I am burdened with cognitive biases. I have sensibilities, ethics, and judgements from an earlier era. I look at large-scale human pursuits, social justice ethics, and public policy through a lens and rubric that biases me for the goals of The Enlightenment -- Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
In the 1950s, we planned, designed, built, and eventually flew (in the 1970's) interstellar spaceships to advance our understanding of our solar system, mostly the outer planets. Over fifty fantastic years later Voyager-2 is still gathering and transmitting data back to us about the interstellar medium. Among the considerations, methods, and technologies that have advanced since the probes were sent out is our consideration of reliability: The 1950s perception of redundancy is now considered too conservative; we are increasing risk of catastrophic failure by using reserve power to deliver more scientific data from more instruments as Voyager-2 races towards the 21 billion Km mark from the earth. Let's hope the probe lives 50 more years!
Could we design, build, and fly interstellar spacecraft today? Now that private companies like SpaceX have returned civilization to medium and heavy space launch capabilities, the answer in 2024 is "yes." But are governments or NASA or other publicly funded "science" endeavors interested? That answer is "no." We have other concerns, values, and priorities. In the 1950's we cared about discovering the outer planets and the interstellar medium. We designed space probes and instruments to "science the sh*it out of" the unknown frontier. Our tech now is focused inward and no longer looking towards the stars.
Another interstellar rocket engine concept, the liquid salt water rocket was first developed in 1955 for the "big stick," or the Supersonic Low Altitude cruise Missile (SLAM). The concept was to create a nuclear-rocket-powered, large hypersonic cruise missile loaded with 10 Hydrogen Bomb warheads. The missile would fly faster than mach 3 at an altitude of 50m, navigate to targets using look-down cameras and a stored map (no inertial guidance, GPS, or other navigation!) and deliver H-Bombs while out-flying interception missiles and radar. We developed both a scale model and a working prototype of the rocket motor that exceeded their design specs. The full-scale system was tested and verified in 1964. We discovered the missile could circle the earth for "months," and adjust its speed and rocket exhaust to destroy targets and kill people with sonic booms and nuclear fall-out, respectively. The missile could continue rampaging after exhausting its supply of H-Bombs. 100 of these missiles were planned. If launched as a revenge "doomsday device," each of these missiles could fly for months, nuke 10 large cities and then poison the world with nuclear fall-out. If launched as a first- or second-strike nuclear weapon the SLAM could avoid detection, penetrate enemy territory, destroy 10 targets, fly home, and be reused if needed.
My point about the 1950s is that our accomplishments were not just the progress & inventions of that time, including:
Fiber optic cable
Video Recording
Hovercraft
Oral Contraceptives
Credit Cards
Solar Power
Non-stick cooking pans
Lasers
Polio Vaccine
Microchips
Seat Belts
Most people were optimistic about applications of scientific method and "the future." We envisioned and worked towards rapid improvements in wealth creation, social justice, and understanding our universe. We planned to control the weather and use nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes. What happened?
