Forgotten dreams of space

Is space travel a lost cause? I would hope not, but reading the articles about the failures of our efforts to return to the Moon by 2020 makes the future appear very grim. The New York Times reports:

Nasa's current plan is to retire the space shuttles by September of next year after completing construction of the International Space Station, then rely on Russian rockets until a next-generation rocket, the Ares I, is ready in March 2015. The agency would then retire and dispose of the space station in 2016 and use the freed-up money to develop the heavy-lift Ares V rocket, a lunar lander and the technology for building a Moon settlement.

The project was never fully funded, and the budget cuts that President Barack Obama proposes would make it impossible to continue the exploration of space. But part of the reason for the cuts is America's general apathy toward space travel.

A website set up to examine possible cuts received only 1,500 comments as of the end of July. The question, "What do you find most compelling about Nasa's human space flight activities and why?" generated just 147 responses.

"The American people have no idea what's going on," said congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords, chairwoman of the House of Representatives subcommittee on space and aeronautics. "The average American does not know the shuttle will go away at the end of 2010."

Space travel has fallen from the realm of pop culture. While the 1950s and 1960s were saturated with news, films, comics, and books revolving around intergalactic heroes, those ideas have faded away in our current landscape, giving rise to fantasies that revolve more around personal wealth than the common good.

A Tom Wolfe's op-ed, One Giant Leap to Nowhere was published in the New York Times during the the recent anniversary of the historic walk on the moon. Wolfe reminisces about how space was covered 50 years ago, noting:

Every time you picked up a newspaper you saw headlines with the phrase, SPACE GAP ... SPACE GAP ... SPACE GAP ... The Soviets had produced a generation of scientific geniuses – while we slept, fat and self-satisfied!

Nowadays, we can barely be bothered to pay attention to the larger workings of the universe. Recently a major comet struck the surface of Jupiter. If it had hit earth we would have been toast. However, that information was buried deep inside the New York Times, an indicator of widespread disinterest. Who cares about boring things like earth's potential destruction via comet?

Wolfe argues that the lack of public engagement in space travel is due to faulty positioning, for many decision-makers, the determination to head to space was about competition and dominance, not innovation. Wolfe opines that Nasa needs a resident philosopher, and points to Wernher von Braun, a German scientist who joined up with Nasa in the 40s, as the last person on staff who had a vision for space, for Wolfe he raised the question of what the space program was really all about.

It's been a long time, but I remember him saying something like this: Here on Earth we live on a planet that is in orbit around the Sun. The Sun itself is a star that is on fire and will someday burn up, leaving our solar system uninhabitable. Therefore we must build a bridge to the stars, because as far as we know, we are the only sentient creatures in the entire universe. When do we start building that bridge to the stars? We begin as soon as we are able, and this is that time. We must not fail in this obligation we have to keep alive the only meaningful life we know of.

In a discussion The Economist hosted on the future of space travel, two sides debated the necessity of continuing to head toward space. The proposer kept his criticism grounded, arguing that "I would rather put a job in rustbelt Pennsylvania than I would another man on the moon," he argued that if space travel were a possibility, private sector efforts would be needed to take us there. However, the opposing viewpoint took a much longer view, arguing that space holds secrets that we need to unlock:

We need to reshape our space efforts away from "flags and footprint" stunts and toward the use of resources of the ocean of space to benefit the environment and economy of the Earth ... Any child in the 1960s could tell you in four words why America was committed to the Apollo programme: "To beat the Russians." The principal reason that we need to explore and utilise the moon can be expressed in these four words: "To save the Earth."

Space has generally been about catastrophe in pop culture. In the 1990s, movies such as Deep Impact and Armageddon discussed space as a nemesis, a hostile force lobbing agents of Earth's destruction. Even the ever-popular Star Wars franchise presents a tense universe, divided and often at war. Only Star Trek presents a more neutral universe, with a multinational, multi-species crew that focuses on travel and exploration instead of intergalactic war. The Star Trek reboot provides an interesting opportunity to re-engage the populace by returning space to the forefront of public consciousness. Let us not forget the story of Mae Jemison, the first black woman to go into outer space. After working in the Peace Corps and as a physician, Jemison was famously inspired to apply to Nasa after watching Nichelle Nichols portrayal of Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek.

Perhaps actress Zoe Saldana who plays Nyota Uhura in the new Star Trek movie will inspire the next generation of travellers to think beyond the wild blue yonder and to truly master the final frontier.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/30/space-travel-nasa-moon