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 have the means, however it would require cutting all of the social crap out of government that is not only wasteful and ineffective, but holds our society back.
Actually, there is some scientific basis for both wormholes and warps.
And, specifically, an Alcubierre-type Warp IS a method of cheating the Einstein Limit.
We just don’t have the tech to do it. Yet. I have faith in Humanity getting Out There. Just not so sure America will do it. . .
“cannot”
the word of fools and doubters
“I just can’t get too excited about space exploration right now.”
I couldn’t agree more. We have far more pressing issues on earth at present. It’s nice to muse about gauzy images of deep space exploration.. manned missions beyond the Solar System, etc.
However, with debts near $20 trillion, barbarians at (and now inside) the gate, an undefended border, a dumbed-down populace that clamors for handouts more than opportunities, a rapidly declining social order and a federal government that frankly doesn’t do anything well.. deep space missions at present are best kept in movie theaters and drawing boards.
We have the will but will is not the issue.
There would be no need to try to explore the universe for some other planet to live on if the human race only limited itself to 1 child per individual...either by will or natural forces. That means a single individual would be limited to fathering or birthing only one child (multiple births an exception). Mom equals 1. Dad equals 1. No more.
In time, the population of the earth would reduce to the point that there would be absolutely no reason to look elsewhere to live.
In my opinion the “race to space” is nothing more than an academic wet dream to answer the questions “why, when, where, and how?” In addition to that the “heavy thinking” industry has squandered trillions of dollars on an effort to answer these questions with only vague ideas that have been answered with vague results.
Granted, many useful inventions and products have been developed by the space program but in time, as the need arises for newer technologies and products, they will be produced, space program or not.
We need a Space Elevator!
Simulating gravity by spinning the carrier capsule would solve the bone problem, but there’s still a mess of other issues in travel such as dealing with radiation.
If we ever were to reach another planet I see very little chance of a human survival/procreation on it. We would have to hit a billion to one lottery that the planet has nearly identical atmospheric composition as ours.
Terraforming Mars might be the best option for leaving earth but something like that would take quite a long time.
The government robs me to squander the fruits of my labors on supporting the lifestyles of the permanently can't be bothered with working for a living class. That's bad enough, but it could be said that at least some of them my eventually get a job and actually contribute something to the economy.
But what does space exploration contribute?* It's great that we have pictures of Pluto, but so what? Does seeing a picture of ice mountains on an object 3,000,000,000 miles away change my life in any way at all? The answer is a resounding no. I don't care about space exploration in the least so I'm not part of the "we."
However, the space kadets who think "man's future is in space" want me and other like me to pay for their pipe dream.
When the author says "we" what he means is that he wants the already overburdened taxpayers to fork over more of their hard earned cash to fund his dream. Personally I'm not interested, but I have an alternative proposal:
Let those who want to explore space set up a private funding organization where they can donate as much as they want and like minded individuals can also chip in and use this to pay for the necessary R&D, manufacturing, launch costs, etc. to explore whatever it is they think so important. (In fact this is already happening) Just making a prediction, but I suspect that they won't get enough to flesh out the dreams even though some mighty rich people have stepped up to the plate. I've noticed that space kadets are keen to spend other peoples' money to see their dreams take shape, but are not very forthcoming with their own funds. In that regard they are not different than any other liberals who think that someone else's hard earned dollars should be taken at gunpoint to spend on something that they would never use their own funds to pay for.
So space kadets explore space to the limit of YOUR wallets. I will be happy to see you successful, and I may even buy copies of your pictures if they're interesting enough, but don't use the power of government to rob me at gunpoint to pay for something I don't want.
*And before anyone starts yapping about all of the technology spinoff benefits (that for the most part don't exist) read Bastiat And think of how much less efficient government sponsored anything is than private enterprise. BTW Transisters were invented in Bell Labs. Velcro was invented by a Swiss engineer, etc.
“Yet. I have faith in Humanity getting Out There.”
If we don’t destroy ourselves first. I’m not a pessimistic person...but as a species, we spend so much of our time, efforts and resources on satisfying our greed for power and “ownership”, that we lose sight of the more nobler tasks. If we overcome our shortsightedness and social failings, I agree that someday we will make it to the stars.
Yep, another simple idea that makes space more accessible.
I’m personally not interested in interstellar flight in respect to this thread so much as I am interested in making our solar system more accessible. The space elevator combined with mining and manufacturing in space and on the moon would make space much easier.
3D printing in space is another thing that could lead to great leaps. Even rocky asteroids could be pulverized and turned into concrete for printing into massive hulls for the large ships we really need for long duration time in space. We currently send life rings to space with a couple of men when we really need aircraft carriers with crews of dozens or hundreds.
What do you make the cable out of?
Carbon fiber nanotubes is the current specification.
If there were two or more groups of dead bodies on the moon surface that we could see with telescopes, would we have the will now?
Is it going to be strong enough? I remember reading some article about a year ago that mentioned diamond and some kind of carbon fiber, but concluded that even with the maximum strength that molecular bonds can develop no material would be quite strong enough to support its own weight. I don't know for sure just asking if anyone has seen any recent research on the topic.
WE CAN get a monstrosity into orbit. TODAY....but we do not have the guts to do it.
We can launch such a vehicle with Project Orion type device. I suggest the launch site at Mecca.
“Terraforming Mars might be the best option for leaving earth but something like that would take quite a long time.”
Not if the machines are self building and dismantling...
Basically imagine sending one robot to a planet that starts to mine, refine and construct other robots from the raw materials in that planet’s soil.
Then various specialized robots fill the planet and alter the composition of the soil and the atmosphere until the ideal environment is achieved. Then they dismantle themselves into useful structures for humans, start growing food and we begin to arrive!
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