Space?

There is one thing regarding space travel that everyone can agree on, it’s expensive. Much of the dilemma when it comes to the question of whether or not we should explore Space comes to the amount of money it requires. NASA’s Space Shuttle program, for example, with inflation costed a total of 196 Billion dollars. 1  Most of this funding was from the US Government.  Many people argue that this is money we should be using for healthcare, fighting global warming, welfare, and various other government organizations. Luckily, we have come to an age where private companies are now finding new and innovative ways to engineer the future of space travel for a lower price tag.

SpaceX for example, has created it’s reusable Falcon Heavy rocket which is able to lift up to 64 metric tons of payload into orbit for a max cost of $150 million. 2 This in comparison to the current launch system capable of carrying that payload, the Delta IV Heavy Rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance, costs $300 million per launch. 3  Some sources even have that number up to $600 million and it is not reusable. While the $150 million price tag is still fairly high, it dwarfs the cost of a typical shuttle launch, $450 million. Shockingly, most of the shuttle is reusable, so that price is mainly for maintenance costs and manufacturing the boosters attached to the shuttle.

NASA’s estimated expenditures, adjusted for inflation, since its 1958 inception has been about 900 billion dollars. 4  In that time, they have managed to send hundreds of people into space, send a person to the moon, and had a large role in constructing the International Space Station. It seems in recent years that NASA is diminishing, largely associated to the lack of funds. In a way, this isn’t entirely a bad thing. Maybe space exploration should be something done by the private sector. Since the growth of private companies has been increasing at a steadily increasing rate, why stop them? I personally feel that this leads into a major flaw in our government structure of today, but that is a totally different topic.

Here’s a cool site with statistics on NASA

The saying “money isn’t everything” doesn’t exactly apply to space exploration. In the past decade, the United States has been through a recession and the national debt continues to rise. As people across the nation commute to work on dismantled roads, fly from dirty, old airports, and see others struggling financially, they realize there are more pressing issues with which to use our tax dollars. Some Americans are seeing space colonization and exploration as an unnecessary luxury and less as an essential enterprise. In the 1960s-1970s there was international competition between government run space operations. Government spending on the space program was not controversial because everyone wanted America to be at the top. Now, there is no longer a “space race” between countries, but rather a friendly yet immense competition between the private companies in the United States. Public involvement and enthusiasm in terms of space travel has drastically decreased since the Apollo rein. That doesn’t mean that the Space program is dying out, it means that the future of Space exploration depends on enthusiasts from around the world collaborating to set and accomplish goals.

 

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program

2 https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/three-years-of-sls-development-could-buy-86-falcon-heavy-launches/

3 https://www.space.com/39779-falcon-heavy-facts.html

4 https://news.utexas.edu/2014/07/21/anniversary-shows-us-that-nasa-and-space-exploration-are-worth-their-costs

If Christopher Columbus had a remote controlled ship to sail across the sea to discover the new world, I’m sure things would’ve been a lot easier. With technology of today, we are able to get full reports of the conditions on planets of our solar system without even being there physically. Not only is sending robotic spacecraft into space a lot safer, it is also a lot cheaper. 1 A lot of the time, members of the astronomical community believe that sending unmanned probes into space is much more effective as well. A robot can make much more precise measurements than a human with our broad spectrum of senses. On the other hand, human exploration has its benefits as well. The ability to make decisions as a human would isn’t typically associated with robotics, at least not in this day and age. Those in charge of space missions have to consider many factors when planning space launches. There is much of a societal push to send humans into space. In a Pew Research poll, it was found that 59% of Americans feel that manned exploration is pivotal in the future of the US’s program. In a poll done on AAAS Members (American Association for the Advancement of Science), also by Pew Research, it was found that only 47% thought humans were essential for the future of space. 2

NASA currently contracts external companies to send astronauts into space at an ever increasing price. The last of NASA’s manned missions ended with the Shuttle’s retirement. 3 The trend of humans in space has taken two peaks since its inception. (See infographic below) The first peak was when a moon landing was the goal and the second peak was largely associated with the launch, assembly, and maintenance of the ISS (International Space Station). 4  Countries across the globe have planned to create manned space programs. Although scientists don’t feel manned missions are fully necessary, the whole purpose of exploring space is to see where else we can go. There are always talks of “going to mars by 2020” or “back to the moon in 2018” but it is unknown when we will actually be able to send humans. It seems that society is more intrigued when humans are involved, as if the risk is entertaining, but something that is oftentimes overlooked is the immense volume of facts we’ve added to our encyclopedias. Through sending probes beyond Earth’s orbit, we have learned that there are oceans in the far reaches of our solar system with conditions that could support life. Sending a human out to these distances wouldn’t necessarily be impossible, but it wouldn’t be easy.

Image Source: Wikipedia

SpaceX, being a very impressive privately owned space agency, has yet to send humans into space, but they do have plans to. Since their founding they have managed to create rockets able to be reused and even sent a 100,000 dollar car to do a flyby of Mars. Agencies around the globe have started working together to fully explore space. Countless unmanned missions are currently buzzing around our solar system, and even beyond, to learn everything we possibly can before sending people, in the flesh to these places. The ISS has been very useful as an experiment HUB for many nations, but many believe it’s end may be coming. The future for the ISS is a totally different topic but 2 people have already paid a cumulative 20 million dollars for a trip to this place. 6 An orbital Motel 6 perhaps?

Even though not everyone can agree that space exploration itself is even worth it, there is a whole different category of people debating whether sending humans is worth it. We, unfortunately can’t measure the exact temperature, identify what’s in the air by looking at it, or survive conditions of Space without a nice heater and oxygen, but if we aren’t sending humans into space, many argue what the point is in the first place. If space exploration was founded on human exploration, shouldn’t that be our main task? Fortunately, the future looks bright, and whether or not we send humans or a robot named Juno, we should all hope they have  smooth sailing.

1. Crawford, Ian. “Dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency: why human space exploration will tell us more about the Solar System than will robotic exploration alone. .” 2012. Accessed March 11, 2018. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.6250.pdf.
2. Pew Research. “Space Program and Human Astronauts.” September 11, 2014-October 14, 2014. Accessed March 11, 2018. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/pi_2015-01-29_science-and-society-03-22/.
3. “List of NASA missions.” Wikipedia. March 09, 2018. Accessed March 14, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions.
4. “List of human spaceflights.” Wikipedia. March 11, 2018. Accessed March 14, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights.
5. “Human spaceflight.” Wikipedia. March 13, 2018. Accessed March 14, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_spaceflight.
6. “Manned vs. Unmanned Space Exploration (Part 1).” Phys.org. Accessed March 14, 2018. https://phys.org/news/2005-11-unmanned-space-exploration.html.

In 2017 there were a total of 90 total space launch attempts. In the 1970s, there were  consistently over 150 total launches (Wikipedia). So why have countries, despite increasing our scope of technology and sophistication, been decreasing the number of funds dedicated to space exploration? That question is a very tough one to answer. Humans as a species have a history of being explorers, so some would argue that space is the next frontier. Additionally, many people agree that our oceans are just as mysterious as outer space. Who knows? Maybe the deep sea could be home to giant colonies of humans  if we were, for some reason, unable to live on the surface of Earth. Space exploration is a beyond giant investment for any stakeholders involved and it is risky from the start. Payload and even people being launched into space aren’t even guaranteed to get there and we’ve been doing this for decades. Funding spaceflight is a risk-reward type of ordeal and many governments around the world have started to see space as an unnecessary expense. Below is a figure that displays the number of launch attempts in the past. As you can see below, there are many scheduled attempts for space launches in the upcoming year and beyond.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

There are two main topics related to space exploration that seem to dominate pop culture recently: alien life and exploration past the moon. Scientists, on the other hand, have been continuously perfecting previous technologies and accomplishments while also putting a fair amount of time into the “cooler” stuff that people like to hear about. NASA and SpaceX have been teaming up since 2006 to develop a method of transportation to shuttle NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. Instead of NASA pioneering the field of space exploration like it has in the past, it now uses its funds to pay other companies and even other countries to assist them. Space exploration in our country has gone from being largely associated with American pride to being accomplished by wealthy and entrepreneurial enthusiasts. In fact, you can even see the effect of these new companies in the chart above. In the past decade or so, there has been a steady increase in the amount of space launches.

Space travel is impossible without massive amounts of money. For example, a single Space Shuttle mission, in today’s dollars, was estimated to cost about 450 million dollars (Wikipedia).  That means, over the entire duration of the Shuttle Program that we spent about 196 billion dollars on that alone. The government and much of society just doesn’t think all that money and time is worth it anymore because in their eyes, NASA does not have much to show for it. They haven’t made any monumental discoveries recently and they haven’t made any major strides towards colonizing past the reaches of our planet. According to various Pew Research Polls done in 2011, nearly 60% of Americans think it is essential for the United States to lead the space exploration industry. On the contrary, a Harris Survey done in 1970, less than a year after the first moon landing showed that 56% percent of Americans didn’t think that the landing was worth the money. However, a Harris poll taken a year later showed that 81% of Americans agreed, “Nothing can equal seeing the astronauts land and walk on the moon as it happened live on TV.” Polls taken through the years have showed that Americans are for space exploration but think that we spend too much money on it. Another pew research poll said that well over half of Americans foresee a Mars landing before the year 2050. The optimism is there, but not the funds. NASA’s current funding is about 0.5% of the federal government’s budget. With decreased funding, they are forced to eliminate and drastically decrease costs for some projects. In 2012, the budget for NASA’s planetary sciences department, the one responsible for Mars exploration had a 20% decline. As a result, the Mars Exploration unit was severely crippled to the point where they considered putting the Opportunity Mars Rover out of commission.

Our modern society knows more about the endless reaches of space than we do about something that makes of 70% of our planet’s surface, the oceans. We have come a long way in the last 50 years. The enthusiast’s interest in space is fueled by the natural human tendency to be curious and adventurous. Initially, much of the American public was never even interested in scientific discoveries. The craze at the beginning was all about beating the Russians. Now, many are quite interested and captivated about the scientific aspects of the field, but we lack the funds and resources to keep it going. Over 200,000 people signed up to leave this planet for the rest of their lives and colonize a planet that nobody has ever set foot on. Curious minds across the globe are now coming together to make their farfetched dreams a reality. Maybe government involvement is a hindrance to the process, maybe it’s not, but only time will tell.

 

Resources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight

http://www.history.com/news/from-sputnik-to-spacewalking-7-soviet-space-firsts

5 facts about Americans’ views on space exploration

https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/beyond-planet-earth-the-future-of-space-exploration/

 

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