Houston, Do We Really Have a Problem?

What does the Mir collision with its supply craft mean to our future in space? First, let’s be thankful there was no loss of life. We should not forget the praise and admiration due our Russian colleagues for building such a resilient system, and putting into place procedures that enable safety even when disaster strikes. As in the earlier fire incident, Mir has been shown to be remarkably robust.

The Russian space station has lasted 11 years in orbit, six years longer than it was designed for. Its crew now includes Americans, and work on Mir has enabled the United States to jump ahead five years in its human space program with long-duration flights and life science experiments. The experience gained in working and coping in space will certainly help the crews of the international space station.

But these are technical details, and the space station is not about technology. It is about a vision, a vision of humanity moving off its island Earth to new worlds and new achievements. Will the accident, the potential loss of life, the delay to science experiments and extra money needed for repair and recovery cloud that vision? I heard a congressman arguing that we should suspend the space station program until the Russians meet “American safety standards.” This is confusing, since the Russians operate the only space station and have done so with a perfect safety record for 11 years. The U.S. has not yet matched that achievement. Such posturing is not a challenge to the space station’s design or to the conduct of the program, but it is a challenge to the vision.

The public--America’s and others--will have to decide whether to view the Mir incident and the inherent risk of space exploration with clear or clouded vision. If the risk, the cost and the uncertainty are too great, then we will remain bound to Earth. But if prudent risk, reasonable cost and resilient planning are exercised, the public may support the continuing quest to explore new worlds.

The space station itself cannot fulfill that quest. It leaves us still stuck in Earth orbit, doing experiments that for the most part could be done better and cheaper robotically. But as an international venture, it can fulfill the objectives of training humans to live and travel in space, to cope with difficult engineering requirements, to study the effects of long duration flights on the human physiology and to build the partnerships necessary for a trip to Mars, the asteroids or even a rerun back to the moon with human explorers. The Mir mission, the construction of the international space station and even the Mir accident are doing just that.

Space is a difficult place; it is risky. We’ve outgrown the “routine access to space” nonsense promulgated by NASA in the 1980s. We don’t send teachers or senators or journalists to space. We shouldn’t be promoting space tourism. (It’s hard enough to book a tourist trip to the Antarctic or the Mariana Trench, far more benign and easy to reach environments). A hundred reports remind us that someone will again die in space, accidents will occur.

Robotic missions to Mars have had their difficulties; there were failures in 1989, 1993 and 1996. But still we are on our way, with a national policy committed to launches at every opportunity, a real Mars program, leading to robotic sample return and then human flights in the next century.

The robotic Mars program and the human space station program converge in their common goal of sending human explorers to Mars. This is in the public interest. Indeed, it is the public’s interest in the questions of life in the universe, evolution of planets and the origins of our physical and biological world that fuels the space program.

If we want zero risk, we should stay at home. If we want to seek adventure, explore and gain new knowledge of life in the universe--past, present and most of all, the future--then we must accept risk.

If the Mir recovery goes well, then perhaps the accident may be helpful. The engineering lessons learned will remind us both of the adventure and the risk, allowing us to share it and preparing us to take even bolder steps into the future.