furthermore, the Soviet Energiya rocket can loft 100-ton payloads, while the present U.S. maximum is 30 tons.

Meanwhile, the National Academy of Sciences is predicting a shortfall of 140,000 computer scientists and 30,000 electrical engineers by 1990. And as if that isn’t bad enough, the academy also predicts a 40% decline in aerospace engineering graduates by 1990 despite a 70% increase in demand. According to Sen. Dan Quayle (R-Ind.), the Soviet Union now has three times as many technicians developing laser weapons as the United States has researching lasers.

One could go on detailing the enormous strides that the Soviet Union has been making in space since the 1957 Sputnik launch. The real question is why have our presidential candidates, especially the Democrats, ignored the “space gap”? If there is one unmistakable failure in the Reagan Administration it has been in the depreciation of America’s space program, once the wonder of the world.

It is time for our leading scientists to question the remaining candidates about their space policies. I would recommend that scientists of the caliber of Profs. James Van Allen, Sally Ride, John N. Logsdon and Charles Townes, Dr. Arno Penzias and Gen. Lew Allen draw up a questionnaire directed to presidential candidates to get an idea of what they propose to do about the space sciences. It is time for a national debate about an issue that not only affects our national security but could also have profound effects for our economy.

We ought to remember that while it was U.S. companies that invented the technology for color television, videocassette recorders, basic semi-conductors and robotics, the world market for these products was lost to Asian competitors. Today no color television sets or VCRs are manufactured in the United States.

And an important space scientist is weighing a decision--whether to leave his own country for a post in Western Europe.