Cincinnati Leader Gavin Whittle's Hakluyt Award Letter

Cincinnati Leader Gavin Whittle's
Hakluyt Award Letter

Dear Mr Vice-President,

Next year, July 20, 1999 will mark the 30th anniversary of man's famous
walk on the moon. However, in these 30 years, manned space travel has progressed very little. The space shuttle designed to push the limits of space by only a few hundred miles has, for nearly twenty years, has been unable to perform its primary mission, servicing a space station. NASA, an agency first conceptualized by Eisenhower, has drifted from its original task of scientific exploration to bureaucratic nightmare. A 13 billion dollar budget barely sends off a quarter-million dollar mission once in a while, and under the constant threat of Congress's scissors. It is time for you and the administration, and hopefully, your future administration, to reignite dwindling hopes, our future engineers' and scientists' dreams, and begin reaping the rewards the moon, Mars, and outer space.

In a time where government spending is "the" factor, concerns over what warrants a space program abound. What most people do not understand is the incredible amount of resources waiting only three days away, and what a trip to Mars would discover, concerning manned space-flight and long-term technology reliability. The information gained from such a trip would allow for mining operations of our earth's satellite. The moon contains some of our earth's most sought after metals such as platinum and sought after elements like helium3, which would allow for incredibly fast space travel.

A near-earth asteroid comprised of iron and nickel is worth trillions of dollars. The ability of another country to reap the rewards of these resources would cause for a restructuring of the current world power heirarchy. Russia, for instance, is way ahead of the United States when it comes to information resources concerning manned space-flight. The media's "laughable" Mir space station provided Russia with incredible amounts of information, some of which NASA bought by way of the Shuttle-Mir missions.

With a space budget only 15 percent less than the Apollo years budget, in
real dollars, the United States cannot afford to be second best, which we are, or Russia will most easily win the next space race, the commercial space race. Even with all of the financial rewards that accompany the next millenia of space flight. A manned trip to Mars would add luster to a fading golden America, and fire the flare that the future begins now with the United States's engineers and scientists at the forefront.

Gavin Whittle
Aerospace Engineering student
6534 Timberwolf Ct.
West Chester, OH 45069

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