You’ve probably figured out by now that I post as much science fiction and fictional spaceflight as I do “real” manned spaceflight. Give me space shuttle Discovery, the Saturn V, the Eagle, the White Star, the Heart of Gold, the Millennium Falcon — I love them all. I’m a big fan of the retro-future, the places we might have gone and the ships that might have taken us there. That they don’t yet exist gives me no less desire to dream that they might, in the future. Perhaps in my lifetime. Perhaps not. I admit, although I hadn’t necessarily expected tourist travel to the Moon by now, I thought at least somebody would be going there in person, from some country. Alas, earwax.
I read something the other day that keeps coming to mind, as one reason I believe we haven’t gotten further in the conquest of space (along with a lack of understanding as to what exploration means, and why we should be doing it.) It’s a thing called risk. Our culture views risk-taking as a positive thing, when it applies to financial or entrepreneurial ventures, but abhors it when it applies to life and limb.
Here is the quote, emphasis mine:
Not as famous as the Wright Brothers, after all, is Lt. Thomas Selfridge, the first man in history ever to die in a plane crash, but by no means the last. The conquest of the air filled graveyards with pilots. Great futures exact great prices. If we have not conquered space, it is perhaps because we are unwilling to fill our graveyards with the number of astronauts such an ambitious dream requires.
— The Big Idea: John C. Wright
The Mercury 7, being test pilots, knew full well the risks they were taking, and that sudden demise was a distinct possibility. They rode the rockets anyway, and if they died, they died in pursuit of something they believed in. Amazingly, none of the NASA astronauts died right off — in fact, nobody died for a while, which made the Apollo 1 fire all the more shocking. Challenger and Columbia, likewise, shocked and grieved the American public, and the world. However, looking back, it’s amazing we did what we did with the US space program with so little loss of life. How silly is it for us, as a culture, to expect to skip all the grisly bits and proceed straight to streamlined, trouble-free space travel? We emphasize and remember the major accidents (Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia), and granted they were horrible, tragic events, but certainly people don’t make the same fuss over fatal plane crashes. Planes still crash, people still die — sometimes pilots, sometimes innocent passengers. I dare say, there is not the same public outcry toward the FAA as there is toward NASA when we lose astronauts.
Which is a long way of saying, I agree with the above quote. We are unwilling to pay the price*, and that is in part why we have not conquered space travel in the present, to the degree we expected sixty years ago. Heck, this isn’t the future we expected even thirty years ago. What happened to the weekly space shuttle launches?
So, what’s holding us back from our “rightful” place in the heavens? Our culture’s abhorrence of death? Failed leadership? Lack of vision? Money? Technological progress?
What are your thoughts? Please leave a comment below!
* And am I willing to pay that price, you might ask? Fair question — I don’t know. It’d depend on what sort of mission we’re talking about, and I’d have to think about it in any case. (Lunar mission? Maybe. LEO? Not so much.) I doubt many people have an instant answer as to whether or not they’d die for something. Choose your thing carefully.
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I think there are many individuals who are willing to pay the price, but the public doesn’t understand that some people are willing to sacrifice for something greater than themselves. That’s why I’m all for private space companies sending people into space because they don’t answer to the public, they answer to their investors.
the public doesn’t understand that some people are willing to sacrifice for something greater than themselves.
Agreed, the concept is totally lost on this generation. After all, what could be greater than ourselves??!? /sarcasm
Private space is the only way I see this working, in the long run. Thanks for stopping by! :)
I’m also a private spaceflight enthusiast. Governments, as I said in my other comment, are only in it for political purposes. We just haven’t reached a stage where private enterprise views space as profitable (and admittedly, it isn’t…yet).
Well, as I more than hinted at in our conversation on Twitter, I think the lack of ambition is because the frontier on Earth is essentially closed (with a few exceptions, but that’s unimportant right now), and has been for far too long. Progress is driven by mere grasping after wealth and prestige, whereas on the frontier, progress is driven by necessity and discovery. It’s the former folks that decide to FUND colonization efforts (to turn a profit, hopefully), and its the latter folks who actually GO. The problem is, while we have some of the latter folks interested in the High Frontier, the former aren’t yet.
Another reason we don’t send PEOPLE to space much is a bit more practical and one I happen to agree with: for most exploration purposes, a robotic vehicle is cheaper, better, and less risky. In my opinion, the only point at which it is worth sending people to, say, Mars, is as a Mars-to-stay mission (or at least a Mars-to-stay-for-a-while mission).
Another reason we don’t send PEOPLE to space much is a bit more practical and one I happen to agree with: for most exploration purposes, a robotic vehicle is cheaper, better, and less risky.
I agree for the most part — I have nothing against robotic exploration, but while we can do a lot with remotely-operated devices, there comes a point where a human eye can do the same things, but much faster, and more importantly, interpretate what’s being observed without having to wait for instructions from Earth.
That being said, I agree with the [destination]-to-stay idea, rather than more “flags and footprints” stunts designed to pacify the public and make us feel like we’re doing something (ie: asteroids, Mars… Venus??? WTH??)
I just recently discovered your blog and find it extremely enjoyable.
Here are some related thoughts on your article topic that I wrote a few years ago.
Thanks!
Whoops…here’s the link.
http://andromeda-30.blogspot.com/2009/07/three-years-at-horizon.html
Great article! Thanks for posting it, and thanks for stopping by!