Posted on 01/20/2004 11:50:43 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The next time you reach for your cell phone, thank NASA. If your doctor recommends an MRI, thank NASA. The space agency deserves another moment of gratitude when you pop in your favorite DVD and settle back for a good movie. How about when the smoke detector blares to save your life, or you simply do something as mundane as reaching for a composite golf club, hoping to out-drive your buddies?
Although it often gets relegated to elitist bureaucracy status, driven by starry-eyed scientists looking to grab funds away from better use on Earth, NASA has contributed to the technological advancement of everyday life on Earth as much as anything else since the days of Apollo — and maybe more. That’s why the President’s new space initiative, while certainly expensive, will pay back incalculable dividends to the lives of everyone on Earth over the coming decades, just as the Apollo program did before it.
The president and NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe contend that “seed money” of a billion dollars over the next five years will initiate this bold new move, a return to the Moon by about 2015, construction of a lunar base five years later, and a manned mission to Mars by about 2030. They suggest the bulk of this money will come from shifting priorities within NASA’s annual budget, now $15.5 billion annually. Certainly the price will be high in money and priorities, with the Hubble Space Telescope, for example, falling into doom about four years from now, no longer serviceable by a musty and unreliable fleet of space shuttles headed for the Smithsonian.
The shock waves emanating from a change of low-Earth orbit, with its limited scientific value, to deep space exploration, will rock the science world. Much of what will follow could be done robotically, and — in the short term — for a lower cost. But what ultimately must be done on the Moon and on Mars can be done only with the real-time judgment of a human on site, making the immediate decisions that a computer cannot. The limitations of machines are a whole lot less melodramatic than Stanley Kubrick posed in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but they are nonetheless very real. When it comes to people, there’s no substitute for the real thing.
To be sure, astronomers and planetary scientists will experience a windfall if the Bush initiative receives congressional blessing. What humans learn about the Moon and the Red Planet will ultimately put the big questions of the rarity of life in the universe into stark perspective, and will tell us much about Earth’s own future, the fate of the solar system, and our cosmic genesis. Humans stand on the threshold of answering these “big questions” of how the universe formed, how we came to be, and where it is all going. President Bush’s timing to push toward solving these mysteries couldn’t be better. That kind of explorative curiosity — “to see what’s over the next hill,” as O’Keefe puts it, is, after all, the most important thing that separates humans from Douglas fir trees.
But even for those without a passion to partake in exploration, big gains will come right here on the home planet. A new generation of engineers will push technology and innovation forward. The new so-called Crew Exploration Vehicles, however they may finally be constructed, will spur new technologies in aircraft travel on Earth. Education will get the spark it so desperately needs in this country, as space exploration once again fires the imaginations of millions of school kids — giving a new generation its own Apollo-like dreams.
Mostly, the gains will be felt at the level of everyday life. Those gains will come from money spent right here on Earth that will employ thousands and push technology to unknowable heights. Benefits will emerge at all levels, from the mundane to the heights of technology. Forty years ago, NASA engineers didn’t start one Monday morning by saying, “Gee, I think I’ll work on microchip technology that, thirty years downstream, will lead to digital cameras.” The technological gains that come out of research arise from a kind of ripple effect — advance on top of advance, technology growing out of technology.
Those who control NASA’s budget cannot now predict the most exciting things that will change the way we live our lives a generation hence. But they will be there. Along with GPS receivers, the insulation in your ski jacket, the plastic bags you store leftovers in and toss in the back of your freezer. Even those unmoved by human exploration — by knowing the answers to how and why we exist on this little blue planet — those people will see everyday advances well worth NASA’s new budget. The Moon and Mars will be new worlds — and so will Earth. _______________________________________________________________________________________
David J. Eicher is the editor of Astronomy magazine. He is the author of seven books on astronomy and has a minor planet, 3617 Eicher, named for him.
Amen!
Gee, no mention of NASA anywhere. Here's the complete article:
http://web.mit.edu/invent/n-pressreleases/n-press-01LAA.html
Magnetic Resonance technology existed before NASA came into being. It was in widespread use for chemical analysis in the 60's and earlier. I used to use it in a Varian 60 NMR spectrometer in my Organic Chemistry Labs.
Also, I think you'll find cell phones are a spin-off of military technology, not NASA.
I dissagree. Some may have, others would not have. There were many things that were developed specifically because NASA had a problem and needed a way to resolve it. That pushed research and development.
The big question with the current space program is that we already have been to the moon. Where is the stretch? If we use existing technology, we won't be pushing research and development as much. We need to make sure that the goals we set will adequately stimulate research and development and not just be a money pit.
We have so many things from NASA R&D. At some point you stop listing them. Government research is available for everyone to use.
Having said that, I'd like to see people go into space because it's the next frontier, not because we got Tang from it. We need to look outwards. We need to know that there's still something "beyond the horizon," or we'll become stultified. Even those who don't go need the existence of a goal outside themselves.
So let's go into space because it's the right thing to do, not because there might be some byproduct that we could have obtained more cheaply if we went after it directly.
If I were 27, I be for it.
As the years go by so much faster at my age, the human narcissistic side of me crys "foul ball". Afterall, we need to address more important things like affordable health care, and rebuilding the infrastructure.
We forget that as aging Baby Boomers, we're soon going to be gone...when Bin Laden and his cronies won't be able to hurt us.
Just an observation to point out that no matter what the cost, space exploration is important. Probably should be an international effort however, to share the costs involved.
ONe more thing. We broke the Soviet Union when they went bankrupt trying to counter our Star Wars efforts. China is doing the same thing to the USA today. They have the bucks to go back to the moon and beyond while we spend our dollars trying to protect us from more 9-11s.
Just my opinion, folks.
We're going to learn how to use the resources and live off planet. If you don't think that's a stretch, I say you're off-base. We'll be installing telescopes that can see farther than any to date. The farside for example, blocks static noise from Earth, so a radio telescope can see things from there; it's unlike anywhere else in the universe. Stretch your imagination! There's solar energy for power and water and hydrogen for rocket fuel and life support.
When you explore you make break-through discoveries. I think that isn't money taken from health care, it's money to help solve problems. Besides, DCPatriot, this 1% of the budget. Congress could find enough pork, with out breaking a sweat, to cover that.
Not too smart to leave our miltary and commercial satellites untended. We can service and protect them by using fuel manufactured on the Moon.
I agree, I just hadn't heard anyone say that we intended to use the resources of the moon. If we do, that is exactly the kind of stretches we should be aiming for.
If we simply intend to supply a moonbase with resources from earth, then we kind of have already been there and done that with the space station.
So yes, I think there are a lot of opportunities to stretch.
According to you?
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