“Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.”

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

Forging Ahead

Why Exploration of Space Must Continue

By Rushabh Modi '04

Space is a curious thing – it defies easy explanation. At first glance, it seems like a whole lot of nothing. But take a closer look at the recent comsological data and it will become evident that we simply cannot account for the vast majority of the matter in the universe – dark matter as astrophysicists call it. A whole lot of nothing seems to be quite massive.

This kaleidoscopic expanse, one farther than the eye can see and the mind can imagine, intrigues us. And it challenges us. It does so for the very reasons frail, little boats and uncharted waters looked appealing to a few brave souls centuries ago. It is for the same reason Edmund Halley trekked up Mount Everest. Space is there. And it is inviting us to explore it.

But in the wake of the recent Columbia tragedy, a vocal minority in Congress and some independent observers have become re-invigorated to end space exploration. It is too expensive, too risky, and not beneficial enough. And despite the public’s fascination with space travel, that stance has increasingly gained receptive ears. There is a real question now as to the future of NASA, and really, man’s presence in space. Without America, few countries, if any, have the combination of daring, resources, and will to develop or continue a manned space program.

The problem with such claims is not that they are overly utilitarian (although that is certainly a plausible case), but that they are inaccurate in their utilitarian calculations. While it is true that the cost of space travel is certainly not a cheap one, the benefits are real, even if often intangible. They may be immaterial, but they count for more than anything else. We find it hard to articulate them, because space defies easy labels or quick classifications, but something out there holds some meaning for us. This is true perhaps because we have all, at one time, turned our necks up and just gawked at that starry vastness. How can we marvel at unimportance?

Space travel – the presence and experience of humans in space – has a deep, and almost spiritual value of high import to us as a species. Space defines us, has always been a key to our collective identity. It has historically been the origin of countless mythologies and tales of gods and wizards, creations and destructions. Most of the world’s religions refer to it, if only in the metaphorical. It permeates human culture and art. Even in modern media, examples abound. 5 of the top 10 highest grossing films of all time have been about space.

Space is about all of us. What does it mean to say that space defines us? A simple analogy suffices. Just as a ring or a bowl is defined by what it is not, the non-ring or the non-bowl, we too are defined by the great vastness of the celest above. Our identities – physical and psycho-social – are defined in a complex interplay between the boundaries of existence and non-existence.  When we look up and gaze at that big sky, seeing light ages old reaching our planet, we find ourselves on the thin border of who and what are and who and what we are not.

But people have never had a penchant for accepting such boundaries. We rally against them. Traversing the Pacific to the New World, plunging to the ocean floor, placing our flag on the moon – these are all symbolic acts of the expansion of our collective identity. They are landmarks in the evolution of human will and human dreaming. And so we travel farther, seek higher, and reach further.

Hoffer likens this journey in a different way. It is not so much that space is the great expanse of human possibility but just, in a simple word, home. Space travel and its risks – the intrinsic frailty associated with living in space – just emphasizes the fragility and uniqueness of our current existence on Earth. The more we travel from home, the more we can appreciate it and see it – and ourselves – for what it is worth.

Thus, space exploration has a value that cannot be estimated in dollars or measured on any scale. At one point or another we forget this - or maybe it is simply that we never truly understood it in the first place. We entered the skies for the wrong reasons of political and military preeminence in a race against the Soviets. We are feeling the after-effects of that misplaced intent today. For all of NASA’s achievement, the program has grown unwieldy and ineffective with the lacunae of some direct national need to advance American interests in space. Space exploration must continue, but that does not preclude re-thinking the structure of NASA.

Critics, of course, are unlikely to be swayed by these less practical, more important if more abstruse benefits. But space travel has provided us with much more than we could have achieved otherwise. We have enhanced our scientific knowledge immensely and developed a multitude of new technologies. We are learning more about the universe that we could before. Fire detectors, calculators, the smoke detector, much of the computer revolution, the miniature ventricular-assist device (VAD), Kevlar, some of the core components of the MRI and CAT scanners, and of course, tang – all these devices and more have come from space exploration. The scientific benefits of space travel are grossly underrated.

Critics say it costs too much. While NASA has been poorly managed historically speakingly, this statement is not accurate. While space technology is capital intensive, the return is also quite high. The entire aerospace industry, all the satellites we depend on for world-wide communication, and all the subsequent jobs balances out the costs more than most critics realize.

Because of the human risk, the idea has been proposed for machines to travel in our stead. This would be wrong. We cannot dethrone our rightful presence in space because machines cannot attach significance. They cannot process meaning. Raw data is their forte, so while they may excel in empirical collection, they cannot understand what it means to be in space, to feel that wonder, to be on the very verge of life and death – in short, truly experiencing the beautiful, messy reality of what it means to be human. Robots and machines can complement,  but not supplant human travel. We may have been fascinated when Sojourner touched ground on Mars, but we will only root for a human landing.

Space calls out for us. Or perhaps we call out for it. Either way, it is utterly short-sighted to think our long-term goals as a nation and as a race will not involve space. It will happen sooner or later because, if history is any guide, such developments are almost impervious to any long-term obstacle. Human will is that strong. So why not now? Cost and danger? These have been risked for lesser things. We stand on terra firma, but terra incognita is where we belong. We should be preparing now.

Success always invites risk in any endeavour, and the crew of the space shuttle Columbia knew that. But they undertook it anyway. The best way to honor them is to continue their heroism by furthering their cause, not ending it. As Michael Anderson, Payload Commander of the former space shuttle Columbia, said before he left, “Don't worry if I'm not coming back, I’m just going higher."  We all, too, must go higher. We must continue the exploration of space.