Fifty years later, space experts and astronauts discuss what’s needed to get back to the moon

While it down poured rain outside the Gleason Performing Arts Center at Florida Tech Wednesday morning, astronauts, space experts and professors were meanwhile discussing the past, present and future of the U.S. space program.

To honor the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and President John F. Kennedy's vision to land humans on the moon, Florida Tech, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and the Universities Space Research Association hosted a symposium called, "JFK's Moonshot Mandate: Then, Now and Destiny" Wednesday where experts discussed how the U.S. was able to head to the moon more than half a century ago and what needs to happen now to go back.

"I will tell you that a huge difference between the program then and now is that then, we had no bureaucracy," Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot Al Worden said during one of the panels. "We all had that goal of going to the moon."

Now, the times have changed, according to the panelists.

With NASA's goal to head back to the moon by 2024 and on to Mars, experts discussed how likely that is and why it has been so much harder to return to the moon since the end of the Apollo program.

"We are so divided today," Worden said. "We're not unified behind one cause like we were when JFK was president ... but I think today, we've got a problem because we got a president who wants one thing and we got Congress that is doing everything they can to get rid of him and not looking at what's really important in this country like sponsoring the space program."

That may be one reason why the aerospace industry is changing to include more privatized and commercial space companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. 

"We've actually had people turn down NASA jobs to go work for the private companies where historically it's been the opposite," director of engineering at Kennedy Space Center Shawn Quinn said. "So there's a lot of opportunity with companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing and I applaud it. It's great. It's great to be a part of the space program right now."

But as humankind dares to venture farther into the universe, other panelists argued it's essential NASA continues to lead in the "pioneering work" and not end up becoming just the "middle man."

"We need to be sure we keep a strong government-run program," former space shuttle astronaut Winston Scott said. "The cutting edge research and risky, esoteric stuff are all best done by the government ... The private sectors' role is to come in and make it cost-effective, make it affordable, make it repeatable."

"So everybody has a role, has a strength and we do need to ensure that we maintain a strong government leadership in space and that's a strong NASA," Scott said. 

In order to do that, however, panelists argued one of the key things in achieving the space agency's goal, besides the necessary funding, is to inspire future generations to join the space program, especially as human space exploration becomes more common. 

"That's the challenge with everything," said Cynthia Simmons, deputy director of planning and business management operations at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. "Being able to excite that group at the elementary school will make a difference at what we get at the college level." 

Scott Henderson, the vice president for Blue Origin's test and flight operations, agreed. 

"The thing that brings people to Blue Origin ... is our vision: millions of people living and working in space," he said. 

Others reiterated the same message. Alyssa Carson, a freshman at Florida Tech studying astrobiology and one of the panelists on Wednesday, hopes to be one of the first astronauts to go to Mars because she believes humankind must become a multi-planetary species if it wants to survive.

Worden agrees. 

"We wouldn't go to Mars without people like that," he told FLORIDA TODAY. "You got to have somebody that wants to go there and you got to have somebody that thinks it's important to do that and you got to get lots and lots of young people that think that way for the program to move ahead."  

Contact Jaramillo at 321-242-3668 or antoniaj@floridatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @AntoniaJ_11.