Barnabas File

On July 20, we marked the 45 th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon.   Like most people, I was pinned to the television to watch the grainy pictures of the first steps by Apollo 11 astronauts on an alien world.   Once Apollo was over, human exploration of the Moon ended.   In fact, we retreated to near Earth orbit and left exploration farther out to automated probes and instrumented landers.   I must admit that I am disappointed when I realize that my grandchildren have never seen a real live person walk on the Moon.   Apollo is ancient history for them. In addition, the United States no longer has an active crewed spacecraft capable of achieving orbit.  With the end of the Space Shuttle program, Americans are dependent on Russians to take American astronauts into space.  NASA talks about human missions to Mars, but I would not hold my breath about the possibilities.  The United States Air Force seems more interested in dron...

An American space capsule returned safely to earth today with a major difference—the logo on the side was SpaceX and not NASA.  This was a commercial endeavor in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  Watching the live television feed of the splashdown took me back to the 1960s and the return of American astronauts from orbit. Although the SpaceX Dragon capsule did not carry any astronauts, such an application is a distinct possibility in the future. Like many others, I was disappointed when the NASA space shuttle program was shut down and the United States no longer could carry personnel or cargo into space and to the International Space Station.  For the first time in 50 years, we no longer had that capability and were dependent on other nations for such accessibility.  SpaceX is a commercial enterprise and a very ambitious one.  Not only do they seek to resupply the ISS on a regular basis, but they hope to be able to f...