Although I think spending a trillion dollars to achieve
Bush's goal is a bad idea, there are benefits that will be
tangible for everyone if it is pushed through.....
Trek into the universe will transform life on Earth
An editorial by Astronomy Magazine's editor
by David J. Eicher
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.
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