Americans have always loved space. Another generation remembers watching the sky for signs of satellites, or gathering around the television to watch the first moon landing, and as children we played astronauts and dreamed of exploration, even decades after the last great steps in space travel.
We see UFOs, or think we see them. When we think of the future, we see colonies, and expeditions, and an American flag on far-flung planets.
The future has arrived, however, and it is not the future of Heinlein novels and Star Trek episodes. The nearby planets aren’t habitable; we haven’t discovered wormholes or lightspeed, and even space aficionados tend to avoid grand pronouncements and utopian dreams.
But is space necessary?
Space has served as an extension of American hopes, which are human hopes. To seek, to expand, to discover — these goals are larger than the people or nations that harbor them. To abandon these goals would be to abandon a fundamental urge of humanity, and lower our sights when we need something to reach for.
There is also the more tangible truth that the space program has driven many of the innovations we take for granted. From computer technology, to satellites, to GPS, to water treatment and on, NASA’s missions have led to technologies that help us live longer and better. Innovation is always driven by impossible goals, and a country without a space program would quickly miss a technological driver.
So how should the space program continue?
Some argue that the age of NASA should end, and that the future of space exploration should lie with private interests — with “the National Geographic Society, or an offshoot of the Latter Day Saints, or an adventure tourism company,” as aerospace engineer Rand Simberg provocatively argued in The New Atlantis. This approach might be affordable, but is it viable?
Others believe we must set a large goal — the Kennedy model, if you will — and let bravado carry the day. This approach has the advantage of history, but can history repeat? And more seriously, do we still live in a country that has the determination to set large goals and reach them, even if the money gets tight and the politics gets ugly, and years and administrations pass by?
President Barack Obama, who space geeks hoped was with them, has proposed changes to NASA in recent weeks. The Constellation program, intended to carry astronauts to Mars and beyond, will end, and be replaced with a “flexible-path” plan that aims to send humans to Mars by 2030, technology and willpower permitting.
Perhaps this plan is wisest, though some, including Neil Armstrong, have criticized it. Or perhaps it is the easy way of saying “no” to NASA, and to the legacy of Kennedy and Armstrong. No president wants to crush our dreams of space.
The space question is difficult, and finding our way to space will be more difficult with each passing year.
But perhaps it’s a sign of sorts that NASA just released, for the 20th anniversary of the Hubble telescope’s deployment, a picture of the majestic Carina Nebula, where stars are born. Look at it, when you can, and try to argue that humanity should ignore it. How and when we will reach the stars is uncertain, but reach them we must.
You can’t take the sky from Will. Reach him at wmunsil@asu.edu