Why the Stars Remain so Distant

Astronomy, space travel, the idea of the limitless, unexplored frontier . . . these combined have represented a passion and, to a degree, a hobby for me since childhood. Even now I regularly read whatever I can find about the universe and our place in it, even with my telescope broken, even as I live in Canada's light pollution capitol. That's why the policies of the world's space agencies - NASA in particular - never cease to annoy and exasperate.

NASA deserves special criticism because it is granted far more funding and, with the possible exception of the ESA, has greater political autonomy than its rivals. However, for many decades the agency's policies have drifted, caught by the fickle winds of would-be Kennedys or, worse yet, the desire to make a splash in the public eye. Hence the space shuttle, the ostensibly reusable, cost-effective ferry to space which, when finalized, was not only bereft of a cosmic port - Skylab had long-since plummeted to earth - but was in large part not reusable at all and so cost a fortune with every launch. The International Space Station, planned in the 1980s, was an excellent conceptual fix to this problem. Initially designed as a construction port as much as a scientific research station, it would give the shuttle a reason for being while facilitating human exploration of space. However, as so often happens with NASA, cost requirements resulted in the removal of its critical component - the construction facility - and the station's creation began so late, lingering so long, that the shuttle will be out of commission at roughly the moment the station is complete. The station's scientific contributions have hardly justified its astronomical price; in fact its prime use has simply been to solidify, if not dramatically expand, existing knowledge of building in space.

Then there is the new lunar program, launched with pomp and circumstance by the late great president Bush. The mission is to construct an American base on the moon using existing technology - a bigger Saturn V, basically - but with funding that when adjusted for inflation pales in comparison to what financed the first lunar expeditions. Ironically international cooperation, perhaps the major breakthrough in space exploration since the 1980s, has little part in NASA's next step forward. Ultimately, even if fully successful this vastly expensive endeavour will likely achieve little more than the International Space Station, expanding our knowledge of building and operating in space using existing technology but contributing little to humanity's understanding of or presence in the universe.

To me, these policies and programs have represented a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars that, if properly invested, could have dramatically expanded humanity's presence in space while improving our lives on earth. Space agencies should be the vanguard of human exploration in space, but true expansion into the cosmos can only be realized outside of government. Take an earth-bound example from another of my passions: history. While many European voyages of discovery in the medieval and early modern period were financed by governments, the resulting expansion of the European presence overseas, while certainly accompanied by political consolidation, was largely a function of private initiative.

Before such expansion can occur, however, two developments are critical. The first concerns the strengthening of existing pulling factors, and the discovery of additional pulls beckoning humanity into space. It may be, of course, that these factors will grow automatically as our planet runs out of resources in the face of relentless human demographic and economic expansion; then again new technologies - like the European fusion project - may mandate the exploitation of new resources only rarely found on earth. Ideally, however, these pulling factors will be of a more positive nature, developing not because we have over-exploited our planet but because our future lies in the stars that ultimately enabled our creation. This is not to say that tremendous material wealth should not be used if it exists outside our atmosphere, but rather that our expansion into space should be about more than the largely capitalist exploitation that threatens our environment.

In any case pulling factors will not be discovered and cannot be effectively realized without the development of new technology to dramatically lower the cost of space travel, improve its safety and reliability, and preferably shorten the distances involved by increasing the velocity of spacecraft. This is where our space agencies have failed most egregiously. When it comes to manned spaceflight in particular NASA and other space agencies have preferred to recycle existing technology with only minor improvements in the hopes of inspiring the public - and governments loathe to grant money - through a series of largely superficial achievements. What is really required for the opening of space, however, are significantly investments in the service of a greater scheme to improve the technology and infrastructure behind our access to space and its major attractions. The tens of billions of dollars poured into, for example, the space shuttle, the space station and now the new lunar program would have been infinitely more useful were they invested in the attempted construction of an international space elevator, for example, or quicker, more effective means of propulsion (such as the nuclear-powered orion spacecraft planned by NASA engineers in the 1960s, pictured above).

The world's space agencies, working together, ought to serve as a vanguard for our expansion into space. They should develop the technology and undertake the initial exploration of space. Their purpose should not be to endeavour the entirety of human expansion beyond our atmosphere. Such expansion, currently justified by space agencies with lofty catch phrases and grandiose time charts, will never prove worthwhile or lasting if it is carried out only by space agencies. Without technological daring and the rise of new factors drawing us into space our species will remain largely confined to our atmosphere. Until we learn to live with our environment and with one another on earth, however, this may in fact be fortunate: we may not deserve the wonder of our universe if we can't preserve our home.