From 4 key players, a sense of regret and a call to action
— -- Rocket expert frustrated
In 1945, the United States brought Konrad Dannenberg, now 95, to this country from Nazi Germany to help launch rockets. Then the government held him back — until the Soviets launched Sputnik.
Dannenberg fell in love with rockets as a high school student in Hanover, Germany. So strong was his desire to work on space exploration that during World War II he agreed to join a Nazi rocket team, headed by legendary rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, as a propulsion expert.
"The Army was the only rich uncle (with) enough money to pay for the things we wanted to do," he says unapologetically about his decision. During the war, von Braun's group developed the first rocket to go into space, the V-2, which was made by slave labor hundreds of miles from the rocket-design shop.
Recognizing the Germans' expertise, the Americans spirited von Braun, Dannenberg and 116 other rocket experts to the United States. Working for the U.S. Army, the Germans designed a ballistic missile called the Redstone.
Von Braun wanted to use the Redstone to loft a satellite into orbit in 1955, Dannenberg says, but the Eisenhower administration blocked the plan. Two years later, the Soviets launched Sputnik I.
"We were definitely disappointed," Dannenberg says. "We could've done it earlier." Now he is philosophical. Sputnik "woke up a lot of people in this country," he says. Four months after Sputnik, a modified Redstone carried the first U.S. satellite into orbit.
Dannenberg went on to help direct the development of the Saturn V. The massive rocket launched U.S. astronauts to the moon.
Today, Dannenberg has a bigger frustration: His adopted country has not sent humans to visit other planets and doesn't seem eager to do so. He says such exploration is crucial, in part because of the possibility of a catastrophe on Earth.
"I think it's a foolish thing," he says, of America's de-emphasis on space exploration. "As von Braun said, 'If you do it when you need it, it's too late. You missed the boat.' "
NASA chief on mission
By the time Sputnik began circling the Earth, Michael Griffin was already a space buff who understood how a satellite stays in orbit.
"I remember explaining that to my teacher" after Sputnik's launch, he says. He was 8.
Now 58, Griffin directs the world's largest space agency. As the administrator of NASA, he is struggling to ensure the United States can claim unquestioned supremacy in space.
He now regrets calling the space shuttle a mistake in 2005. The real mistake, he says, was the White House's decision in the early 1970s to confine America's human space program to Earth's orbit.
"We've wasted a lot of time," Griffin says. "Do I wish we could send people to Mars right now? The only answer I could give you would be, 'Yes.' But we can't."
The frustration is evident in his voice as Griffin offers his views of why astronauts have explored less of the solar system in the past 38 years than they did in the 12 years after Sputnik.
At the end of the Apollo program that put man on the moon, "we had an enormous amount of capability on hand," he says. "We could have been on Mars by the early 1980s, mid-1980s at the latest."
Instead, the last few Apollo flights were canceled and the spacecraft assembly lines shut. Americans did not protest, which Griffin attributes partly to the same factor that drove America to the moon.
"We created Apollo but, because we viewed it only as a race, we gave ourselves permission to throw it away" after winning, he says. "Overall, I think races hurt us."
He gets testy at the suggestion that Americans might not want to fund the effort to send astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. His plan, he says, does not require an increase in NASA's budget.
"I would hope that the American people and … any American president (are) way smarter than" those who cut back human spaceflight in the 1970s, he says.
"That's a mistake we made once. Let's not make it again."
Capitalist in hyperdrive
Space entrepreneur Elon Musk wasn't born when man first walked on the moon in 1969, let alone when the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957. "I don't think a lot about Sputnik," Musk confesses, though he knows it's "one of the great milestones in space history."
Never mind. At 36, Musk has a good shot at becoming a successful mogul in the treacherous field of human spaceflight. In an era when NASA's chief says private space companies are vital to lower the cost of launches into space, Musk represents the future.
He already has made one fortune from cutting-edge technology.
In 2002, Musk made more than $100 million by selling PayPal, an online-payment system that he improved and turned into a blockbuster. The proceeds are funding SpaceX, Musk's company to build rockets to launch supplies and humans into space to, for starters, the International Space Station.
If he wanted to relax, he says, "I could buy my own string of islands and sip mai tais.
"Instead I'm busting my (expletive) trying to build rockets. … The reason I'm doing that is I'm a big believer in space exploration."
SpaceX's financing and engineering plans have drawn interest from NASA, which could provide the company with as much as $278 million in seed money by 2010. NASA hopes to kick-start private space-delivery services that could help the space agency push farther into space.
In March, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket reached an altitude of about 180 miles, just 20 to 40 miles short of the International Space Station.
Only an unexpected fuel issue kept it from going into orbit, Musk says. The company is also developing a capsule that could ferry cargo or crew to the space station.
Musk is not thrilled with NASA's plans to return humans to the moon, which he calls "a tiny little barren rock." He's focused on Mars.
"That's where I think we have real potential to create another planet with life on it," Musk says, "a backup" to Earth.
Pilot has sky-high goals
In 1957, Thomas Stafford looked down on the Soviet Union. The launch of Sputnik I forced him to change his mind — and set him on a course to the moon.
An Air Force fighter pilot in the mid-1950s, Stafford was angry that the Soviet Union beat America into space. "We thought Russia was somewhat of a backward country," says Stafford, now 77. Hearing about Sputnik, "I said, 'Wow, our country is way behind, and we've gotta get going."
He soon applied for the astronaut corps. Five years after Sputnik, NASA hired a second group of astronauts to supplement the original seven in the Mercury program. Stafford was one of nine newcomers assigned to help overtake the Soviets in space.
He eventually joined another group: the 24 men who went to the moon. In 1969, Stafford orbited the moon, swooping only 7 miles above the lunar surface and having to contend with a terrifying, out-of-control tumble of his spacecraft that could have been fatal.
He thought then that within 15 to 20 years later another astronaut would land on Mars. Now, a Mars visit remains a distant dream, and Stafford wants more astronauts to at least see what he has seen.
He supports NASA's plan to send crews to the moon, but he doubts the idea will gain widespread public support, barring a race with another nation.
Americans "want exploration that … can be done with a reasonable amount of money," he says. "And it can't be."
Just after Sputnik, NASA benefited from Americans' thirst to beat the Soviets and from the novelty of the moon missions, Stafford says.
These days NASA launches shuttle missions "every three or four months, and they're doing the same thing, building up pieces of the space station," he says. Stafford's prescription for more public excitement: a race with the Chinese, who have shown interest in sending people to the moon.
"We've already been there," he says. "This time, it won't have the same enthusiasm. But from there, hopefully, we'll leave to Mars."