varjohaltia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
varjohaltia) wrote2004-04-02 03:31 pm
varjohaltia) wrote2004-04-02 03:31 pm
Survival of Mankind
Mark Powell, science downlink coordinator for the Opportunity rover spoke at USF today. Presentations like these, and talking with people that are lucky enough to be involved in space exploration is always an event for me, and today's speech was no different.
Mr. Powell did mention an interesting anecdote, though. One of the managers in the project had apparently reiterated in a staff meeting that what NASA was doing wasn't just cool and wasn't just historic, but was about the survival of mankind.
Now, I don't know if there is anyone that has passed high-school science that doesn't realize that mankind must be able to learn how to live in space to survive past a certain (admittedly very, very distant) point in time. Yet this reason for space exploration seems to be rarely mentioned, and I have to wonder why. Does it evoke images of nerdy Star Trek fans, or is it just on a timescale too significant for the general public (tm) to care? Is it on a timescale people other than us space-nerds find so inconceivably long that we really shouldn't care yet?
Likewise, Armageddon the movie aside, the threat from collisions with asteroids, comets and other rocks hurling in space is small, but has the potential to wipe out mankind much more thoroughly than nuclear war or proliferation of biological weapons ever did. Just for that reason I feel that money and resources dedicated to advancing space technology are well spent.
Then there is the matter of achievement. We must have dreams and goals, something that allows us to exert ourselves on our path towards them. These may be personal matters, ethics or faith, schoolwork, building a corporation, running a political party, what have you. But there should also be ones for mankind. Something that will not only go into history as the finest moment of mankind, but something that we know will do so. Something that will give us pride in ourselves and our civilization, something that will give us motivation to keep us reaching further, higher, faster, better.
Finally, I believe in exploration for exploration's sake. The whole point of exploring is to find things we didn't know existed, phenomena we haven't encountered before, and to find out better ways of doing things. We can't go exploring to find a specific thing; we go exploring to see what we can find!
This is not to disparage those more concerned with immediate problems. War, famine, crime, and all manner of social blights and disasters of course deserve our attention. But even so, am I a total loonie to think that putting humans at great expense and risk into space is not only worthwhile, but essential?
Mr. Powell did mention an interesting anecdote, though. One of the managers in the project had apparently reiterated in a staff meeting that what NASA was doing wasn't just cool and wasn't just historic, but was about the survival of mankind.
Now, I don't know if there is anyone that has passed high-school science that doesn't realize that mankind must be able to learn how to live in space to survive past a certain (admittedly very, very distant) point in time. Yet this reason for space exploration seems to be rarely mentioned, and I have to wonder why. Does it evoke images of nerdy Star Trek fans, or is it just on a timescale too significant for the general public (tm) to care? Is it on a timescale people other than us space-nerds find so inconceivably long that we really shouldn't care yet?
Likewise, Armageddon the movie aside, the threat from collisions with asteroids, comets and other rocks hurling in space is small, but has the potential to wipe out mankind much more thoroughly than nuclear war or proliferation of biological weapons ever did. Just for that reason I feel that money and resources dedicated to advancing space technology are well spent.
Then there is the matter of achievement. We must have dreams and goals, something that allows us to exert ourselves on our path towards them. These may be personal matters, ethics or faith, schoolwork, building a corporation, running a political party, what have you. But there should also be ones for mankind. Something that will not only go into history as the finest moment of mankind, but something that we know will do so. Something that will give us pride in ourselves and our civilization, something that will give us motivation to keep us reaching further, higher, faster, better.
Finally, I believe in exploration for exploration's sake. The whole point of exploring is to find things we didn't know existed, phenomena we haven't encountered before, and to find out better ways of doing things. We can't go exploring to find a specific thing; we go exploring to see what we can find!
This is not to disparage those more concerned with immediate problems. War, famine, crime, and all manner of social blights and disasters of course deserve our attention. But even so, am I a total loonie to think that putting humans at great expense and risk into space is not only worthwhile, but essential?