By Natalie Lescroart, Staff Writer
BORDENTOWN CITY — Forty years ago July 16, three brave men blasted off on a revolutionary journey out of this world.
Apollo 11 became the first manned mission to land on the moon July 20, 1969. Hours later, Neil Armstrong stepped off the lunar module and uttered his now-immortalized words: “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Forty years have passed, and man has yet to take a second leap. But don’t expect to wait light years for the next mission.
Throughout his presentation at the Bordentown Branch Library on July 7, Frank O’Brien, a former Bordentown resident and the Apollo historian for NASA, assured attendees humans will indeed return to the moon.
“It’s happening,” was Mr. O’Brien’s refrain. “We’re going back to the moon — we really are. None of this ‘fantasy’ stuff.”
Mr. O’Brien, who resides in West Windsor, has been passionate about space exploration, aviation and computing since he was young. Mr. O’Brien spent sleepless hours pouring over authentic astronaut manuals his godfather, John O’Neill, had given him for Christmas one year.
Fueled by his insatiable desire to understand space flight, Mr. O’Brien quickly became well versed in space lingo. He began contributing to a virtual flight journal deemed by experts to be “the canonical reference.”
Mr. O’Brien and his colleagues help NASA by doing research and documentation on the Apollo missions — putting complex concepts and ideas into comprehensive briefs and commentaries.
“The hardest part of manned space flight is the man,” he said. “We like to joke that we’re trying to teach the new engineers how we did it the first time.”
As the era of the Space Shuttle comes to a close, the “new engineers” are crafting state-of-the-art spacecraft and rockets to bring man back to the moon — and beyond.
In his lecture, “The Moon, Mars and Beyond: Challenges for the Future,” Mr. O’Brien outlined some of NASA’s many plans and considerations for the future of space travel.
Rockets are no longer hard to come by, he said. The engineering has become relatively commonplace so NASA has been hard at work modernizing its fleet. According to Mr. O’Brien, the agency is putting the finishing touches on both the Orion spaceship and Saturn V — a “moon rocket on steroids” — at the Kennedy Space Center.
NASA officials expect the new vehicles will be rolled out this month and tested at the end of August or during the first half of September.
“It’s happening,” Mr. O’Brien repeated. “Man will return to the moon…then we’re going to Mars.”
Without any definitive plans yet, the Mars mission will undoubtedly be much farther into the future. NASA will need all the time it can get to work out some of kinks and logistics of the difficult trip, said Mr. O’Brien.
In accordance with the laws of physics, a trip to Mars would take no more and no less than three years. On the human level, Mr. O’Brien said mission planners must consider the intense isolation astronauts would suffer. There can be no real-time communication with Earth, and there would be no privacy aboard the tiny ship. Worse, astronauts residing in space for any amount of time are at a high risk for kidney stones, blood volume decrease and calcium loss.
“That’s the big tough nut that keeps every mission planner awake at night: calcium loss,” Mr. O’Brien said. “Basically, you have to cure osteoporosis to plan a space flight.”
After six months on the moon, astronauts would leave the spaceships on stretchers. After three years on a trip to Mars, full recovery would be highly improbable.
Additionally, there are environmental and economic concerns to consider in planning a mission to Mars. Every pound of material orbiting in space costs an exorbitant $10,000. Further, Mars has an arctic climate with temperatures ranging from 0 to –140 degrees Fahrenheit, and the planetary surface can experience sandstorms for months on end.
“The dust on a planetary body is abrasive and gets into everything,” Mr. O’Brien said, implicating the difficulties of making an efficient space suit.
On top of all that, what happens if there’s life on Mars?
These are some of the questions and concerns Mr. O’Brien asked his audience to consider.
Thomas Van Veldhuisen, 12, of Crosswicks, came to the presentation with a keen interest in airspace technology and his space exploration handbook. Hoping to be an aerospace engineer someday, Thomas took the opportunity to ask Mr. O’Brien his pressing questions about rocket fuel and plasma.
“I was probably most interested to hear about all the problems,” he said. “I knew there were a lot of problems with going to space, but I didn’t know there were so many.”
Robert and Jean Blaser, of Bordentown City, were also in attendance at the presentation. Mr. Blaser, who worked about 30 years in the space business, said he was glad to see the continued interest people had in the missions.
“I thought it was inspiring for the young people here,” Ms. Blaser added.
Concluding his presentation, Mr. O’Brien looked directly at the young, eager-eyed “space-crazies” in the front row, promising them they could find themselves in space one day.
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