Allow me to make something clear. I believe that the two most important human endeavors are scientific progress and space exploration. I believe that the third is solving my Rubik’s Cube. This is the first article in our new technology series called ‘Why You Should Give a Shit‘
Note the Formation of the Bell-end
This week, two important bits of news surfaced about the world’s space-faring plans. One is that NASA successfully test-fired the Ares 1-X rocket this week, and the other is that the Russians are building a nuclear spaceship engine. Holy Shit.
To give you some background, the Ares 1-X rocket is a massively over-budget project that is a good decade overdue (wikipedia). It is the first propulsion system developed by NASA since the Space Shuttle program, well over twenty years ago. It is being developed to help replace the shuttle fleet, which retires next year.
The Russians, on the other hand, don’t have quite as many aces in the pocket. When I say building a nuclear spaceship, what I mean is that they have approved plans to begin planning development of one. The photo (below) is of a 1960s Cold War relic, and I’m pretty sure Plan B was ‘use it to put a dent in Manhattan’.
Moving swiftly along, the reason you should give a shit about space rockets is this. We’ve done Earth now, seriously. We have the technology and the resources to begin manned exploration of our immediate local space. We have the ability to map our entire galaxy, and perhaps begin planning our exploration of the nearest habitable stars. We could have orbital factories producing near-perfect items in microgravity – scientific instruments, computer chips, vital aircraft components – that could vastly improve quality of life on earth. This planet won’t be habitable when some some distant generation of our children is born. There couldn’t be a more important pursuit.
Dude, I'm not gonna push the button. You can push the button.
We have everything we need to accomplish all of this while you and I are still alive, and able to watch it on TV without having to get up in the middle to take a piss. What we don’t have is the cooperation, or the commitment from the ones controlling the money.
Allow me to illustrate with an example. During the mid 1940s the United States government began a project that was to eventually last over four years, be run across 30 different universities and laboratories, involve over 130,000 people and cost the government over $2 Billion dollars. That was a lot of money back then.
Government spending on research, and the level of scientific cooperation involved, had never been seen on this scale in human history. The number of man-hours put in by physicists, engineers, and support staff was astronomical, and their achievements were so extraordinary that they changed the world forever.
Unfortunately, it was The Manhattan Project. Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer his team’s goal was to develop a nuclear weapon, before the NAZIs did. Lots of great things came out of it, and many would argue that someone would have worked it out anyway. But it was driven by fear and the desire for destructive power, and that is why it was so successful.
The Apollo Program, which landed a man on the moon, also faced massive challenges. It was likened to trying to trying to launch a bus into space using only a Volkswagen Beetle and some duct tape (I forget the actual analogy). But it worked, purely because Kennedy had said they’d do or their name would be Arse.
If only we could get that kind of commitment and cooperation, and free spending of resources, imagine what we could achieve. If the world’s super powers combined their space programs and increased their budgets by decreasing their spend on arms, we could see something truly incredible in our lifetime.
I’m fully aware of the idealism creeping into my tone. It is unfortunate that, while we have the potential to do these things, the cooperation needed is something we are not likely to see soon. Only by raising awareness and increasing public curiosity about the universe beyond our little blue rock will we manage to get our governments to place the appropriate value on finding whatever is out there.
[For the real space nerds among you I have included the video of the Ares 1-X launch the other day. It's actually pretty bland, but the only way it could have been more phallic is if it had large spherical fuel tanks at the base. But that would have ruined the aerodynamics.]
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