In March 1966, the month astronaut Neil R. Armstrong flew on NASA's Gemini 8 docking mission, the Goddard Space Symposium convened in Washington to examine the future of space exploration. With the industry advancing on a breathtaking trajectory, scientists and engineers outlined grand visions.
“Space activities in the year 2000 will include study by biologists on Mars supported from stations on its moon Phobos, use of a solar physics station on Mercury and the investigation of Jupiter from a base on its satellite, Titan,” wrote Aviation Week & Space Technology reporter Roderick D. Hibben. North American Aviation unveiled a design for an interplanetary spacecraft to carry astronauts on 300-1,000-day missions, while Lockheed's chief space researcher foresaw the use of transport rockets delivering cargo to the Moon “for a few dollars a pound.”
Amid all those optimistic projections was a warning. William G. Purdy of the Martin Co. cautioned that society was on a path where affluence and regulation threatened to choke off interest in “unorthodox inquiries.” By 2000, “we may be far down the road to a well-managed but mediocre [space] technology,” he said. Purdy, who would go on to play a role in the Mars Viking Lander program and be awarded NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal, was spot on. Today, the space shuttle orbiters are museum pieces, and the U.S. must rely on Russia to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. The Aug. 25 death of Armstrong (p. 32), who became the first person to set foot on the Moon in 1969, is a sad reminder of how long it has been since U.S. human spaceflight's glory days.
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