On Wednesday, Jan. 14, President Bush made an aggressive and unmistakable campaign move to snag the conservative geek vote, by announcing plans for manned missions to both the Moon and Mars. So that business student with the “Wrath of Khan” T-shirt and Rubix Cube, who was planning on writing in Ptolemy in November — bagged. But enough of the potential politics involved — should the U.S. commit the resources toward these missions?
The plan is to supplement NASA’s current budget with $1 billion over the next five years, and to reallocate $11 billion from within NASA to the missions, mostly by completing commitments to the International Space Station and retiring the Space Shuttle by 2010. The plan continues by establishing a permanent manned station on the Moon by 2014, and taking advantage of it having only one-sixth of Earth’s gravity, by launching a Mars mission. While this plan sounds relatively straightforward, there are many advancements to be made before any of it may be implemented.
First of all, a vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle must be built. Several aeronautical companies have already conceptualized vehicles that could lift much more into space than the shuttle, though none would come close to the lifting power of the Saturn V rocket, used more than three decades ago to take men to the Moon. Ironic, no?
Secondly, what type of system could be employed in order to protect the crew from radiation once they’ve traveled past the Van Allen radiation belts on their way to Mars? Surrounding the entire vehicle with the crew’s water supply would certainly work, but how stable of a design might that allow, and what if they got thirsty?
The question being posed by most critics is this: Why decrease the payload capabilities, spend the money, and most importantly, risk the lives of men and women to merely set foot on Mars, while robots could do much the same?
I disagree with the critics, for several reasons. I believe that so long as humankind explores our own world and the universe, we will encounter problems and undertake responsibilities not foreseen by engineers years before the mission takes place. Robots may only perform under circumstances that we believe they will encounter — it’s contrary to the reality of exploration! Machines cannot improvise when confronted with an unpredictable situation.
People would also argue that the money would be better spent on domestic problems — education, defense, healthcare, social security, these programs are in dire need of financial assistance. Again, and I’m going way out on a limb here, I support the Administration’s decision. I agree, all of those programs need help, but what are we waiting for, Utopia? Let’s face the facts, all of those aforementioned issues are going to persist, money toward the space program or no, with the exception of social security, which is doomed anyway.
Finally, let’s forget all of our relatively petty problems for just a little while, and focus on something truly grand. Sure, it’s fun to send little ‘bots to planets to roll around, or burn up upon entry, until a certain aeronautics company figures out the metric system, but it is truly something to put a member of our own species on a different planet. I don’t know if there is a logical explanation for it, but it’s an inspiring and romantic notion — it’s there to be done, and we are the people who will do it.
One climbs the mountain not for fame or money but because it is there.
