POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS : Of NASA, Democrats, Republicans and the South Korean Space Sprint

Today, I thought I'd bring to your attention a book series BOTH my wife and I have fallen in love with! The fifth (and I hope NOT final book) recently appeared in many different bookstores (with a great deal of grief, NOT at the place I have often bought books, and actually once worked at; a place I'm not going to name, but a "brick-and-mortar-store" that often "anchors" shopping malls and once played a huge part in my reading life and have since (and will not completely) eschew for Independent Book Stores...

The SERIES is by Mary Robinette Kowal who writes not ONLY "alternate history science fiction", but delightful fantasy as well. I met her and got her to sign a book of mine at my LOCAL Indie bookstore, UNCLE HUGOS SCIENCE FICTION and UNCLE EDGARS MYSTERY Book Store... (visit the site here -- you CAN order online! Uncle Hugo's & Uncle Edgar's Bookstores - Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Mystery Books 

After JFK sent the United States on a gentle landing (as opposed to a “collision”) course to the Moon, it seems that Democrats turned from the stars to focus on Earth…

Even in our 2025, budget battles in Congress have focused on moving into space or more closely monitoring Earth for Climate Change [And Near Earth Asteroids that might collide with the planet and change all life as we know it (see Mary Robinette Kowal’s novels THE CALCULATING STARS (2018), THE FATED SKIES (2018), to be followed by THE RELENTLESS MOON (2020), and the conclusion of the quartet with THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY) (which started out as THE DERIVATIVE BASE) a couple weeks ago in 2025.]

The focus has been essentially along party lines, with Democrats seeking to strengthen the knowledge base of our own world, and Republicans eschewing Earth for our place in space.

Private industry is maniacally developing launch vehicles, with one currently making test trips up and down and which will very soon be added to Russian Soyuz capsule as the only vehicle able to carry Human crew and passengers; of course, all of this is with a close eye on enlarging their cash cards. Other nations, once content to either ride in the wake of space giants Russia, the United States, and China; are now racing on ahead – with dozens of countries claiming a space program (seventy-two of them), but only fourteen of those with a serious launch capability.

Six have the capability of launching AND RECOVERING biological material; and finally only three have sent astronauts from their own space program into space – Russia (first, April 1961), the US (second, May 1961), and China (third, October 2003).

The International Space Station has been occupied without interruption since November 2, 2000 (currently, 18 years and 343 days) with a total number of visiting scientists of 236, coming from eighteen countries.

Humans have a presence in space – near space, anyway. We’ve landed on the Moon 21 times, starting in 1959 with the Soviet Luna 2 in 1959, to the most recent landing a semi-successful landing of Intuitive Machines IM-2; "6 March 2025. The spacecraft was intact after touchdown but resting on its side, thereby complicating its planned science and technology demonstration mission; this outcome is similar to what occurred with the company's IM-1 Odysseus spacecraft in 2024. On March 13, Intuitive Machines shared that, like on the IM-1 mission, the Athena's altimeter had failed during landing, leaving its onboard computer without an accurate altitude reading. As a result, the spacecraft struck a plateau, tipped over, and skidded across the lunar surface, rolling once or twice before settling inside the crater."

Spacecraft have landed on Mars eight times (all US ships) and Venus six times (all of them Soviet Union ships) and Magellan took extensive radar images that were processed into 3D images. Humans have also shot probes through the atmospheres of Venus (once). NASA/ESA and Italy had Cassini drop a probe into the atmosphere of Titan eventually crashing into its atmosphere while gathering data. The Galileo probe went to Jupiter.

So – why am I here? To say that I’m irritated that Democrats seem fixed on Trump’s idiot statements about AGW and insist on directing NASA to send up more satellites to take more pictures of Earth and add more data to something that while people DENY it, has a relatively high probability of being a real trend; those Democrats are totally ignoring the importance the current president has put on NASA’s return to the Moon and mounting a mission to Mars (mostly because it’s flashy and I think he wants to be mentioned in the same space-breath as JFK…)

Check the articles below if you think I’m being an idiot. They’re (mostly) non-partisan (the one partisan piece does the same thing current Democrats are doing: dancing around a revitalized humans-in-space program that Trump’s Tweets have re-initiated).

So, what’s this have to do with writing?

Americans are not only oblivious to but actively ignoring the efforts of the rest of the planet to get into space. In the upcoming issue of ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, I have a short story, “Kamsahamnida, America” in which South Koreans land a woman on the far side of the Moon using a bit of gravity modification technology.

The concept is NOT a mere SF idea, however. During a month-long stay in RoK, I saw firsthand, the South Korean’s American-like obsession with space. From science museum images of Korean astronauts on the Moon and Mars, to the attitude of people regarding what Americans would consider “cramped living quarters” and the reverse paradigm of the US and its European roots that “wide-open-spaces” and single-family-homes is the only sure sign of success and the Korean paradigm that the poor have “houses” and the rich have apartments that OTHER people take care of so they can do IMPORTANT work. Also, the Korean space program, while it hasn’t landed a person anywhere yet, was independently developed in a way reminiscent of the American space program of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and started with sounding rockets and have gradually scaled up to full-sized rockets capable of launching satellites and (I’m sure) eventually crewed spacecraft…to the fact that in the center of the peninsula, you’ll find the National Fusion Research Institute…(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DA8GnrhTCY; http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=29116) South Koreans are actively experimenting with rockets, fusion power, and countless other technology applications of physics.

I believe that South Korea will not only one day stun the world by skipping over the “big” nations to make a conceptual advance that all of them expected to be the sole province of Western White Big Country Big Budget Science…That’s what I explore in the story in the November/December ANALOG.

I think they’re poised at the edge of a leap into space; and “Kamsahamnida, America” is the first in a set of stories that will be set in the same universe. It’s also a universe that sees the achievement of a Korean dream: to reunite the peninsula.

Articles: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5503/cosponsors, https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-spacex-agree-commercial-crew-development-is-the-highest-priority/, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/where-candidates-stand-nasa-space-exploration-n637771, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/midterm-election-congress-nasa-space/575320/, https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1c5f68682303ae92a6aed0b75bfcaf6f, http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2019/nasas-planetary-defense-budget-growth.html, http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2019/what-the-recent-budget-deal-means-for-nasa.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_policy_of_the_United_States#Kennedy_administration, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government_space_agencies
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