The Shuttle Disaster that wasn't -- Barely

I follow space flight fairly close, but here's a chilling bit of history I wasn't familiar with. 21 years ago, just after the return to flight after the Challenger explosion, the Space Shuttle Atlantis came dangerously close to being destroyed by the same sort of tile damage that later destroyed Columbia.
Except that, in many respects, the tile damage to Atlantis, also caused by an insulation impact during launch, was actually worse than the Columbia accident. More than 700 tiles were damaged, and one tile in a critical area was completely destroyed, resulting in melting in the exposed aluminum underneath.


And because of a communications blackout on the top-secret military flight, NASA remained blissfully ignorant of the damage, even while mission commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson was looking at images of the tile damage and thinking, in his own words, "we are all going to die."

I just read the story on the web site Space Flight Now. Here's the gist of it, with some added insights of my own (based in part on the rather mundane picture from the NASA archives seen above):

In 1988, the second post-Challenger mission, STS-27, was launched with a secret spy satellite on board. 85 seconds after launch, a chunk of insulation broke loose from the nose of the right solid-rocket booster and struck along the right side of Atlantis.

It isn't clear from the story if the discovery of tile damage was accidental, but it appears so, and the astronauts were extremely alarmed by what they saw. The insulation had impacted near the nose, and resulted in a triangular-shaped cone of damage all the way down the right side of the spacecraft, from the nose almost to the rear of the wing. You've read Gibson's immediate reaction above.

But because of limitations on communications, the crew were unable to properly communicate their concerns to the ground. During military missions, strict limits are places on communications with mission control to insure secrecy. Anything that might even remotely reveal information about the payload, its characteristics, purpose, or orbit, are closely guarded. One hard-fast rule in this case was, no video.

Finally, reluctant permission was given to send encrypted video of the damage to the ground. But the encrypted video system was black and white, low resolution, and could only send one frame every three seconds or so.

It's also interesting that the only photo I could find in the searchable NASA photo archives referencing the damage is the one above. It shows the crew attempting to repair a video tape containing the video of the tile damage. Yes, that is a roll of duct tape floating there.

The implication I take from this is that video was recorded (using the shuttle's robot arm) of the damage was recorded on tape in order to be converted into encrypted format and sent back to Earth. Only the tape jammed somehow, and... This is a SNAFU of historic proportions. You can read a million things into the bemused expression on the mission specialist's face at right. I like to think he's something like, "we're f*cking about to die, and it all comes down to duct-tape and a Betamax."

Because of the poor quality video, engineers on the ground thought they were just looking at shadows on the surface of the tile and assured the crew there was no danger. The astronauts knew otherwise, but did not attempt to convince the ground, perhaps unaware of their line of reasoning. It was nothing a little open discussion couldn't have fixed, but apparently the communications restrictions didn't allow for that, or at least, encourage it.

And so, the mission continued as planned, with NASA doing nothing (not that there was a lot that could be done, since no repair tools or materials, besides that duct tape, were carried, nor had even been developed at this point), and the astronauts soldiered on, plauged by doubts that they would survive reentry.

Upon landing, they discovered the damage was even worse than the astronauts had realized. Without the new cameras and extension boom now routinely carried on the Shuttle, there was no way to image the entire underside of the shuttle, including large areas of damaged. In told, more than 700 tiles were damaged, including the missing tile, located under the orbiter's nose, an area subject to high heating. Upon landing, it was discovered that the exposed aluminum under the tile had actually begun to melt.

If it had burned through, a literal torch of plasma would have cut into the shuttle and its fragile systems underneath, quite likely dooming the spacecraft. Perhaps, as with Columbia, one of the first warnings would have been the pressure in the landing gear tires, as heat caused them to expand, and finally explode. Except, the indicator might have been on the front tires, rather than the rear.

It didn't happen though. One bit of luck, the missing tile exposed a mounting plate for an antenna, and so was thicker than the skin only inches away. That one detail may have saved Atlantis and its crew.

Post flight, NASA apparently minimized the damage and the risk to the crew. Secrecy may have been an issue, but it's almost impossible to ignore the potential CYA factor. A near disaster only two flights after Challenger, following what was supposed to be a complete safety overhaul of the program, could have grounded the shuttle again and heads were certain to roll. It's interesting that, even now, there are apparently no photos of the tile damage in the searchable on-line archives, though they exist (Space Flight Now has a few).

Of course, if Atlantis had been lost, the shuttle would have definately been grounded, and it very well could have been the end of the shuttle program, and perhaps American manned space flight. That's one grim alternate universe.

But in another one, NASA learned from the mission and launched an immediate review of the potential for tile damage. Methods might have been developed for routine examination of the tiles during each flight. Improvements might have been made to reduce foam shedding and ice build-up. Repair tools and techniques might have been developed. And in that world, Columbia might have survived, or at least its crew might have been rescued by an emergency launch of a second shuttle.

But that didn't happen.

We are their grim alternate reality.

The shuttle is scheduled to be retired next year, and I will miss the capabilities we lose when that happens. But I will not miss the shuttle itself, with its inherent design flaws and dangers. There's no reason that the Constellation system that replaces it shouldn't be far safer for the women and men who fly in it.

Let's hope that's so. Space is a dangerous business, and more people will die in its conquest. But those deaths shouldn't be tragically avoidable, as was the case with Challenger, Columbia, and almost, Atlantis.

What is Science Fiction Anyway, and Does it Matter?

Just stumbled on this (to me) very annoying essay that attempts to ever more narrowly define what is "real" science-fiction.

I'm annoyed on multiple levels, starting with the idea that this distinction is somehow important, moving on through how the author seems to think "real" sf is somehow superior, just on principle, to that Tolkien and Harry Potter crap, and continuing on from there.

I do, however, think there's some interesting validity to the author's idea of an scientific “event horizon” that defines whither a science fiction story is technically plausible or not. His idea is that the line between science fiction and fantasy (his term, though I think “science fantasy” is more correct, if a distinction must be made) isn’t a static thing, that a story can be written as science fiction based on the best scientific knowledge of the day, and be turned into science fantasy after the fact as science marches on.

Yet his central premise is that most sf produced today, especially media sf, actually starts out inside his speculative "event horizon," that most of it is scientifically implausible by today’s science (and probably yesterday’s as well) not tomorrow’s.

Okay, actually, I agree with this too. Where I differ is that this is somehow a bad thing. I think it's time to embrace it, fess up to the fact that it’s absurd to think that (as an example) Star Trek is, an any way more than metaphorical, any kind of prediction of the future, and that as long as we enjoy the stories, that's FINE.

First of all, I'm of the opinion that a good story rarely starts out, "An idea walked into a room." That notion has damaged sf as a literary form more than any single thing. Stories are about people, and if an idea enters into it, it is how the people react to that idea which is involving to the reader. The idea may be interesting as well, but a story is not simply a science-fact essay with dialog and a villain. This is important, because if the story is good, the failure of the science (by time or intentional design, at least, not withstanding the author's ignorance) will not significantly diminish it.

Frankly, I think that science fiction's function as a literary crystal ball predicting the future has always been highly over-rated. For starters, "science fiction" is a misnomer. Science fiction CAN'T predict science, except through guess-work, and where sf has attempted to anticipate hard science, it has almost always been wrong. Making up undiscovered subatomic particles is just fantasy with sf trappings. Even speculating about predicted-but-undiscovered particles (such as the Higgs Boson) is questionable, because, even if they exist, most likely anything you say about it will be wrong (and is likely to be proven so within a few years).

Most of what we think of as "science" in science fiction stories is applied engineering and technology, and it IS possible to extrapolate these things, to some limited extent. Jules Vern, for instance, didn't predict the submarine, or even its use in war. But he did extrapolate the submarine into a capable and useful vehicle and consider how it could be used for good (exploration, access to aquatic resources) and evil (terror attacks on shipping). He predicted lunar travel, but even by the science and engineering of his time, his technology was fatally flawed. The story's predictive value is not in that his science or technology were correct, but rather in its (quite correct) assurance that the technology COULD solve the problems involved with enough time and effort.

It’s ironic that Vern then scoffed at H.G. Wells book on lunar travel because he relied on anti-gravity metals and other such implausible devices. Yet neither book holds up to modern science, and the flaws in Vern's work are much more obvious and easier to prove. Yet Vern’s work is also satisfying in part in the his method for reaching the moon, though scientifically flawed, is at least plausible and understandable. Never mind that it would never reach the moon, and even if it did, it’s passengers would be nothing more than jelly due to the incredible acceleration. The method allows even the modern reader to willingly suspend their disbelief.

Classic Star Trek is sometimes given credit for "inventing" the cell phone. Yet all it really predicted was the shape and size of a cell phone, not the technology that makes one work, or the science behind it, or even the functional way in which a cell phone works. Functionally, near as we can tell, a Star Trek communicator was just a WWII walkie-talkie decreased in size, and increased in power. Actually, what it did, how it worked, and what those little dials and buttons did is all rather vague. From a story standpoint, that's actually good, as in being vague, it has dated less than a more scientifically-grounded device would. It served a story purpose, and served it well.

Really, that’s all most early Star Trek technology was, story devices dressed up with flashing lights, buttons, and sound-effects. Look at the elegant, self-descriptive names of those devices: transporter, communicator, shuttlecraft, warp drive, impulse engines, photon-torpedoes, phaser, tricorder. A transporter is less a teleportation device than a method of moving characters rapidly through the story (and without the expensive special-effects necessary to show a spaceship landing). A shuttlecraft isn’t a form of transportation at all, it’s a bottle to stuff a couple-or-three characters into and then crash into a planet for story purposes. A communicator is a delivery device for exposition (and so is a tricorder, for that matter). And so on…

Science Fiction was born in an age when science was expanding into a vast unknown, and when technology was advancing in absolute terms. But while technology moved slowly (by modern standards) in those days, it pushed regularlly into new realms, and seemed able to advance without limits. These days, things are much different. Technology is moving so fast these days than any such speculation is almost certain to be rendered either wrong or obsolete in very short order. And fast as it moves, it does not heave blindly into the darkness.

We live in a world where science bounds us at every turn by provable or demonstrated limits. The speed of light seems much more absolute than it once did, and time-travel far more likely to be an absolute fantasy. The list of unknown scientific things to speculate about grows ever shorter. Even the day in which you could imagine planets at random around known stars is growing to a close. We're mapping distant star systems, with new planets discovered almost every week. There are still gaps in our understanding of physics, but they're relatively small, and their practical implications far less profound than the heady days of the atomic era.

Computers continue to advance, but in such regular and predictable ways that the progress has gone on for decades, regular as a clock, far more predictable as the weather. Yes, we can speculate about artificial intelligence, or robots, but we've been speculating about those things for a very long time without a clear grasp of the technology that might make it possible. Are Asimov's robots no longer valid because of that? Hal 9000? Frankenstein's creature? The Golem?

Really, some of the best and most enduring sf isn't even about technology, it's about society and culture. A good example is, unfortunately, a story I can't name. I think it's a Bradbury story (though it might be Asimov, or someone totally different, I haven't read it in a long time). This is from memory, so forgive me if I get the details wrong, but here's my recollection about the story. It's about a future world where everyone gets from place to place using teleportation doorways, and as a result, culture has evolved to a point where nobody goes outside any more. One day a household's door breaks, and a boy walks to school. He discovers that he LIKES going outside, and even when the teleportation door is fixed, he continues to go outside. His concerned parents, of course, try to break him of this aberration. My memory of the ending is vague, except that the pleasures of going outside won't go away, and the idea spreads...

Looking at this from a scientific standpoint, it's kind of absurd. Science is showing us that certain kinds of "teleportation" may be possible, but the idea that we'll be routinely teleporting people from door-to-door is highly unlikely. The energies involved are incredible, for starters. Quantum uncertainty is another huge issue. But the story is no less valid because of this. In fact, it may have become MORE valid with time. We might turn into these people, even if the technologies responsible aren't teleportation, but some combination telecommuting, the internet, console gaming, robotic cars and general paranoia. In fact, to some extent, we're well along the way to turning into these people. The story still works as a metaphor for that. It doesn't matter if teleportation doors are possible by the most current version of physics or not. It doesn't matter if the story had used magic mirrors instead of teleportation doors.

Or look at Jack Williamson's "With Folded Hands." If you haven't read this story, you should. It's about a man who discoverers a new store in town, one selling household robots. The robots are black, sleek, beautiful, and perfect. They clean house. They run errands. They do chores. They wait on their owners hand and foot. And they are completely incapable of harming humans. They EXIST to protect us from harm. It is their primary function. Never mind where they come from. Never mind how they work. Not really important.

Of course, there's a catch. The robots are TOO perfect. They move in and take away all human want, all human suffering, and in the process, all human freedom. Humans become prisoners of safety, not even allowed a knife to cut their food, least they injure themselves or others. The hero realizes this, tries to thwart them, but it's too late.

As I said, not so important how the robots work or where they come from (space, presumably from some non-existent planet via non-existent FTL). It isn't important how likely real robots are to be human-shaped or not. It isn't important if robots could really take over this way. The story is more valid than ever because it's about the slippery slope of trading freedom from comfort and an illusion of safety. It doesn't matter if the "safety" takes the form of a sleek-black-robot or a border-line fascist government, or helpful fairies that help too much. It's the sort of thing every school kid in American should have been reading post 9-11, every voter should read before choosing their next president. It's a story WITH robots, not a story ABOUT robots. That's an important distinction, and one that's lost on a lot of sf purists.

Sometimes a science-fiction can even be accurately predictive in ways that have nothing to do with the scientific device in the story. In 1971 hard-sf writer Larry Niven published a novella titled “Flash Crowd.” The story is set in a world where teleportation booths make instantaneous travel anywhere in the world possible. The basic premise is that with live television reporting of breaking events, people would naturally jump into a teleportation booth to see things for themselves. The result: instant crowd, instant mob, and potential instant riot.

In fact, “flash crowds” did happen, and they didn’t require teleportation. Live coverage of TV did play a role in some real “flash crowds” but the cell phone turned out to be a far more effective device for creating them. Ask the teen in the news a while back who threw an adult-free party at his house and invited a few friends. Apparently they invited a few friends as well, and they told other friends, and so on, until the police had to be called to break up a near riot of hundreds of teens converging on the home, drawn there by an invisible web of phone calls and text messages.

The point here is that, who cares if teleportation is possible or not, or if real teleportation would ever look or work like Niven’s teleportation booths? That isn’t where the predictive value of the story is at all. It was a “what-if” thought problem that translated to the real world in a completely different form.

If we define science fiction and fantasy as stories built on the premise or "what if?" and If science fiction (valid science fiction) is defined purely as a "what if" story that "could happen" then we're left with a pretty narrow field indeed, an even the stories that pass this litmus test are inevitably headed rapidly into the dust-bin of history, to join the huge pool of "real" science-fiction that's gone before. Whole subgenres, such as alternate history, are excluded from the canon as well. (Yes, you can scientifically justify alternate history through some application of the "many worlds" theory, but few books in the genre even bother. And of those, I rarely see it as more than tissue-thin rationalization; science as window-dressing.)

Really, for science fiction and fantasy I think the important distinction is not "could this happen," but how willing and able the reader is to BELIEVE that it could (or did) happen for the purpose of, and duration of the story: the suspension of disbelief. Fantasy has its roots in myth and legend, in a time when monsters, gods, and magic were, if not believed, then no less incredible than FTL drives or time machines are to most modern readers. Science fiction was born out of time when science and technology had largely replaced those things and in the realm of "fantastic but credible" in the public consciousness. (There was still religion, of course, but speculating about religion has always been and remains to this day, a dangerous pursuit, more likely to enrage than enlighten.)

Mind you, it isn't important to REALLY make the reader believe in the fantastic elements of the story. They can enjoy and be moved by Lord of the Rings without thinking that Middle Earth is historical truth, or that orcs and elves are real. They need only be willing to embrace them in the context of the work. The same is true of science fiction. It really doesn't matter if teleportation doors or warp drives work or not, only that the reader is willing to believe them in the context of the story. If scientific or technological trappings make that easier, then so be it.

In fact, a distinction one could make of fantasy is that the average reader has the comfort of putting down the book and knowing that the fantastic things they're just read are NOT possible. The story mentioned could make the same point with magic mirrors as with teleportation doors, but would it have the same impact if the reader could so casually dismiss it in the end? Perhaps not. But that distance also has its advantages. "The Golden Compass" can write about religion (like I said, dangerous) in a way that might not be possible in a science-fiction book, or even in non-genre fiction. The subject is dangerous, but there's the emotional and societal safety-valve that it "isn't real," making such an examination much more palatable than it would otherwise. This is true of any hot-button topic. A little distance, the different perspective provided by a science fiction or fantasy context, makes it a bit easier to approach objectively. It's a bit of trickery that Jonathan Swift understood well almost 300 years ago, and it's still valid today.

Likewise, there's great value in allowing the reader to believe that a thing could be possible. "From the Earth to the Moon" is important, not because it accurately shows how a trip to the Moon might be made, but because it makes it credible that through industry and determination, such a thing IS possible, even if the details differ. Compare that to Star Trek. We know that space travel, even to distant stars, IS possible. And while I can say with some certainty that our methods of accomplishing this will not resemble the Starship Enterprise, that the explorers aren't likely to have much in common with Kirk and McCoy, and that the aliens will almost certainly not resemble Mr. Spock, that DOESN'T MATTER. We can understand and identify with Star Trek far more easily than we can, for instance, post-human intelligences spending centuries traveling between stars in "spaceships" that resemble silicon cobwebs thousands of miles across.

If Star Trek makes us believe that such voyages, through industry and determination are possible and desirable, then the rest is just window dressing. Details. And though science fiction can't predict how, we will get there someday.

A REALLY Cold War

Having just passed the depressing age of 50 does have a few advantages. It gives one some perspective on history. It's perhaps even more profound when one, as I did, starts out, a fan of science fiction and space exploration.

Even as a child I was living outside the day-to-day, anticipating a future which, for the most part, has never arrived. We never got our rocket packs or flying cars, we haven't been to Mars, and in fact have yet to get back to the Moon (though there's at least some hope that it will happen in my lifetime, even if it isn't as clear which country is going to get there first).

As a whole though, it's sometimes strange how much is the same. We still mostly get places cars on concrete and asphalt roads, or in subsonic jet airliners that are, in terms of comfort, if not technology, probably a step backwards from a 1966 Boeing 707. The plug of a 1945 radio still fits in a modern wall socket, and while the bulbs are slowly changing, Thomas Edison would still have recognized most of the light-sockets they fit into.

Yes, there are computers and the Internet, cell phones, iPods and other techno-toys, but in general, history seems to march along in the same rut. Our current misadventures in the middle-east wouldn't be unfamiliar to anyone who lived through the Vietnam war or the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

There are exceptions though. The fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union being the most profound I can think of, events that clearly mark some kind of transition, that clearly state: things will never be the same again.

But for the most part, profound change is hard to come by. Most of all, while borders may squiggle and names on the map may mutate and shaft, the globe itself has remained the same. In fact, in looking into the future as a child, that was probably the last thing I ever expected to change. They don't call it the firmament for nothing.

But now the globe is changing. It's started, and it isn't about to stop. Of course, I'm talking about Global Warming, and not in the most obvious way, with the rising of sea-levels, the radical changes in coastlines, and the erasing of islands (and maybe much of Florida) that is likely to follow.

No, I'm talking about something which is changing much faster, something we folks who live in temperate regions don't normally think of as permanent at all: ice. Scientists have known for years that the arctic ice sheet is shrinking, and for places where land is normally locked in by sea ice, this is a profound change indeed. The mythical Northwest Passage for which early explorers of the Americas searched now exists, at least part of the time, and too soon, all the time. Compare it to a the appearance of a new ocean, or Atlantis reappearing above the waves.

But for those of us in the United States, this change has, so far, been fairly easy to ignore. Yes, one can point to Hurricane Katrina, but there's just enough scientific uncertainty about it's direct connection to global warming to allow for an easy state of denial. Same for the record-hot summers we've been having lately. Weather is, by definition, an uncertain business.

But maps are hard to deny, and for those to the north of us with each passing season they look out on a new world, one full of peril, and just possibly, opportunity. In such a situation, it shouldn't be unexpected that the balance of world power and tensions would shift. Still, I didn't see this one coming, and it's only taken a few weeks.

It started when Russia announced their intention to plant a flag under the ice cap on a submarine ridge extending out into the Arctic. Their intent was to lay claim to a until-now hidden region which may have untapped oil, gas, and other mineral reserves, made suddenly accessible by the melting ice cap. Russia claims the ridge is a natural extension of their homeland, and therefore should belong to them.

Some would dismiss the whole idea as silly, but several countries appear to be taking it very seriously. First, Canada, with designs on the same ridge, has announced its intentions to build a new deep-water port to service arctic patrol craft, to build new ships to use the port, and to beef up an existing paramilitary force called the Rangers (currently staffed mostly by part-time reservists) to defend their claims to the arctic region.

Then Denmark has started its own mapping expedition of the ridge, prepared to make their own claims under UN treaties.

Finally, surprisingly late to the party considering the current administration's close energy ties, the US is dispatching an ice-breaker to do a little mapping of their own off the coast of Alaska.

And just to raise the ante, Russia is now suddenly holding extensive war-games in the Arctic this week. Sabers, they are a rattling, and we're hardly getting started. With stunning speed, this is turning into a literal cold-war, and the long-term outcome is impossible to to predict.

Welcome to the future. We have passed through one of those portals of history, and nothing will ever be the same again. If you don't believe me, just look at the globe.

1200 Days on Mars

There was exciting news from NASA yesterday as the Spirit Mars rover has accidentally discovered silica-rich soil, a mineral that likely could not have formed without the presence of water. It's a strong further clue that Mars was once warmer and wetter than it is today, and might (or might once have) supported some form of life.

Which is pretty cool stuff, but it isn't really what this post is about. What struck me was a quote from Steve Squyres of Cornell University, leader of the rover team in a TimesOnline Article. He says, "This is a remarkable discovery. And the fact that we found something this new and different after nearly 1,200 days on Mars makes it even more remarkable. It makes you wonder what else is still out there."

Indeed. We've been poking around the planet we live on for many thousands of years and it continues to surprise and mystify us. Which is why I'm always appalled at detractors who dismiss the idea of a return to the Moon because, "we've already done that."

What surprises me most is that I hear this not just from opponents of space exploration, but from space advocates as well. Many of them simply see the Moon as a nothing more than a distraction from their real goal of a manned expedition to Mars. "Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt and some rocks. Move along. Nothing to see here."

Bull.

Now, admittedly, the Moon is in many ways a far less interesting and complex place than Mars. But we still know so little about it. The assumption that the Apollo missions "saw everything there is to see" is simply absurd, and some people don't appreciate how short a time they were there, and how little they saw while they were there. First, let's look at the numbers:

Apollo 11
Time on Surface: 21 Hours, 36 Minutes
EVA Time (time spent outside the spacecraft actually doing something): 2 Hours, 32 Minutes

Apollo 12
Time: On Surface: 31 Hours, 31 Minutes
EVA Time: 7 hours 45 Minutes

Apollo 14 (Apollo 13, of course, suffered a crippling explosion on the way to the Moon and was unable to land)
Time on Surface: 33 Hours, 30 Minutes
EVA Time: 9 Hours, 22 Minutes


Apollo 15
Time on Surface: 66 Hours, 55 Minutes
EVA Time: 18 Hours, 33 Minutes


Apollo 16
Time on Surface: 71 Hours, 2 Minutes
EVA Time: 20 Hours, 14 Minutes


Apollo 17
Time on Surface: 75 Hours
EVA Time: 22 Hours, 4 Minutes

So that's it, a total of about (by my sometimes shaky math) about 80 and one half hours on the Moon. And a lot of that was spent climbing up and down ladders, opening and closing hatches, stowing and unstowing gear, figuring out how to walk and work (every flight was essentially a training flight). Three days and change. Almost seven man days, if you're generous.

Yeah, that's just the manned part, but it isn't like there's a huge body of unmanned exploration to back it up. The U.S. sent seven unmanned Surveyor landers in advance of the Apollo program. Five of these landed. The others crashed. These were frightfully primitive by current standards, comparing to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers about like a rusty skateboard compares to an SUV. They had a crude TV camera, a few simple instruments, and some had a simple arm that seemed to have been borrowed from a carnival claw-machine.

This is in no way intended to be dismissive of the accomplishments of the talented people who built this thing. It's simply a product of its time, relatively early in the TV era, and the dawn of the computer/microelectronics age. Compare it to then-contemporary dial phones, televisions with vacuum tubes, and room-sized mainframe computers with 8k (no gigs, not megs, kilobytes) of memory.

The Russians later two sent rather more sophisticated landers that included remotely operated rover vehicles. Technical wonders at the time, and a bit more comparable to Spirit and Opportunity, they're still primitive by modern standards.

Even ignoring the total time spent in exploration, keep in mind that in all cases, the landing sites were picked for safety first, and their scientific interest second. This is especially true of the early Apollo missions. And in any case, that's a handful of sites on a globe with about the same surface area as the United States, Russia and Canada combined. And the sites chosen aren't even a random sampling. Even ignoring the safety issue, none of the sites were on the lunar far-side, which has a surface completely (and perhaps a little mysteriously) different than the one we see in our sky every night. None of the landings took place near the poles, where frozen water may still exist.

What do we know about the Moon? How much have explored? Slightly more than none and zilch. We have barely been there. We have not done that. We don't even know where tee-shirts are sold. But we did get some rocks representative of fairly safe landing zones.

Okay, again, this has to be taken in perspective. The Apollo program was a monumental accomplishment, a wonder if its age or any other. But it ended too soon, and it should have been only the beginning.

I realize too that, although what I'm advocating is a manned return to the Moon, this could just as easily be used as an argument for unmanned exploration, something I'm certainly not against. Quite the contrary, I think any manned return to the Moon should happen in conjunction with a strong program of unmanned exploration. In fact, the Moon could be an ideal laboratory to study how to dovetail the use of man and machine in exploration of another world, lessons that could be invaluable in planning the much longer, dangerous, and yes, more expensive trip to Mars.

Yes, I think we should go to Mars, with robots, and eventually, with human explorers. But one thing I'm not sure the Mars advocates have considered is, "what next?" Going to Mars is going to be hugely expensive and dangerous, and while it is certainly worth doing, it seems doubtful that it will in any reasonable term become routine. In fact, it's possible it could be a one-shot deal. At most, it seems likely that a Mars program would consider of no more than a hand-full of manned expeditions before costs became prohibited.

Yes, there will still be much of Mars to explore, but does that matter if we can't afford to explore it? And as we have seen with the Moon, the presence of unexplored territory is no certainty that we will follow through once the novelty wears off. What if we "go there, do that?" Even if cost were no object, other than asteroids there are few obtainable targets for manned exploration in the solar system without great leaps in propulsion technology.

A stepping-stone approach to Mars via the Moon would allow us to establish a more permanent off-world foothold, one that might better prepare us for that great leap, and allow us to more affordably continue our off-world explorations afterwards. The Moon is not a distraction from Mars. It is both a testing and training ground for further off-world exploration, and a sustainable foothold off this fragile world of ours. A long-term manned presence on the Moon greatly increases the possibility that we will not only successfully go to Mars once, but that we will one day return again and again, perhaps eventually to stay, perhaps to map and explore all those, far, undiscovered lands.

And I wonder what unexpected secrets we will find, on our 1200th day on the Moon? Only 1196 and 2/3rds to go.

(All photos NASA/JPL)