Terry Hart is a professor of mechanical engineering at Lehigh University, and a former astronaut and Air Force fighter pilot.
Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com
By Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com
There are models of planes and rockets on almost every flat surface in Terry Hart's office. Pictures of satellites hang on the wall. An airplane propellor blade leans against a doorframe. A pair of flight helmets look down from the highest bookshelf, above numerous engineering textbooks and binders.
It’s clear that Hart — a former astronaut and fighter pilot — knows a thing or two about both space exploration and the military.
When asked about President Donald Trump's proposal for a new Space Force military branch, he chuckled and threw up his hands.
"I don't see any reason for it," said Hart, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Lehigh University, during a recent interview in his office. "I don't think the people in the military see any reason for it either. I think it's going to be another one of those things that Trump just off-the-cuff mentions and then it never happens."
Vice President Mike Pence this month outlined general plans to create the Space Force previously announced by Trump as a sixth, separate military branch by 2020. Pence cited threats and competition by Russia and China that could put U.S. satellites at risk.
An outline of a Space Force budget is expected next year — the AP report estimated that the establishment of a new bureaucracy, military and civilian leaders, uniforms, equipment and support structure will cost billions of dollars.
The current proposal would establish a Space Command and other agencies to oversee war and technological operations that would be led by a four-star general and an as-yet uncreated civilian position of assistant defense secretary for space, the Associated Press has reported.
Currently, the military runs space operations via the Air Force Space Command, part of the U.S. Strategic Command, one of 10 commands that unifies the separate military branches.
Astronauts on STS 41-C Challenger in 1984 were the first to repair a satellite from orbit. Terry Hart operated the mechanical arm that retrieved the satellite.
NASA
Hart, who graduated from Lehigh in 1968, flew fighters for the Air Force for four years in Vietnam, then continued as a fighter pilot with the National Guard in New Jersey. In 1984, he went to space on the shuttle Challenger for a first-of-its-kind mission to repair an orbiting satellite — Hart controlled the mechanical arm that retrieved the satellite and his crewmates did the repairs in the shuttle bay.
Lehighvalleylive.com sat down with Hart last week to ask his opinions about the Space Force proposal. The conversation also turned to the United States' role in exploration and the future of space travel.
(The following Q&A has been edited for content and clarity.)
President Donald Trump leaves following a roundtable discussion on tax policy at the Boeing Company in March in St. Louis.
AP Photo
Q: What did you think when you first heard the Space Force proposal?
A: I think a lot of things that Mr. Trump does are not well thought out, and this one certainly is not. It's a bad idea, on several levels.
I think you need to understand historically how we got to where we are in the military, in space. Back in the 1960s, the space program was just beginning so it was clear to the military that they needed to think through defensive measures in space. All the military branches, being like they are, are competitive for a mission. But it was pretty clear that the space mission was closest to what the Air Force does, so the Air Force was authorized to create a Space Command. But they did it in a way that was very thoughtful. What the Air Force did is they made what was referred to back in that time as a “Purple Command” — in other words, there wasn’t just one color, one branch. That was kind of a novel thing, which was very important to bring the best of all the people in the different branches that could contribute to that mission.
That went so well that in the 1980s then, what the military decided to do was create a whole series — there were 10 of them - called unified commands. That concept was a key thing that the military did to make it more efficient and more effective.
Vice President Mike Pence speaks during an event on the creation of a United States Space Force, on Aug. 9 at the Pentagon.
AP Photo
The problem now is that Trump, without thinking about it here, is trying to reverse all that and go back to creating another branch. We don’t need branches. We need the right people doing the right job, regardless of the color of their uniform.
If you created another branch of the service for space, presumably you would take all the space people out of that (the unified command). You would undo what was done in the 1980s which has been a major success in terms of cost-effectiveness and efficiency and breaking down barriers between branches. In other words, you’d be putting more walls in the military between these branches.
A view from the International Space Station.
AP Photo/NASA/European Space Agency
Q: The U.S. is reliant on orbiting satellites for both military and civilian use, from intelligence gathering to making a simple phone call. How should orbiting technology be protected?
A: It's being protected today. We have assets that are capable of interrupting any offensive maneuvers in space. It's not a question of organizational ability to do anything. The right people are in the right place doing the right mission. There's really no need to create another branch of the service and have different uniforms and go through all the bureaucratic nonsense of creating a whole organization for no purpose at all — the purpose is being well taken care of right now.
The commemorative plaque on Apollo 11.
NASA
Q: Should the U.S. have a military presence in space?
A: The United States back in the 1960s led an effort globally to bring into place an outer-space treaty. Initially it was the United States, the Soviet Union and China and a couple others that were able to launch missiles into space. All agreed, and the rest of the world says good thing.
What that treaty says is you can’t put weapons of mass destruction in space, you can’t go somewhere — to the moon — and claim it for yourself. A couple of years after signing the treaty we landed on the moon and we put a plaque on the moon that says “We came in peace for all of mankind.” So that’s been the United States’ leadership in outer space, that it should be for peaceful purposes. Now Trump comes along and seems like he wants to militarize space.
Apollo 17 Commander Eugene Cernan plants the flag on the lunar surface in December 1972, the last time humans were on the moon. That's Earth in the distance.
NASA
Q: Do you think there might be some kind of coolness factor to the Space Force?
A: I don't know what he's thinking, but it could be that. He's just looking for some flashy kind of thing. But that flashy kind of thing that he's talking about would be very expensive and it wouldn't do much to help the mission. It would just create another bureaucratic branch of the government, of the military.
Astronaut Bruce McCandless becomes a human satellite as he uses the Manned Maneuvering Unit
during a 1984 space shuttle mission.
NASA
Q: How would you advise the president on his proposal?
A: I would advise him to talk to some people that know what they're talking about before he goes public on something like that. (Laughs) I don't think the thought came into his head from somebody in the military saying that this is a good idea.
I don't see any reason for it. I don't think the people in the military see any reason for it either. I think it's going to be another one of those things that Trump just off-the-cuff mentions and then it never happens.
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Space shuttle Endeavour is silhouetted over Earth's colorful horizon prior to docking with the International Space Station in 2010.
AP Photo/NASA
Q: Would something like the Space Force take away from exploration and scientific efforts? Or could it be a supplement?
A: I guess there's some possibility to supplement. The military budget is so much bigger than NASA's budget in terms of assets and effort in space. Most of it, military in terms of communications and intelligence gathering.
But I think the direction should be the peaceful use of space — to bring nations together in a way that we explore as people from the world, of all countries.
Astronaut Terry Hart speaks to the students about space exploration in 2007.
Photo courtesy of the Holy Family School in Nazareth
Q. There's still public enthusiasm for space travel and exploration. Does Space Force change that?
A. I don't think it affects people's thinking in terms of exploration because it's obviously a military approach there.
I think in terms of people being excited about space, that’s always been there. When we come close to an exciting mission we all become vicariously attached to the mission. It’s just human nature to get excited about exploring.
I think 100 years from now, when historians write about the 20th century and the space program and everything, I think they may well conclude that the best thing that came out of the space program was — maybe two things:
- The fact that we got off the planet and looked back at it and we see that we're all living on this little, perishable sphere floating through space and we better take care of it and take care of each other.
- And also, that it's a chance to cooperate and break down political barriers. We're having a lot of issues with the Russians right now obviously, but we are manning a space station together. The International Space Station is predominantly American and Russian funding. So it's the right thing for space to help bring people together and explore together.
Matt Damon in a scene from 2015's "The Martian."
20th Century Fox via AP
Q: As someone who's been there, what do you see as the future of space travel? Will it be led by scientists, the military or private agencies?
A: Well I certainly hope by scientists, predominantly. That's where the payoff is in terms of exploration, is learning more about the universe as we explore the planets in our solar system and even find new planets around other stars. The other aspects aren't quite as important.
I think there’s some room for privatization of space maybe, but it’s very difficult financially to find a business model that works in space.
Everything that we saw in the movie "The Martian," we're capable of doing that today. It's not that we have to invent anything to do that. When Kennedy said we're going to the moon by the end of the 1960s, there was a lot of stuff that had to be invented by NASA and its contractors to make that happen. It was a major technological push. We don't need that now.
We’ve got to build big rockets — we know how to do that. It’s just a matter of logistics, and of course the expense of doing it. But that can be best solved with international efforts where we’re all contributing to explore.
MORE: How a Lehigh prof helped a NASA find strange new worlds
Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
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