Posted on 07/17/2015 4:43:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
I know we are broke. I know America’s ruin is more likely to unfold due to an economic collapse than a terrorist takeover. But here I am to suggest that the fraction of a penny per tax dollar required to wander the cosmos has always been worth it, and always will be.
This week is a perfect time to stoke the dormant embers of the wonder we once felt. A vehicle crafted by human hands has just left the solar system after visiting Pluto, sending us crisp photographs of a world 3 billion miles away. Just 50 short years ago, we had never sent anything out of Earth orbit.
But on a sunny morning in Florida 46 years ago this week, three Americans left our world to set foot on another. I was 11 for the launch of Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong’s July 20, 1969 footprint on the moon’s Sea of Tranquillity was in the middle of my summer between sixth and seventh grade.
I drew pictures of Saturn V rockets and spindly lunar modules and lunar landscapes with my friends, building models of spacecraft and dreaming of one day riding one off the Earth. Surely we would do so in our lifetimes.
We may yet, but we may need walkers to get to our seats. When “2001: A Space Odyssey” was released the year before the moon landing, the space tourism it depicted did not seem so far-fetched. Surely we would have a substantial human presence on the moon within a couple of decades.
Instead, the 12th and last Apollo astronaut left the lunar surface in 1972, and we have not been back. After the cheers of the first moon landing quieted, it became immediately clear that the wide-eyed wonder that drove my adolescent enthusiasm for manned space travel did not extend to the grownups making policy decisions about man in space.
Once we had beaten the Russians, which I thoroughly enjoyed after being scoreboarded by them with the first satellite, first manned flight, first manned orbit, first woman in space and first space walk, I watched as three Apollo missions slated for the mid-seventies were scrubbed. The funding had dried up along with the public’s appetite for an energetic period of exploration following the triumph of Apollo 11.
Those were tough times to argue for what seemed like a luxury. Vietnam and social turmoil filled the headlines and sucked up any attention we might have devoted to such lofty enterprises if times had been less draining.
But what was true in the Nixon era is even more true today: America wastes enough money in a single year to build a housing development on the moon and a McDonald’s on Mars if we wanted to.
But we don’t want to. Our vision has grown even more myopic as battles over admittedly important matters like health care and entitlements has blinded us to the incredible return we get from each tiny sliver of investment in our space destiny.
And when I say “investment,” I actually mean it. Man in space has yielded more than Teflon and digital watches. It has offered a reminder of human nature at its best, if we will only pay attention.
I expect to find neither friendly aliens nor penny-a-gallon gasoline on the worlds we will explore if we unshackle ourselves. But we may learn more about our creation. We may stumble across other technical advances valuable to our lives on Earth. We may remind ourselves of the stunning neighborhood God has placed us in, and the vastness of His handiwork. And all for far less than some expenditures we could curtail today while damaging no one.
There is only one thing that could come close to the compelling drama that united humanity as we walked the lunar surface, and that is a committed effort to send astronauts to Mars. I wouldn’t even need the accompanying drama of an evil empire to beat. Shoot, I’d let the Russians and the Chinese cooperate. I’d rather join hands with their efforts toward a magnificent goal than leave them to their own devices, which could well involve the militarization of space.
When cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson isn’t busy insulting people of faith, he is a masterful pitchman for the vast benefits of allowing a tiny part of our national budget to fund further space exploration. He laments that our countless reasons to stifle manned space ventures amount to the sad realization that we have “stopped dreaming.”
On that, he is right. We have a budget to balance, infrastructure to bolster, entitlements to fund and diseases to cure. It can be argued that we do not have the portion of a penny needed from each tax dollar to march out of our solar system and toward the stars.
Except wait, yes, we do. Over here, and here, and here, in the line items of ridiculous spending on things government should not even be doing.
Some say man in space should not be a government enterprise, that the private sector can do it. Probably true. But it happens faster if the Space-X’s and Virgin Galactics are humming along parallel to a national policy committed to populate space because it is simply the most awe-inspiring thing we may ever do.
If we have lost the concept of a can-do nation driven by an ethos of excellence to do remarkable things, a manned space program can reinstill it. If our kids need something in real life to be dazzled by, to pry them away from mind-numbing game screens, man in space can supply it.
And if we are fortunate enough to elect leaders who can truly blast through the mountains of unnecessary and wasteful spending that is sinking our nation, we will have the money to do it.
We may have the will to explore the universe, but we lack the means.
Barring an apocalyptic celestial event to scare the pants off the world collectively, there’s little we can do to convince a majority of world leaders that it makes sense to leave the planet.
Little boy’s hearts are broken when they realize that robots do this better—no personal glory for that. The dirty little secret is that the human body cannot survive long, protracted space journeys. It has been shown over, and over, but the science won’t convince the childish and the obsessed. The bones dissolve.
how about V ger?
that was means
I’m mixed on even the “will” part of that. ‘Collective’ will, most certainly not.
We, this country and this world is so far embroiled in a spate of petty symbolism (e.g., removing anything sight, acknowledgement or history that ‘upsets’ victim groups), mindless personal needs and wants, hatred for traditional religion [you could make that with ‘white’ religion], and an overall drive to ‘equalize’ this world. Frankly, the last thing on its mind is space exploration - unless that involved a Muslim astronaut or something.
You don't know what you're talking about. Bone loss in microgravity has been stopped by demonstrated countermeasures. Even if that were not the case, all it means is that we would have to use artificial gravity (i.e., rotating spacecraft) for long-duration trips.
This remains the primary obstacle. We just don't have the horsepower to go very far very fast. A trip to Mars would take, what, three years round trip?
I'm all for going but we just don't have many places we can get to with current technology.
Why not just send robots, and forget about your magic rotating space ship? Robots don’t need to return. you might as well insist upon warp speed...the problem all science fiction writers encounter is the time for travel—the years in flight, with the bones and other vital organs deteriorating. Exercise helps—but only a little. Suspended animation, worm holes— even the new entrepreneurs like elin musk are stuck reinventing the wheel.
Technology moves on. The plasma engine bumped up in size from the little ones used for probes....... and in large ships, kept in orbit, can get us to Mars in weeks rather than months and progress moves on.....if we ever figure out workable fusion reactors we can make feasible generation ships to alpha century and if we are ever able to dope the making and safe storage of antimatter.....we can go even faster.
Some of “we” do have the will at least, but it doesn’t include Obunga. He turned NASA over to the ragheads. They are working frantically on a new vehicle that will achieve liftoff much more rapidly. Their latest attempt will be a cherry bomb in a camel’s butt. Science marches on.
Wake me when the US of A, as a country, finds the political will to do anything dramatic again, let alone manned space exploration.
Robotic NASA missions will last only as long as the discretionary fund do, which given the state of and demand for free stuff, isn’t long before that goes as manned missions did and with the same justifications.
At what point in the future will American generations to come look back on the robotic missions as Hollywood fakes as many current generations now see past manned missions?
Because robots can only do what they are programmed to do and cannot think. The difference between a machine and a competent scientific observer is the difference between collecting bits of data and solving complex, scientific problems.
your magic rotating space ship?
Yeah, centrifugal force. Magic.
You're the one who brought up wormholes and warp drive. So who's fixated on science fiction as opposed to science fact?
Yeah bone loss is relatively easy to deal with. The biggest problem as I see it is the fact that we’re limited to what we can lift into orbit which isn’t very much.
As far as propulsion is concerned we’re again limited by what we can hoist to orbit. Something as simple as steam exhaust can carry you to a significant percentage of the speed of light but requires billions of gallons of water.
Project Deadelus would have used nuclear pulse engines but ION drives or VASMIR drives could be scaled up 1000 fold or so.
http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/tau-zero-project-daedalus-icarus-110119.htm
Ok, I guess I’m feeling overly cynical this morning. However... given the direction our nation is going this article seems like an attempt at naive diversion.
“And if we are fortunate enough to elect leaders who can truly blast through the mountains of unnecessary and wasteful spending that is sinking our nation, we will have the money to do it.”
Nothing like a little romantic fantasy to start off the day with. Nothing wrong with a curious mind and a thirst for knowledge but to what ends?
The verse, “…ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth,” comes to mind. Whether we go into cosmic space, the complexity of the human gnome or drill down into the sub-atomic world of pentaquarks we see a complexity and design that can only come from an intelligence that is frightfully above our own. Yet, it never seems to convince us of the Creator’s glory, majesty, honor or what should be our own thankfulness and submission to His perfect plan.
Perhaps if we would allow Him to address the real problem - our selfish, egotistical and darkened little hearts, where all the problems spring from to begin with, we might have lots more resources, time and freedom to truly live more productive lives, help those in need and even satisfy our itch for what’s out there in the universe. But when our government is sending billions to those who are cutting off heads, fomenting class warfare and sucking little babies out of mothers, I just can’t get too excited about space exploration right now.
Appropriate Everest as the end of an electromagnetic rail launch platform?
Freeman Dyson?
How about hollowing out a large asteroid or small planetoid. Then you’ve got bus service to all the planets.
Nice. Let's build a border fence and secure it. First things first.
Some of us have the will. And, eventually, we WILL. As for the rest ? Well, that’s the Meek inheriting the Earth.
The Bold are going to the Stars. . .
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