Kian Hagerman
Whatever happened to our nation’s space program?
is there a place in our society for socially funded space exploration in modern times?
I can remember fondly when my parents would talk about our nation’s history in space.
One day I could be an astronaut they said, and travel the universe uncovering life’s mysteries.
Today the only way that might be possible is as an employee of a private company, or becoming wealthy and chartering a commercial ship to take us to the stars.
Even these possibilities are slim, as unmanned travel has become much more common than sending someone in space.
Some say the risks outweigh the benefits; why travel through a Van Allen radiation belt, risk broken bones and the various other dangers of such a trip, when a robot can perform many of the same experiments a human could?
There are many things a robot cannot do, and that is to say nothing of experience.
In our past, many advances in technology came out of not only NASA, and our space program in general, but also the engineers who were inspired to create by what we could accomplish.
The computer microchip used in your PC at home is a direct result of the integrated circuits used in the Apollo 11 Guidance Computer.
With the massive reduction of the space program, we no longer have something to strive towards as a nation.
Consider this: the money spent on the bank bailout of 2008 is greater than the entire budget of NASA in the last 50 years.
The problem isn’t a lack of available funding, it’s that our priorities as a nation have become clouded.
As a nation, we once understood that though we may not realize all the tangible benefits of such an undertaking, space exploration had a significance that made it worthwhile.
We should always be seeking a greater understanding and appreciation of the universe we live in, and that was NASA’s greatest prospect.
Abraham Lincoln once said “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
This rings true especially with the space program, and it’s failures are also our own.
