Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
National Motives for Space Exploration by Sten Grynir September 23, 2005 Much of the recent debate over President Bush's proposal to send a manned expedition to the moon, and ultimately to Mars, has focused on history (why has it taken so long to follow up on our moon landings of the 60's and 70's?), NASA mismanagement (was the Space Shuttle an engineering and economic fiasco that set space travel back several decades?), and risk (why risk the lives of astronauts when unmanned missions could bring back substantial information without the possible loss of human lives?). The history of terrestrial exploration, however, provides the real reason why the period from 1969 to the present has been such a flop from the standpoint of humans in space.
With the exception of expeditions that could be mounted at low cost, all major exploratory efforts, from the Tang Dynasty's Great Fleet, to the Viking settlement of Greenland and Iceland, to Portuguese explorers rounding Africa, to Christopher Columbus voyage westward, to British and French exploration of North America, have been driven by economic motives: trading advantages, raw materials, slaves. Often these economic motivations stood side by side with national rivalries that generated a fear of being left behind in the race for pre-eminence if the rival nation established a trade route or colony unavailable to one's own nation.
Our space program is no different. We have spent billions of dollars of government and corporate money, but it has all been focused on payback or national security. Communications satellites, and earth monitoring satellites that provide reconnaissance, climatic or ecological information, have all been restricted to low Earth orbit, because that's where the action is. Even the few activities with no immediate economic or national security payback, such as the space telescope or the science experiments done to test the effect of micro-gravity on biological or physical systems, have been done nearby. We have not been intrepid voyagers in space; the International Space Station mooching along like a crippled thing at an altitude of 388 km (around 240 miles) is only as far away from New York as Rochester. If there was a road, we could get there by bus.
I have been a science fiction fan since childhood, and, on some subjects, I am a romantic, and thus emotionally in favor of manned exploration of our solar system. So far, however, no economic motive has been found to induce corporations, individuals or governments to provide the funding necessary. There isn't even a good economic argument for a moon base. Lacking the impetus that Cold War competition gave us in the 60's, and without the lure of gold, spices, timber, slaves or land that fueled our 16th, 17th and 18th century explorations, I don't foresee humans landing on Mars as anything other than a publicity stunt by an Administration looking to distract the public from crucial issues. Unlike previous periods of exploration, where vast tracts could be had for the taking by land-starved Europeans, we have looked at the rest of the Solar system and know it to be inhospitable to human settlement, at least in the short run.
When a solid economic motive can be found, private money will be available to supplement government funding. If a national security need is felt, government money alone will provide what is necessary. Lacking either of these two motivations, I don't see “Upward Ho” or “Go Up, young man” becoming national mottoes.
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