Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [123]
That was one of the reasons why, in 1996, I started a rocket design company to develop the StarBooster family of reusable rockets, based on some of my hand-drawn schematics and sketches of new rockets that I had been making for some time. My plan was to use existing rocket reliability and transform expendable rockets—the kind we’ve all watched burn up and plunge into the sea or disintegrate in space—into recyclable rockets, including “fly-back boosters” that would be fueled by liquid rocket fuel and return to Earth, land on a runway, to be used again and again, providing significant savings.
As it stood, not enough viable work existed to justify NASA making weekly or even monthly flights into space with the space shuttle. But if more people wanted to go, and good old American ingenuity and the forces of competition were encouraged, the result would be more efficient and affordable space travel for all, with more opportunities for exploration at less cost to the government.
I was so passionate about these ideas that I willingly testified before a House congressional committee, chaired by Congressman Dennis Hastert, in May 1997, the first committee hearing ever to take place at the National Air and Space Museum. Our charred Columbia command module from Apollo 11 served as an appropriate backdrop. I presented my ideas promoting space tourism as one of the key ingredients to jump-start America’s dawdling space program, and for sustaining and expanding the future exploration of space.
After a brief introduction, I quickly got to the thrust of my argument:
My chief message is this: America must dream, have the faith to achieve the dream, and develop the fullest possible knowledge of the possibilities that await us. Even the best-trained and the brightest engineers, scientists, businesspeople, and political leaders, if they have no vision, are mere placeholders in time. We must dare again to take risks as a nation. And we must see again that this generation of Americans—those alive today—have at their fingertips the technology and the recent history necessary to trigger a cascade of vast new discoveries for this living generation and those that will follow.
Several of the congressmen nodded in approval as I spoke—while others were simply nodding—so I stoked the fires even more. I talked about how the successful Apollo program had led to technological breakthroughs that we now take for granted, such as satellite-driven communications. Other goals, such as routine commercial flights to and from space, space tourism, settlements on the moon, and the human exploration of Mars, had not happened yet, but I encouraged the committee to press forward and accomplish those goals within our lifetimes.
But each of these advances requires three things: knowledge, faith, and commitment. Knowledge that we can achieve these feats for all mankind, faith in ourselves, in things larger than ourselves, and in the importance to mankind, that we use the opportunities at our fingertips, and a newfound national commitment to do what God has given us the power to do. In short, I’m here today to issue a call for national action.
I felt almost as though I were a “space evangelist” as I attempted to inspire America’s leaders to get back in space:
We have within our grasp the technology to get everyday citizens into space routinely and safely for the thrill of a once-in-a-life-time ride and adventure. We also have the technology to cost-effectively return to the moon again. We’re even at the threshold of being able to affordably get to Mars with manned missions.
I knew that the members of Congress were already seeing dollar