The Year’s Most Audacious Private Space Exploration Plans

From Wired.com:  The Year’s Most Audacious Private Space Exploration Plans

It has been a remarkable and exciting year for commercial spaceflight companies.
Private asteroid mining! Commercial trips to the moon! Mars settlements! We barely had time to catch our breath from the last secret organization announcement when suddenly some other team was cropping up and declaring a bold new adventure in space.
“You had the unveiling of these really audacious business plans that at first blush you would dismiss as impossible,” said journalist and aerospace analyst Jeff Foust, editor and publisher of the space-industry-watching The Space Review. “But when you look at both the technical and financial pedigree of the people backing these systems, you step back and say, ‘Well, maybe there’s something here.’”
Many of these new companies have experts at their helms, founded or run by former NASA engineers and veterans of the spaceflight community. Others showed off their deep entrepreneurial pockets and touted the potential profits to be made in space.
So how did 2012 turn into the year of private space? Perhaps the most important factor was the trailblazing success of SpaceX, a commercial rocket business started by entrepreneur and PayPal founder Elon Musk. This year, the company conducted two launches to the International Space Station using their Falcon 9 vehicle, with the second mission bringing supplies and helping prove that SpaceX was on the path to ferrying astronauts.
The company is already planning their next rocket, the enormous Falcon Heavy, for launch in 2013 and recently won important contracts with the U.S. military to deliver hardware to space. With all these notches on his space belt, Musk is no doubt already eyeing the perfect ridge for his retirement home on Mars.
Contributing influences to 2012’s commercial space focus include an aimless NASA. Though it saw spectacular successes such as the Mars Curiosity rover landing, the agency is still wrestling with frozen budgets and a deeply divided Congress that disagrees on its overarching mission. Alongside NASA’s existential crisis was the aftermath of the second dot-com boom, which created a crop of young, sci-fi-crazy tycoons.
“When you give these Silicon Valley guys a billion dollars,” said astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of Harvard, who tracks rocket launches, “Their first thought is ‘Cool, now I can have my own space program.’”
Just in case you are having trouble telling the Planetary Resources apart from the Golden Spikes, Wired presents a gallery of the year's most impressive, daring, and wild business plans from commercial companies. We also talked to a small handful of spaceflight experts to get their take on which of the big dreams will pan out and which will burn out.
“I don’t expect them all to succeed, but I don’t expect them all to fail,” said space lawyer Michael Listner, founder of Space Law & Policy Solutions. Taken together, the companies’ ambitions underscore just how much times have changed. “About 10 years ago, if you presented one of these plans, people would have looked at you like you’re crazy. Now people can say, well it’s a little crazy, but considering what’s been done, it might be possible.”

Military Notes: Space exploration music alternatives

From PNJ.com:  Military Notes: Space exploration music alternatives

Alternative space music for the unveiling of the lunar landing module replica, the National Naval Aviation Museum’s LEM model could eventually take to the air, and complete blueprints to the original space vehicle couldn’t be found.

Space oddity

If you attended the unveiling of the National Naval Aviation Museum’s new replica of the Apollo 17 lunar excursion module last weekend and think you heard a different tune when the curtain went up than the music playing on our website’s video recording of the moment, you’re right.
At the event, 550 guests heard “Telstar,” a recording by the British group The Tornados, which was a hit on U.S. pop charts in 1962. And while the instrumental is certainly stirring, the Pensacola News Journal’s videographer Ron Stallcup decided to dub in music he thinks is more rousing and a better fit.
So those who tuned into pnj.com’s video of the unveiling on Sunday heard the theme from the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Neither melody is from 1972, the year that Apollo 17 landed on the moon. Stallcup and the museum could have revived a hit song about space that was actually from 1972: “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time),” composed by Bernie Taupin and Elton John.

LEM trivia

Here are some more tidbits about the museum’s new LEM replica, which is 23 feet fall, made of steel and aluminum and weighs 4,500 pounds. For all that bulk, the manufacturer, Digital Design LLC in Phoenix, constructed the life-size model so that while it now rests on the floor of Hangar Bay 1, curators could eventually hang it from the ceiling — perhaps to dramatize the presentation and clear the way for another exhibit.
Another bit of LEM trivia, the museum’s replica, even though it’s made to sell at retail price of $180,000, is a bargain compared with the ones made for NASA’s Apollo program by Grumman. Those cost about $17 million apiece. Of course they were working space vehicles, while the museum’s replica is an empty shell.

Winging it

Grumman didn’t save complete blueprints of the original LEMs, according to Jaime Johnston, general manager of Digital Design. He said his company’s engineers and designers had to visit museums that contain four of the surviving real LEMs, none of which went into space, to make accurate drawings on which to base their replica.
Johnston said that if Grumman wanted to build another real-life LEM today, “They would have to grab one of the existing ones and take it apart.”

New posting schedule

Now that I've got this new full-time job, I'll be posting in this blog twice a week - on Monday's and Wednesdays.

So the next post for this blog will be on Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

Who's next in line for the 'one small step' on moon

From Alamagordo Daily News:  Who's next in line for the 'one small step' on moon?

Last week marked the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission Ð the sixth and last manned lunar landing mission.
The Apollo 17 crew included mission commander Eugene Cernan, lunar module pilot Harrison "Jack" Schmitt and command module pilot Ronald Evans.
Apollo 17 lifted off on Dec. 7, 1972 the only nighttime launch in the Apollo program and after a three-day voyage (which the onboard astronauts took the famous and iconic "blue marble" photograph of Earth) arrived in lunar orbit. Cernan and Schmitt then departed the command module America, and in the lunar module Challenger, descended toward their planned landing site, the Taurus-Littrow valley in the lunar highlands, arriving there on Dec. 11.
Cernan and Schmitt a geologist by profession and the first and only trained scientist to visit the moon Ð spent three days at Taurus-Littrow, performing three seven-hour moonwalks and conducting a variety of scientific investigations during the course of these.
Forty years ago this Friday, on Dec. 14, 1972, Schmitt, and then Cernan, ascended the ladder of Challenger from the lunar surface.
They then lifted off from the moon and met with Evans and America. Afterward, the three astronauts and America departed lunar orbit and headed toward Earth and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 19.
No one has visited the moon since the Apollo 17 crew departed it four decades ago.
Although there were originally three additional Apollo missions scheduled to fly after Apollo 17, these were cancelled due to budget cuts.
Meanwhile, even unmanned lunar exploration soon ground to a halt. At the same time, the former Soviet Union continued to launch a few more Luna missions during the subsequent years, including the Luna 21 mission, which deployed a rover in early 1973 and the Luna 24 mission, which successfully returned lunar samples to Earth in 1976, with the completion of this latter mission even that program ceased.
It wasn't until the 1990s that probes of any kind visited the moon; the earliest ones were the Japanese Hiten probe in 1991 and the American Clementine probe a Department of Defense mission in 1994. They were followed by the low-budget American Lunar Prospector mission in 1998.
Although these were not especially sophisticated missions, Clementine data indicated the possibility that ice might exist in permanently-shadowed craters near the moon's poles and data from Lunar Prospector somewhat strongly supported this.
The past few years have seen a resurgence in interest in unmanned lunar missions, both here in the U.S. and in several other countries.
In addition to the American probes, lunar-orbiting spacecraft have been launched by Japan, China, India and the European Space Agency.
The two primary American missions have been the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, which has been photographing the moon's surface in unprecedented detail, including various images of the Apollo landing site and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) spacecraft.
The two probes were co-launched in 2009, and in October of that year, LCROSS impacted a crater near the moon's south pole, with water being definitely detected in the resulting debris plume.
A recent American effort was the Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, which consisted of two spacecraft since named Ebb and Flow that have been orbiting the moon closely in tandem with each since the beginning of this year in an effort to perform high-resolution mapping of the moon's gravity field.
According to recent results from the GRAIL mission, the moon's crust nowhere thicker than 27 miles is a crushed and pulverized "rubble pile" due to the violent and enormous impacts the moon has undergone since its original formation.
Ebb and Flow are being targeted to impact the moon's surface just before 3:30 p.m. MST Monday, Dec. 17.
So when will humans ever visit the moon again? This question cannot be easily answered.
The American Constellation program, originally proposed and initiated in 2004, had established a timetable of a flight to the moon to take place by 2020, however in reality, Constellation was never adequately funded and it was cancelled in 2010.
While potential lunar missions are presently being discussed, there are no formal American plans for a return to the moon anytime in the near- to mid-foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, the Chinese space program, which has successfully launched several manned Earth-orbital missions over the past nine years as well as two unmanned lunar orbiting missions within the past five years, has announced plans to launch an unmanned lunar rover mission late next year and to send astronauts to the moon in the 2025-2030 timeframe.
Perhaps the next lunar visitors will come from private efforts.
There is already the Google Lunar X-Prize, a $30-million prize to be awarded to the first private-developed effort to land and deploy a lunar rover, with a deadline date of the end of 2015.
The firm Space Adventures, which has facilitated several private citizen visits to the International Space Station (ISS) over the past decade, is currently marketing an around-the-moon trip, and meanwhile just last week came the announcement of a new company, Golden Spike, that is envisioning taking private visitors on lunar orbiting, and even lunar landing, journeys.
The prices for such trips are not cheap Ð the cost of a Golden Spike lunar landing mission is being estimated at $1.5 billion Ð so the next human to set foot on the moon might be one of our planet's wealthiest.
But in the precedent being set by the Space Adventures ISS flights, the costs could conceivably become more accessible to more "average" citizens within a generation or two.
The first human to walk upon the moon, Neil Armstrong, passed away earlier this year.
One can perhaps hope that the next person to do so is already alive, and may take that "one small step" sometime within the not-to-distant future.

First piloted rocket got attention, but not success

From Alamogordo Daily News:  First piloted rocket got attention, but not success

"Germans Plan First Rocket Flight With Pilot," the New York Times headlined the Associated Press story on Dec. 18, 1932.
"In an attempt to further the practical development of rocket flying," the story reported, "the city authorities, the police and the Governor of Magdeburg district have decided to grant permission for the first ascent of a rocket device occupied by a pilot."
The city of Magdeburg would contribute half of the $4,000 needed to build the 25-foot tall rocket; the Magdeburg Bank would loan the remainder.
"The rocket, which is expected to reach an altitude of 3,000 feet, is to return to the grounds by the means of a large parachute that unfolds itself automatically, and the pilot, after leaping out of the fiery sky ship, is to be brought down by a parachute," the Times stated.
Rudolf Nebel, a World War I combat pilot, was the rocket's "inventor," but at the time, he had little experience. Hermann Oberth had hired Nebel in 1929 to work in Berlin on rocketry for Fritz Lang's film "Frau in Mond" ("Woman in the Moon"). German ex-patriate Willy Ley wrote in "Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel" that Oberth "did not make certain whether Nebel had the qualifications," such as "in working with aluminum and magnesium alloys or at least with liquefied gases." According to Ley, Nebel later revealed "he had been graduated in a hurry during the war because he had volunteered for the air arm (of the military), and that after the war, he had never worked as a designing engineer but for some time as a salesman of mechanical kitchen gadgets."

The German Rocket Society/Society for Space Travel, or VfR, would build what was called the "Pilot Rocket"; even though Ley said the passenger wasn't really a pilot "since he did not do anything" except "jump out with his own parachute."
Nebel was secretary of the VfR; Wernher von Braun and Oberth were members. Ley, Nebel, and Jacques Valier were two of the founders. Valier, in 1928, had built the world's first rocket car, funded by automaker Fritz von Opel. On Sept. 27, 1930, the VfR had begun using the Raketenflugplatz, a former German military base, in Berlin to experiment.
"Berlin now has a rocket flying field with an area of about two square miles," the the Times reported on March 8, 1931. The story mentioned "references in the German press" regarding "discussions of the possibility of rockets," and warned of the "extraordinarily dangerous character of the experiments now being carried on at the Berlin rocket flying field."
By October 1931, the VfR had developed a water-cooled combustion chamber to feed an aluminum engine that burned 160 gallons of liquid oxygen and gasoline per second for 200 seconds. Members next designed dual tanks to separately hold, and then feed, liquid oxygen and gasoline.
The Magdeburg rocket was not Nebel's idea. One day, Fritz Mengering, an engineer with the City of Magdeburg, "showed up at Raketenflugplatz espousing a crackpot theory (dreamed up by someone else) that the apparent form of the universe was an illusion and the surface of the earth was on the inside of a sphere!" Michael Neufeld documented in "The Rocket and the Reich" (Smithsonian/1995). "By developing a large rocket one could prove this thesis."
The theory, Ley said, "began like a story by Jules Verne.
A mentally decrepit 'philosopher' had written a badly printed pamphlet about the true shape of the universe, in which he insisted that the earth is the universe, that we live inside a hollow globe of the dimensions of the earth, that there is nothing outside that globe, and that the universe of the astronomers is only an optical illusion. Since every crank can find some fellow cranks, the "hollow-earth philosophy' had found some too, among them an engineer named Mengering. É He conceived the idea of testing the hollow-earth theory by means of a rocket. If a rocket going vertically upward crashed É proof would be established."
Von Braun, among others, "emphatically rejected the theory." Nebel, however, "saw this idea as a new opportunity for raising money." They would launch during the next Pentecost.
"It looked like something in which we did not like to see the VfR involved," Ley said.
They didn't worry for long. Ley pointed out Nebel informed them the project "was to be entrusted to him personally (and) not the VfR," even though the members would be the labor.
It was Mengering who convinced Magdeburg to fund the project even though the government didn't buy the Hollow Earth theory. Ley said they did "welcome É scientific achievement," and the rocket would be "the crowning feature of a kind of city-wide holiday" during Easter 1933.
The Magdeburg Project failed. Neufeld, in "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War" (Knopf/2008), called Nebel "more of a con man than an engineer."
"We all began to work feverishly although we knew that it would be impossible to get such rockets ready in the time interval agreed upon," Ley wrote. "But it meant an opportunity to build large rockets without being handicapped by lack of funds."
The VfR began building at Christmas 1932. A motor was tested on March 9 and "could be heard for miles," Ley said. A test three days later "exploded at the instant of ignition; the concussion was so bad that the eyeballs of the observers pained considerably." Another motor exploded on April 3.
At a June 9 launch, Ley said "the rocket began to rise slowly" up the 30-foot "launching rack É built in a cow pasture." The rocket never cleared the rack, and simply slid back down. "Another attempt two days later was spoiled by a leaky gasket." The engine "roared" for 2 minutes but never developed thrust. A June 13 launch "ended prematurely" when the rocket, rising only to six feet, "popped" a vent screw.
On June 29, because rain "had warped the wooden launching rack," the rocket caught as it came off the guide and launched "almost horizontally," making a "belly landing 1000 feet" away.
The Magdeburg government wasn't impressed.
"In return for partial fulfillment of his promises," said "To A Distant Day: The Rocket Pioneers" (University of Nebraska/2008), "Nebel received only partial payment."

Secret shuttle in orbit after Atlas V launch

From WFTV.com: Secret shuttle in orbit after Atlas V launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

For a time on Tuesday it appeared the X-37b Space Plane would remain on the ground at Cape Canaveral air Force Station. But, just before the launch window closed, the clouds parted for the military's mini-shuttle and its top secret mission.

The unmanned shuttle was carried into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

The rocket launched from launch complex 41. Launch commentary ended 17 minutes into the undisclosed mission.

This is the second flight for this particular Air Force mini-shuttle, making it a milestone of sorts for the X-37b.

"A space vehicle has launched, returned to Earth and then launched again," said Christa Bell, a representative from United Space Alliance.

Jim Hale is an Air Force veteran and volunteer.

"We're so used to seeing the big shuttle and we thought these reusable vehicles were over and done with, and now we have a whole new generation of reusable vehicles," said Hale.

Unlike two previous mini-shuttle missions that touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, this one may end where it started: on the space coast and with a landing on the shuttle runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Space exploration is Canadians’ ‘birthright

From Montreal Gazette: Space exploration is Canadians’ ‘birthright

Canada, the third nation to get to space, can and must claim rightful ownership to extraterrestrial technology – and achievements.

Iain Christie, president of Kanata-based space technology firm Neptec Design Group Ltd., told delegates at the Canadian Aerospace Summit that “being a space-faring nation is a birthright of Canadians” – as befits the third country, after the Soviet Union and the U.S., to launch a satellite into orbit in the 1960s.

The aviation and space industry is still digesting – and praising – the comprehensive aerospace review for the Canadian government released last week by David Emerson, a former cabinet minister.

The report urges Ottawa to place space and aerospace at the top of the government’s national priorities – including personal involvement by the prime minister at the key priorities and planning committee meetings.

Emerson said the space sector had been “drifting” in the federal government’s priorities for several years, and that it regularly fell “into a black hole” in terms of the direction and importance it was accorded.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis said that before commenting and acting on the report’s 25 main recommendations, cabinet colleagues must discuss them at length. He did not say when a decision could be made.

But industry executives, including Steve MacLean, a former astronaut and the president of St-Hubert’s Canadian Space Agency, almost universally hailed Emerson’s report at the summit, organized by the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.

MacLean and Christie, whose firm makes spaceflight sensors, among other things, emphasized the disproportionate importance Canada and Canadians hold in space exploration.

Christie recalled a space-shuttle mission on which he worked as a junior engineer in Houston in 1995 – STS-74 in NASA parlance.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who will launch into space again on Dec. 19, “had to take the Canadarm to pull a Russian module out of the space-shuttle bay, attach it to the shuttle, which then flew up and attached it to the Russian Mir space station,” Christie said.

“It was symbolically and physically a Canadian who, a few short years after the Cold War, took the Russians in one hand, the Americans in the other, and brought them together.

“That is emblematic of the role Canada has always played,” he said.

MacLean also recalled how awed he was during a stint at NASA to discover that John Hodge was a Canadian.

When Neil Armstrong’s Gemini capsule – pre-Apollo – suddenly gyrated out of control, Hodge calmly talked him though to recovery “literally seconds away” from spacecraft disintegration.

MacLean said he was “incredibly pleased” by Emerson’s report.

“And when I heard Minister Paradis say that space is important to the country, this stabilizes us,” he said.

“Just that one observation stabilizes things – it tells Canadians what the space program can do for Canada.”

 

Coalition for Space Exploration Announces New Leadership for 2013

From Parabolic Arc:  Coalition for Space Exploration Announces New Leadership for 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. –The Coalition for Space Exploration (Coalition) today announced veteran aerospace communicators George Torres of ATK and Mary Engola of Ball Aerospace will lead the Coalition in 2013. Torres will serve as the new chair and Engola will continue her role as the deputy chair. Each will serve a one-year term, effective January through December 2013.
Torres works as the vice president of communications for ATK’s Aerospace Group. He has broad experience in communications across the aerospace industry, and previously led communications organizations at Rockwell International, Boeing, Hughes Space and Communications Company, and The Aerospace Corporation. A published author, Torres has written two books on the space program and was the recipient of the Journalism Award of Excellence from the Aviation/Space Writers Association for these efforts.
Lon Rains, chair for 2012, congratulated Torres on his appointment and praised the continued success of the Coalition.
“The space industry has seen a lot of change in the past year and I’m proud that the Coalition has been there to help keep space as an important issue for our country,” Rains said. “I’m confident that with George and Mary leading the charge this momentum will continue to build next year.”
Torres has been an active member of the Coalition throughout its eight year duration and led membership efforts for the latter part of 2012.
“These are dynamic times for the space industry, and much progress has been made,” Torres said. “Yet, economic uncertainties pose a serious threat to our growing momentum and I look forward to working with Mary to lead the Coalition as we continue to advance the dialogue surrounding the importance of space exploration to our country.”
Engola, Coalition 2013 deputy chair, has been an active member since the Coalition’s inception in 2004. She served as the Coalition’s 2012 deputy chair and as chair in 2008. She is currently the manager of customer and industry relations at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
“I am honored to continue serving as a member of the Coalition’s leadership team,” Engola said. “I hope my experience helps to bridge our past success with the future as we do what we can to ensure space exploration remains a national imperative.”
Through effective outreach, the Coalition fosters a national conversation about space exploration among the leadership of member organizations, with other space-related organizations, NASA, legislators and the general public.
About the Coalition for Space Exploration
The Coalition for Space Exploration for Space Exploration is a group of space industry businesses and organizations collaborating to ensure that the United States remains the leader in space, science and technology.  By reinforcing the value and benefits of space exploration with the nation’s leaders, the Coalition intends to build lasting support for a long-term, sustainable, strategic direction for space exploration.

Voyager 1 finds unknown region at edge of solar system

From USA Today:  Voyager 1 finds unknown region at edge of solar system

8:18PM EST December 3. 2012 - The Voyager 1 spacecraft is traveling through a previously unknown region of deep space as it heads out of our solar system, which might happen soon, scientists reported Monday.
Voyage and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched in 1977 and will become the first man-made objects to exit our celestial neighborhood -- relatively soon.
"We don't know exactly how long it will take," Edward Stone, a project scientist, told reporters during a teleconference, Space.com reports. "It may take two months, it may take two years."
"We do believe this may be the very last layer between us and interstellar space," he said. "This region was not anticipated, was not predicted."
Both spacecraft, which continue to send data back to Earth, are in the heliosheath, the outermost layer of the heliosphere. That's where the force of interstellar cosmic ray particles slows the solar wind generated by the sun.
Scientists, meeting Monday in San Francisco, dubbed the new region a "magnetic highway," where charged particles from inside and outside the heliosphere flow out and in. NASA posted animations imagining what the Voyagers are experiencing, if the naked-to-the-eye ions could be seen.
The twin probes explored Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus between 1979 and 1989.

Malware Swipes Rocket Data From Japanese Space Agency

From RedOrbit:  Malware Swipes Rocket Data From Japanese Space Agency

Information about one of the Japanese space program’s newest rockets was stolen from a desktop computer that had been infected with malware, officials from the organization revealed on Friday.
A computer housed at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center northeast of Tokyo had been discovered compiling data and transmitting it to computers outside of the agency, according to Ars Technica’s Dan Goodin.
The computer was found to be infected and was cleaned on November 21, and no other computers were found to contain malware, Martin Fackler of the New York Times added.
JAXA officials said that it was not clear if the virus was a cyberattack, Fackler said, but Japanese defense firms had been targeted by similar information-stealing programs, including some that had been linked to China.
“The data stolen from the space agency included information about the Epsilon, a solid-fuel rocket still under development,” Fackler said. “While the Epsilon is intended to launch satellite and space probes, solid-fuel rockets of that size can also have a military use as intercontinental ballistic missiles.”
“The Epsilon, whose first launching is scheduled for next autumn, will also feature new technology that will allow it to be remotely controlled by a personal computer,” he added.
Computer-based espionage attacks have become more and more common in recent years, with a vast array of international targets – including private companies, government organizations, and human rights advocacy groups – becoming frequent targets of such cybercrime efforts, Goodin said. In many cases, evidence linking the attacks to Chinese government officials has been uncovered.
“Highly sophisticated malware dubbed Flame, which reportedly was jointly developed by the US and Israeli governments, has also been used to spy on Iran,” he added. “On Friday, researchers from antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab, published details on a targeted attack on Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Astronauts Criticize US Space Program

From Voice of America:  Astronauts Criticize US Space Program

CHICAGO — NASA Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt explored the surface of the moon during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the last time anyone has left earth's orbit or set foot on the moon.  During a 40th anniversary celebration of Apollo 17 in Chicago, the astronauts said they had expected their mission would  start a path toward space travel, not become a history lesson.

Retired Astronaut Eugene Cernan is one of just twelve men who walked on the moon.  He currently holds the distinction of being the last man there.

"It is tremendously disappointing that I am here 40 years later and still hold that title or have that yoke on my shoulders," said Cernan.

Cernan, along with fellow Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, celebrated the 40th anniversary of the December 1972 mission with fellow astronaut Jim Lovell at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

As they returned to Earth on that long-ago December 19, Schmitt and Cernan didn't expect that 40 years later they would be commemorating it as the end of an era.

"To say that I thought it would be 40 years, or what is really going to turn out to be 50 or 60 years before Americans are back on the moon, I would not have guessed that at all," Schmitt noted.

"A half century ago, we went 250,000 miles, cracked the door open, and never walked through it into the future. The future is still out there," added Cernan.

A plan to return to the moon, which President George W. Bush proposed, was scrapped by President Barack Obama.

Amid deep budget deficits and an economy slowly recovering, U.S. lawmakers are not keen to spend more money on space exploration, something Cernan says is still only a small part of the overall U.S. budget

"We spend one half of one penny of every one of our tax dollars on space, all of space," Cernan noted.

Schmitt, once a U.S. Senator, says there is also a lack of willpower on the part of NASA.

"And from a fiscal point of view, it falls victim to being very small, and to not having a mission based on geopolitical reality, of the importance of the United States being the dominant space faring nation," Schmitt explained.

With the Space Shuttle now retired, the U.S.- based corporation Space X is developing a vehicle that can transport people to and from earth's orbit. A manned crew capsule could be ready in the next few years.

But for veterans of the Apollo program, that's not enough. They believe NASA should prioritize a return to the moon with Mars the ultimate destination.