Visions

"Claiming the high frontier"

Thirty-two years ago, Neil Armstong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to land on the moon. It was a time of great jubilation and triumph for the burgeoning US Space Program. People, pundits, and sci-fi authors all argued and quibbled over how and when to build a moon settlement and put people on Mars. People held their breaths to see what NASA would do. And to everyone's surprise, NASA... built a space station with a life span, built glorified orbiting airplanes, and designed probes that would ultimately fail just when they were about to complete their missions. It's as though the agency reached the peak of triumph and was too scared to do anything more. For whatever reason, NASA chose not to do anything to open up space to manned exploration and colonization. This needs to change. Space exploration and development is vital to the interests of both the United States and humanity at large. The new Administration should push NASA into conducting more ambitious missions - and if it can't, then it should open up the stars to either a new agency, or privatize NASA and allow private companies to develop in space. Whatever the means, it should be done - for several reasons.

The major reason for space exploration and colonization is to insure the survival of the human species. As Robert Heinlein said, "The Earth is too small a basket for mankind to put all of its eggs in." Population pressure, nuclear war, pollution, and astronomical dangers such as asteroids all threaten the continuing survival of humans on the Earth. By moving into space - establishing a base on the moon and beginning initiatives for the manned exploration of nearby stellar systems - we can spread humanity out to an extent that no matter what the danger is, the human race will live on.

Another reason for continued space exploration is the development of new resources and technology. Let's face it - the natural resources on Earth are not going to last forever. And as old supplies are exhausted, new ones can be found only by risking drastic ecological damage. If we do not look for new resources off-planet (such as minerals in the moon and asteroids), then we will be forced to continue to disrupt the ecology of the earth, which may have unforeseeable effects. Also, the technologies used in space quite frequently have earthbound uses as well. So by encouraging the development in space technologies, we will also spur technological innovations that can benefit large numbers of people.

Another important reason for space exploration is psychological. Human beings, for whatever reason, seem to need frontiers to explore and develop. Much of the history of the world stems from explorers who need to know what's beyond the horizon, or groups of people going to a new place to lead a new life. These explorers and pioneers are essential for the advance of humanity. However, since there are now no frontiers left on Earth - no new places to explore, I think that humanity will grow stagnant. Signs of this already exist. Look around and you can notice that there have not been any major technological innovations for decades. From 1900 to 1950, the predominant form of transportation changed from the horse and buggy to internal combustion in less than half a century. But in the past fifty years, we've basically only tinkered with the design of automobiles. Other industries show similar trends - major innovation is in the past. If a person from the 1950s were to find herself/himself displaced in time to the present, s/he would be disoriented, but it certainly wouldn't take her/him long to adjust. All of the technology is basically the same - it's just refined. Heck, Florida and New York use the same voting machines.

The bottom line is this: Humanity needs to expand into outer space. The technology exists and is not that expensive, and with further use, the costs should decrease while the innovations increase. It's time we go out into the stars and claim our destiny.