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Page added on July 10, 2011
Peak Exploration: The Apollo Program And The High Water Mark Of Western Civilization
Those of us who are what we call Peak Oil Aware have come to accept the idea that there are natural limits that will inevitably curtail economic growth and development. A long time argument among Peak Oilers is: when will this happen or has it happened already? Then it all comes down to your definition of what Peak Oil means. If you believe it means the peak in world conventional crude oil production, for example, then the peak apparently happened back in 2006.
But what is really at issue is not the oil itself, but the peaking of human civilization and progress. After all, if a viable form of scalable green energy really did exist, the peak of oil production would be little more than a historical footnote. So how then do we measure Peak Civilization? If we’re talking about world population, for example, then not only is the peak not here but we are in fact still adding people to this old world at a net rate of about 80 million per year.
It is my contention that by one key measure Western Civilization, with all of its emphasis on eternal growth and expansion, peaked over 40 years ago and has been on the downward slope ever since. Many would scoff at the notion that American society reached its high point back when Tricky Dick was just settling in behind his desk in the Oval Office. To them, I humbly assert that the first moon landing represents what I call the moment of Peak Exploration.
It is incredible to think that 42 years have passed since Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind. A few years after he uttered his immortal words, on December 7, 1972, Apollo 17 was launched, which turned out to be the final moon landing and likely the last time human beings will ever stride upon any world other than this old Earth. Sadly, that last Apollo flight also marked the effective end of the age of exploration.
For over six hundred years until the late 20th century, Western Civilization had been pushing the boundaries of human exploration. It started with legendary ancient navigators like Columbus and Da Gama and achieved its ultimate triumph that day in 1969 when Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the Stars and Stripes on the Sea of Tranquility.
Within a year of the original moon landing, however, President Nixon and a stingy Democratic Congress made the joint decision to slash NASA’s budget despite the outstanding success of the Apollo program. It was the original age of “austerity” in Washington, and it reduced NASA’s dreams of a Mars mission (the next logical exploration step) to the ineffectual Earth orbit-bound boondoggles that became Skylab and the Space Shuttle program.
The need for austerity was, of course, brought on by a previous generation of military misadventures in Southeast Asia, but looming silently in the background was the specter of America hitting the upper limits of its own domestic oil production even as the Apollo astronauts were creating footprints in the lunar dust. The downside of M. King Hubbert’s first predicted oil peak turned out to be a cruel mistress for America, and indeed the first Arab oil embargo and resulting gas lines would hit the country less than one year after Apollo 17 returned from the lunar surface.
Many might still remain unconvinced and would point out that we humans have made many technological innovations since the ending of the Apollo program, especially in the area of computer technology (it is actually astonishing to consider that the memory capacity of the Apollo’s ship board computers was a mere 36,000 words!). But though IPods, IPhones and IPads are technological marvels, they hardly represent a great leap forward in mankind’s achievements.
The real measure of human advancement has always been in our insatiable desire to explore and expand our horizons. Exploration as a human endeavor effectively ceased for good after 1969. In a way, the recent development of all that ICrap is perfectly appropriate for distracting individuals of a society that long ago reached the limits of what it can achieve and now has no real future to look forward to.
10 Comments on "Peak Exploration: The Apollo Program And The High Water Mark Of Western Civilization"
DC on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 3:33 am
And now, the last shuttle mission has flown…
-Projects like the James Web Telescope are well behind schedule and 400% over-budget
-No replacement for the shuttle exists, and at this rate, never will.
-The sorta replacement convetional rocket, the Orion, shelved, on hiatus, limbo, w/e they call it. Definately not being built.
Maybe now amerikans will stop fantasizing that merika will somehow ‘lead’ humanity to the stars. And colonial Marines wearing the stars and strips on there sleeves will kick ass and take names, or there hydrogen or coal or w/e they feel like. Amerika is has its sights firmly fixated on the middle east and its own restive population at home. The ME is of course, filled with heat,sand,oil, and people that are not overly fond of amerika and its constant air-strikes and political meddling. But thats where amerika thinks ‘the’ future lies, or at least, its future. The rest of solar systems contains no coal or oil, or countries whoes governments they can subvert, then sell expensive and faulty weapons systems too.
If you want a vision of the future of amerikas space program, imagine shuttles converted to theme park attractions while they slowly rust away.
SilentRunning on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 4:10 am
I hate to admit that I agree with the article that we started to regress with the acheivement of the moon landings.
Ironically, “Tricky Dick” had a program that could have saved us – he was a big proponent of population stabilization world wide. The religious reactionaries in the Vatican “breed! breed! breed!!” doomed Nixon’s sensible programs. Had Nixon succeeded, by now the earth would have zero population growth at lower numbers of people.
Other factors come to into play like the retreat from science into fantasy and superstition.
Ian Cooper on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 4:19 am
I too, have to agree with the premise of the article. With the shelving – presumably indefinitely – of the Mars program, we did indeed reach peak exploration (and perhaps the peak of Western Civilization) in 1969-72.
A moon base could drive the bar a bit higher, but essentially it would only represent a kind of ‘bumpy plateau’. For the article to be wrong, we’d have to do a manned mission to Mars, and that seems very unlikely right now.
pike on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 6:23 am
China beats Americas ass when it comes to space program.
Simon on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 7:40 am
All of the manned space programs have been a complete waste of money. Period. Good riddance. I will cheer when the few charred remains of the ISS that survive re-entrry crash into the Pacific. Pop the champagne!
Hail Hubble and those few robots that explored the solar system for 1000th the cost of the ISS/Space Shuttle Boondoggle.
Whitefang on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 12:38 pm
Since the world we speak of is but a description, a handy manageable way of percieving energy, there are likely hundreds of worlds to explore personally after succeeding to stop you’re internal dialogue, the babble that keeps us grounded and imbicile, a stupid mass suicide by consumption.
This bubble pops as soonn as you reach silence, a position of feelings inside the ball of light that we are, a mystery.
ken knohe on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 12:55 pm
Very interesting parallel between peak oil and “peak” exploration. But having followed the space adventure for the last 30 years, I believe the cause of our failure lies elsewhere.
The Apollo program was a political program to prove the superiority of the capitalist system and as such it had “no price” literally. It was simply not possible to go much further on such a path. The space shuttle was a fair attempt to return to financial sanity but at the same time we unfortunately lost track of the target. The Moon was “done” and Mars too far. So the ISS was created as a goal. But the “goal” itself didn’t have a purpose. Useless for observation, too expensive for industry, too “visible” for the military, we ended up with “cheap” science and astronaut training. In the meantimes we also lost track of the initial goal: develop cheap access to space and we consequently failed in that endeavor too which unfortunately was the only important one since everything else depended on it.
So here we are 30 years later, contemplating the end of the space age. This may indeed mark the end of our civilization but it has nothing to do with peak oil and everything to do with a lack of vision. Likewise and similarly, if we fail in other challenges, peak oil will only be one of the causes, but not the reason. What exactly do we want to achieve beyond getting richer which we measure mostly by the number of “toys” (i-crap is a good description indeed) that we own? An answer to this question may be worth many, many giant oil fields!
CXGZ61 on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 3:31 pm
It was about 40/50 yrs ago that the left began to exert undue influence on our country. Now we can see where those policies have led. The USA is bankrupt, has lost its economic base, is conditioned to accept failure and our constitution is no longer a functioning document. In the meantime other parts of the world are taking up where this once great country left off. Failed policies steered ever more by left wing ideology have brought us to this juncture. While the USA fades away the rest of the world will shine.
VP on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 6:29 pm
The US is hardly a leftist nation, unless one is looking at it from the perspective of an Ayn Rand devotee. And then, of course, the country most often spoken of the replacement for the U.S. as the Number One is China, which is ruled by – a Communist Party. I think Chomsky’s perspective makes more sense: the world today is made up of various form of state-capitalism, none of which are true market economies, but rather are dominated largely by quasi-monopolies that have merged with their respective states.
VP on Sun, 10th Jul 2011 6:40 pm
PS The last time the US had a balanced budget was under a Democrat: Clinton. In the last 30 years, the deficit doubled twice, both times under a Republican President: Reagan and George Bush. These deficits were largely the result of unfunded tax cuts and unfunded increases in military expenditures.