Who killed Space?

by Luke Leslie April 6th 2008

Space Shuttle Atlantis Docked with Former MIR Space Station

Sitting in the front row in of a 400+ seat auditorium I looked at my Dad in disbelief, I was here, it has has taken 20 years but I'd finally made it to NASA.

Between bouts of trauma by exposing a sensitive child to scary movies my father spent a great deal of my childhood sharing in our mutual fascination in Space. When taken around the London Science Museum aged 3 I could even point out the Lunar Module, the Saturn Rocket, the Space Shuttle, and here I was about to see the guy who pilots the real thing the full 100-km straight up

Antonia, Lola, Astronaut Jon McBride & myself

In strolled Jon McBride, everyone started taking pictures. Jon McBride (an Irish American) proceeded to jokingly take out his powerpoint clicker and tell us a loose history of the space program and his place in it. He was one of the original Shuttle astronauts, he spent most his career piloting Challenger and Columbia - both of which we all should know were destroyed in separate tragic accidents near 20 years apart, but he piloted them both in those early years of the Shuttle. He knew the astronauts who died, they were his colleagues, reminding us all of the human cost of Space exploration.

Then I noticed, people 3 rows back were standing up, they were slowly making their way past other seated audience members. This series of interruptions was infrequent, but very noticable. I looked back at them, as Jon spoke of his fallen comrades. Up to 10 people, nearly all in my own age group, were bored, distracted and leaving. I was shocked.

When you walk into the auditorium there's a large sign, explaining that an Astronaut will be doing a brief 20 minute presentation followed by a Q & A with the audience. I'm confused how exactly they misinterpreted that. It had to be my generation that couldn't hack the full 20 minutes. My father and Aunt were of course fascinated with what he had to say, they grew up in the space age, with every passing decade came new breakthroughs, clearly evident, and highly publicized as having direct correlation with new technologies derived from Space Research.

My dad watched the moon landings Live. Like my aunt and dad Lola my cousin, was just as rivited by his presentation, children and nostalgic adults seem to be the only people who "Get Space" these days. It was nice to watch a kids eyes slowly opening to the achievements and global benefits of humanities scientific endeavors in space.

My generation would rather go ride the shuttle simulator again, they'd rather file out rudely to talk on cell phones, taking digital photos of each other, surrounding themselves with electronic virtual entertainment. All technological wonders afforded to them as a direct result of the space program. They couldn't take the full 20 minutes, the gravitational pull of gift shop was too strong.

Jon McBride pointed out that without the space program, all our mobile phones, digital cameras, GPS, Satellite TV, fiber optics, Wireless Internet, insulation and modern transportation wouldn't be there to be taken for granted. It's the development of these Space age technologies that slowly filter down to us little people. There's a decades delay usually between research and consumer application, but materials researched for the space shuttle by private contractors and research institutes always have countless uses beyond their original inception. Imagine what they're using now that will end up in the hands of our teenagers ten years from now.

So while you read through this piece with squinted eyes, and preconceived, or heaven forbid uninformed notions about where funding would be better applied consider this.

The US defense budget in 2006 was $750,000,000,000 (3 quarters of a Trillion Dollars) every dollar allocated to Space research is a dollar taken away from Guided missiles, advanced weapons research, and experimental and increasingly efficient methods at killing other human beings. The Space program may have been bolstered for political leverage in the days of the Cold-war, but it has always, political intent aside been a peaceful enterprise with the simple, scientific and noble intention of improving the lives of everyone on our planet.

NASA Budget taking into account, Shuttle Retirement in 2010 and inflation for future Moon Missions

No bucks... No Buck Rogers

- The Right Stuff

The fickle and short sighted nature of the general public is what ended the Apollo Moon program. For all its lunacy, the Cold war was a golden age for Space Exploration, the rivalry and competition was actually healthy in that respect leading to countless breakthroughs in communications, engineering, modern materials, and of course our understanding of our place in the Cosmos. Like in business, competition breeds innovation.

I've used this example before, but the technology that we now use to travel on Ryanair on low cost flights is a direct result of military funding that researched and created the first Jet turbines during WW2. People could argue that funding was put to poor, and misguided use, but the current application for it shapes our lives and is impossible to ignore.

Lola and Antonia compared with Rocket base of Saturn V Moon Rocket

Space Research, moulds the modern world, we can tap away on blogs all we like about how it might be better spent building wind turbines, but it's easy to forget exactly what the people involved have discovered, invented and stumbled upon in its name.

I believe that understanding our place in the universe is not just a philosophical or indeed scientific question, but actually the single most important question people could hope to find an answer for.

If we are alone in the universe, we sit on a grain of sand, on which precariously perched is the only life in the entire cosmos, and that has very profound implications for how we might go about protecting and safeguarding this Earth, if we fuck up here we fuck up the only life in the entire universe, It would be quite a mark on our gravestone.

Humanity R.I.P

Destroyed All Life in Universe

And if not, then the implications are far greater, further driving our need to strike out, off our island and head for the mainland. Christopher Columbus discovered America in the Renaissance, imagine if no-one followed in his footsteps. Man set foot on the moon in 1969, I sincerely believe we have a duty to return, to continue exploration, for the benefit of all mankind.

Snore, space is super boring.

Jon McBride stressed this, and causally explained NASA's plan to return to the Moon by 2020, with the primary aim of researching a cheap sustainable closed loop living system for life support and extended stays on the surface. Staying on the Moon longer will necessitate being independent of supply form Earth, and going to Mars in the 21st century will require this even more so. Getting there alone takes 6 months, on a spacecraft akin to the one in the film Sunshine.

Once there, it takes two years for the planets to line up again to make the trip home feasible. A closed loop living system means taking with you all you need for sustainable food, water and energy from a single and mobile source, something you can take to the moon, or take to Mars, something that re-cycles everything.... How might a closed loop living system help Earth?

Think Developing world. And we may well be in striking distance at solving world hunger. After all, they did just discover how to turn Salt Water into white hot flaming energy with radio waves. Space isn't just a sphere with dotted holes pricked in it. It's not there to distract us from our repedative day to day existence, Politicians may harness it to inspire or coheres our opinions away from critiquing war, education of heath, but remember the mainland is out there...

We are truly on a remote and very small island with humanity toiling away like illiterate cavemen. Some of us are throwing stones at the idealists, the romantics, the ettcentrics, but those crack pots are building the first canoe.

It will take research, it will take funding, it will take time, but mostly it will take interest and commitment from the general public, and that is where you come in. It's time to stop snubbing space, we enjoy the fruits from our work up there, and I think we all need to adknowledge that.

Who Killed Space?

Gorbechov.

Before the Wall came down the Soviets had just tested Boran, their first Shuttle. The End of the Cold war turned Space back into Science, Russia's economy collapsed, as did the hanger over their shuttle, killing 8.

The Space Race was more like a Sports league that came and went. People will skive off work for sport. They'll stay up late, cheer, cry and applaud, hell they'll fly aborad and plan their lives around Sport, people used to do so for Space, back in the days when those pesky Russians lent a compedative edge. Whens the last time Space effected you like that? Right... not since the fall of Russian Communism. So you were 2.

Perhaps China will sort us out.

PS - I have zero time for conspiracy theories about the moon landings, mostly because of the 2007 Japansese Satelitte Photos which showed Apollo Rover tracks and landers, but this conspiracy website about the Apollo Program has some very convincing points.