CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Legendary U.S. astronaut John Glenn says maximizing scientific research on the International Space Station is just as important as charging off on missions to the moon, Mars, asteroids or other interplanetary destinations.
Fifty years after he became the first American to orbit Earth, the retired, four-term U.S. Senator from Ohio thinks space exploration is not just about boldly going where no man has gone before.
"I think there is a dual emphasis here. I think it's not only seeing how far we go into space, and eventually being on Mars, and maybe sometime having a base on the moon," Glenn, now 90, said in advance of the golden anniversary -- Feb. 20 -- of his pivotal Friendship 7 flight.
"But to me, of equal importance is to maximize the research return. That shows the people ... how valuable space travel is."
And that's why Glenn remains dismayed about President George W. Bush's decision in 2004 to retire the U.S. space shuttle fleet after the assembly of the International Space Station. He also is sorry he couldn't convince President Barack Obama to keep the shuttles flying to and from the outpost.
"I know they're expensive. They ran about $400 million estimated for the average shuttle launch, and that's expensive," said Glenn, who famously returned to space aboard shuttle Discovery at age 77 in 1998. "But when we have built a station at a cost of about $100 billion, and involved 15 other nations with us -- to not use that to the maximum, the very maximum that we could have done if we kept the shuttles flying -- I think that was a big mistake."
The state of spaceflight
A half-century after Glenn's historic flight matched Soviet exploits in the Space Race, America ironically is paying Russia to launch U.S. and partner-nation astronauts on round trips to the International Space Station.
Shutting down shuttle fleet operations was "a mistake because it left us with no way to travel to our own International Space Station," Glenn said.
NASA will pay the Russian Federal Space Agency in excess of $1 billion in the 2011-2016 timeframe to ferry American astronauts to and from the outpost.
That's a tough reality to accept five decades after Glenn's Friendship 7 flight, which came at a time when the U.S. was being crushed by the then-Soviet Union in a Cold War battle for technological and ideological supremacy.
The Soviets shocked the world with the surprise launch in October 1957 of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. Then they lapped America with the April 1961 launch of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly in orbit.
Glenn's orbital flight on Feb. 20, 1962, put America on even footing with their rivals. Now, with the retirement last July of the shuttle fleet, Glenn isn't enamored with the state of U.S. human spaceflight.
The fate of the U.S. shuttle fleet was sealed Feb. 1, 2003, when Columbia and seven astronauts were lost in an ill-fated atmospheric reentry. The ensuing accident investigation led a blue-ribbon commission to recommend the U.S. replace the shuttle fleet as soon as possible.
President Bush in January 2004 directed NASA to complete the International Space Station and then retire the shuttle fleet. Bush also directed NASA to develop a new crew exploration vehicle and return American astronauts to the moon by 2020.
President Obama ordered a change of course in February 2010. He cancelled the moon program and instead challenged NASA to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025. He left in place the decision to retire the shuttle fleet, extended International Space Station operations at least through 2020, and directed NASA to invest in the development of commercial space taxis to ferry astronauts to and from the outpost.
As it stands, those spacecraft won't be flying before 2016.
Looking to the future
Glenn wanted to keep the shuttles flying and personally lobbied Obama on the matter. He flew to Washington, D.C., in July 2010 and met with Obama, White House Science Adviser John Holdren, and Rob Nabors, a senior administration official.
"The four of us met for about 35 minutes or so, and I gave all my views on why I thought the space program was important and how the shuttle was necessary if we were to do the maximum research on the station," Glenn said.
Obama "didn't disagree with me ... He just said that there just wasn't the money there. We were in a situation now with the recession that there just wasn't the money to continue it," Glenn said.
The future of U.S. human space exploration has been a hot topic in this 2012 election year.
Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich campaigned in central Florida, calling for the establishment of a moon base "by the end of my second term," by 2020.
Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, who won the Jan. 31 Republican Florida primary, mocked the plan in a debate in Jacksonville. "If I had a business executive come to me and say, 'I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon,' I'd say, 'You're fired.'"
Glenn, a Democrat, said establishing a moon base in just eight years is optimistic.
"I don't know if anybody has analyzed that adequately, or not, as to what the cost would be. I think (Gingrich) said he was going to set this base up by 2020. That's a big order," Glenn said. "So, I have my own opinion. I don't think that was costed out, number one, and I just think that's about all the comment I want to make on that one."
Glenn ran for president, unsuccessfully, in 1984, but he has his own ideas about the proper course for U.S. human spaceflight.
"I think most people think of space as going out to Mars, the moon, whatever," Glenn said. "But the purpose is not just to send people out there and keep them alive and bring them back. It's also, to me, to do basic research out there to benefit the people right here on Earth."
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