by Dane Bagley
It is somewhat strange how the U.S. Government took the lead in utilizing the fourth dimension in space travel with ‘the ball’ experiment, but that for many years thereafter the private sector alone traveled significantly through space, while NASA remained, apparently, silent. In reality, NASA’s plan was to come up with a plan after the experiment; successful or unsuccessful. If the top minds could have been inquired into at the time, they would have expressed that the next stage would be to perfect or fix the problems from the first experiment. But the experiment went off without a hitch. Any and all directions that NASA would have gone in next were undertaken quickly by private industry. Elected officials were more concerned with the economy than with NASA. Scientists were occupied as part of many of the space endeavors that were already being conducted. It simply was not a priority, nor was it clear exactly what the federal government’s role should be in this new space age.
The environmentalists were putting a lot of pressure on the government to regulate what was being done to the ‘precious’ raw materials of the universe. It was a little difficult to get public sympathy for a now infinite supply of raw materials to be classified as precious. They also suggested that the explorers were destroying pristine places, and wreaking havoc on the beauty of the universe. A hard line of reasoning to follow, since beauty is a hard thing to gauge without being able to witness something in the first place. With this extensive space travel, people were able to behold many things of beauty in the universe. For those who were not able to go into space, the pictures that were brought back could be seen. The beauty was more apparent than ever before. As far as the taking of natural resources goes, literally the surface had not been scratched. From an earthly perspective, it seemed as though much was coming and going; truly, most of the universe had hardly been seen or touched. The earth was just a tiny grain of sand and the universe was a beach; after millennia of mining, the universe still had secrets to be discovered.
Still, the environmentalists had another concern: with all of this raw material being transported to earth, won’t the mass of the earth increase? This will change the gravitational relationships between the earth, sun, and moon. Disaster would be imminent. The reality was that just as much was going out, as was coming in. With all of the space crafts, and later space stations, that were being put in place, the earth would have lost a little mass if it hadn’t been replenished by the various cargo loads. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that there was ever enough coming or going to have made a difference. It wasn’t as though these companies were just bringing cargos of space dirt and dumping it en masse. In fact, for those that were truly concerned about the environment, the earth had never been in better condition. Minimal mining was occurring throughout the earth, the use of non-replenishable energy sources was not increased at all by the space traveling, as it didn’t take much energy at all, and as the ability to use replenishable energy was increasing. But the true colors of the ‘environmentalists’ were quickly becoming evident. They were anti-capitalism, anti-progress, anti-technology, and especially anti-freedom. So, as their arguments that the earth’s environment was being damaged were fleeting, their liberal socialistic agenda became more evident. As liberal policy, at its essence, requires the equal divvying up of a closed limited system; and as the world seemed closed or limited to almost no one, their ideas garnered support from very few people.
However, because the environmentalist lobby had been so strong in Washington for so long, they were largely responsible for convincing the Federal government that some sort of a presence would be needed in the last frontier. Part of the problem was deciding whether this presence should be U.S. alone, or ‘international.’ Those pushing for an international presence desired a policing regime funded primarily by the United States, but led equally by all nations involved, and whose purpose was primarily to limit the ability of U.S. corporations to profit from outer space ventures. This idea was quickly nixed. For those who preferred a national presence there was much debate as to whether NASA should simply expand and change into a stronger auxiliary, or if NASA should be dissolved and a new organization with a little more bite should be formed. Although the Federal government had never been afraid of redundancy, it never considered keeping NASA, and also creating a new agency.
Rumor was that the new agency that was being considered would be a new branch of the military; the ‘Space Force.’ The media labeled this debate, ‘Star Trek vs. Star Wars.’ Should we boldly go where no man has gone before, as scientists and ambassadors, or should we create an all-powerful space empire? NASA vs. Military in space cartoons were all over the political pages depicting goodly scientists on one side, and warmongers on the other side.
Either way, the public could not help but envision alien worlds that would need to be explored or conquered. Aliens were still on the forefront of many people’s minds. Of course, rumors abounded about all of these contacts with aliens, or evidence of life that had been found on all of these commercial voyages, but that were being covered up by the U.S. Government. There were a handful of vessels that had disappeared and had not been heard from, but no hard evidence had ever been shown; many people were beginning to wonder if life outside of this little sphere was non-existent.
Science had not given up on the possibility of intelligent life outside our planet. Though the general public may have esteemed the space explorations up to that point as profound, science realized that only the tiniest of samples had actually been analyzed. So, while the scientists had NASA's ear, they suggested that a more systematic approach needed to be undertaken in the search for life outside this planet, but they also had the attention of the military. Behind closed doors it was being considered that if intelligent life did exist outside of the earth’s atmosphere, a military presence would be prudent. So the environmentalists and liberal scientists were, in large measure, at least as a catalyst, responsible for a military presence in space: the Space Force.
Yes, the ire of the international community was raised when the announcement of the dissolution of NASA and the formation of the new branch of the military was made. And yes, damage control was already in full swing, in describing the Space Force, the new military agency, as merely a technicality. Its primary purpose would be to perform scientific experiments, to search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and to monitor any suspicious activity of other earthly vessels in space. The bottom line is that it was formed and activated, and that was all there was to it. Those that didn’t like it had to deal with it. Drafting was not necessary in filling this new military branch. Volunteers for military service had not been so high since the twentieth century.
Chapter 6
