Is space worth it? Roger, Houston.
I grew up in the cultural afterglow of the Apollo program, weaned on Star Trek episodes, coming of age in the first Star Wars era.
Okay, yes, I was Luke Skywalker two Halloweens in a row. And space still fascinates me.
I know, I know. Vast distances and unimaginably hostile environments await humans outside of our safe terrestrial bubble.
This gorgeous earth of ours is, literally, irreplaceable.
But four decades after we briefly touched the moon, I remain convinced that some essential answers to basic human questions await us Up There.
Secular mysticism? Yeah, there's probably some of that.
When I look through our family telescope in our back field in Westport, I'm experiencing what a lot of my neighbors must feel on Sunday morning when they settle into the pew.
There is one significant difference though.
If we find away to colonize and make practical use of the resources outside our atmosphere, it won't be the product of divine intervention.
We will have clawed our way into space through our own ingenuity, grit and curiosity.
I think that spirit of exploration and possibility could prove invaluable in a society as restless as ours.
Put bluntly, America needs a frontier.
Obviously, there are some missing pieces. We need better practical reasons to go aloft. Tourism and a kind of Post-Apollo Manifest Destiny won't cut it.
Without better commercial pay-offs, the expense and danger will make space flight seem like the fantasies of a schoolboy on Halloween.
We also need some radical new innovation, developing vehicles that use truly modern technology.
The space shuttle fleet was built using 1970s concepts and materials. The "newest" shuttle, launched 15 years ago, was literally built using spare parts.
To bring down the costs and dangers of space, we need to leapfrog out of the Carter Era.
To pay for that kind of wholesale upgrade, we'd need some new priorities. And maybe that's worth thinking about, too.
The money we spent on the war in Iraq? That line-item alone would have allowed the U.S. to double NASA's budget for the next half-century.
Just imagine the places we might have gone.
posted by Brian Mann @ 7/17/2009 12:47:00 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I agree we need to move forward with space exploration.
Serious man exploration will require we find ways to really move fast.
We seem stuck with speed reached when first going to the Moon.
I support devoting some of our national treasure toward the exploration of space - with machines, robots, telescopes - but not people. It is far too costly, dangerous and expensive to send people to Mars, for example.
Romantic and inspiring perhaps, but this is not sufficient reason to devote resources to manned space travel when Earth, the one and only real home we will ever have as human beings is in such need of attention.
i watched the moon walk from my cousin's house- a huge break with tradition- we had no t.v., but we braved the spiritual danger to watch the show. I was far more impressed by the Oreos and creme soda they served- foreign and fragrant, than I was by clanking machinery and awkward space suits.
I loved the langurage- "Sea of Tranquillity". That, and the human drama of the Challenger explosion are the onloy things that have interested me about the space race and exploration. Love the barnstorming planes, the early bush planes and bombers- but outer space leaves me cold. I love to see the night sky- sleep under the stars, etc.- but I don't have any desire to explore it, get close to it, or waste any ore money on it. It's been a colossal waste, in my perspective, when so much could have been done on earth. Who says we need a frontier?
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