RS: What kind of research and missions would you like to
see happen in the future?
WORDEN: “I think we need to keep going outward. I don’t
care whether we go to an asteroid, I don’t care whether
we go to Mars. I think going to the Moon is probably a
losing proposition at this point - we’ll let the Chinese do
that - they’re going to do it. I think what we have to do
is develop propulsion systems that get us way out there,
not just in the solar system, but somewhere else. I absolutely believe we will develop the means of going faster
than the speed of light. It might take us a thousand years,
but you know, we had the same problem with the speed
of sound and we proved that was nothing. We are going
to develop machines and propulsion systems that are
going to get us out there. I think propulsion is the secret
to everything. And when we get a propulsion system that
will get us where we need to go without expending a
lot of resources, then we can truly begin to explore our
neighbors outside the solar system. That’s where we’re
going to find, probably, people like us.”
least go into orbit. So, in my opinion, SpaceshipTwo and
all these others flying people up and down, aren’t going
into space. You’d have to be someone who can pay $20
million dollars to go, then you’d be going to space.”
RS: What legacy do you want people today and future
generations to acknowledge?
WORDEN: “Legacy? If I had a ‘theme song’ that would
make people understand what I would request, it would
be ‘independence’. Independent thought, independent
work. Do not rely on somebody else, particularly the government, to do anything for you. This is a nation of independent people, this nation was born by people getting
away from something and doing their own thing once
they got here. We have lost that today. We need people
who are independent in their thinking and their research,
that are going to barge forward and do what’s right to
get this country out ahead. So I guess my thing would be
independence and thriving.”
RS: In the future do you think space will be accessible to
the average person the way flying is now?
WORDEN: “No, not for a long time. Many of the similarities with aviation are out there. There was a time when
going somewhere on an airplane for an average person
wasn’t going to happen. And there was some thinking
that you would never fly from one city to another. Today,
the only issue is, “Does the airline fly on time or not?”.
Space could get that way some day, but I’m just not
sure that the cost and risk is going to be the same. The
shuttle was supposed to be routine, but it wasn’t, every
flight was kind of different. We lost more shuttles than we
lost Apollos. It was a very dangerous machine, it was not
safe. We are now finding that SpaceshipTwo is not a safe
spaceship. Even when it starts flying passengers, they’re
only going to go straight up and straight down. To me,
that’s not space. They can pay their $200,000 dollars
and say they’ve been to space, but that’s just a very,
very momentary thing. That whole flight’s only going to
take 15 minutes. The difference between going straight
up and down compared to going into orbit is about
five times the speed. You have to go five times faster to
go into orbit, and the only way to go to “space” is to at
Worden was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “Most isolated
human being” during his time alone in Endeavour at the Moon. Credit: Julian Leek
RS: What direction do you hope NASA will head towards
in terms of human spaceflight?
WORDEN: “Well, I think it’s time for NASA to get off its butt!
I think it’s time for someone at NASA to have the courage, and the perseverance to make sure that we step
out. It may not happen for a few years, but we are going
to get there sooner or later, it’s just that pressure to win.
Going to Mars is important because it is going to force us
to develop propulsion systems and life support systems
that will manage a year and a half flight. The moon’s
only two weeks, you can do almost anything, it’s easy
to get to the moon. In fact, going to the moon is easier
than going into Earth’s orbit if you really want to know! It
is a straight line flight! Going into Earth orbit, you’re going aroun