{"id":20792,"date":"2016-01-23T22:02:10","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T22:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yaabot.com\/?p=20792"},"modified":"2024-02-28T13:55:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T08:25:15","slug":"bringing-back-space-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/bringing-back-space-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Age Still Too Far: Bringing Back Space Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ask anyone in their mid 30s to 50s what they thought of the future while growing up – space colonies, orbital vacations and a Mars base will likely figure on most lists. These were the expectations a generation growing up in the 60s and 70s had and always imagined the future would be the space age. What happened? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half a century after the Moon landing (which we managed to achieve starting from scratch in a little more than decade) – the furthest any human has gone is barely 400 kilometres off our planet\u2019s surface. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did humanity lose its way?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

War Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We’re a flawed species. For a large part of our history, a significant portion of our technological or scientific progress has been an unintended consequence of war, not a pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The rockets that propel our objects into orbit were initially designed as ballistic missiles to threaten nations across vast distances. Ships were meticulously crafted not for exploration, but for empires to expand their grasp across oceans. While the Wright brothers may have achieved the first sustained flight, it was the grim realization of their potential as bomb-carrying machines that truly propelled airplanes into the mainstream, ushering in the space age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever thought about how our exploitation of nuclear energy did not come about with the intent to give \u2018clean energy to the masses\u2019, but only because \u2018the Germans would do it first\u2019? It\u2019s how humans work.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"In<\/a>
In the midst of the Space Age, the awe-inspiring Earth view from space continues to captivate and inspire generations with its profound beauty and fragility – source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The Outer Space treaty, entered into force in 1967, outlawed national expansion into space – terming everything beyond our atmosphere as the \u2018shared heritage of all mankind\u2019. Nuclear tests were banned too. It\u2019s no surprise then that no nation engaged in a race to claim the skies. If there wasn\u2019t going to be war, if there weren’t going to be territories for potential expansion – why go up there?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many would quickly point out the flaw in my argument here. Sure, we\u2019ve made undeniable progress ever since the Moon landings. NASA has been extremely active, and efficient – in covering our solar neighbourhood with multiple probes. We\u2019ve done some fantastic science – we\u2019ve studied the oldest parts of the universe with WMAP<\/a>, we’ve landed on Titan<\/a>, we’ve put a robotic telescope on the Moon<\/a>, and even journeyed almost 5 billion kilometers to Pluto<\/a>. There are of course, people on the planet who engage in science for science\u2019s sake. But somehow, as a collective society, we don\u2019t take all the right decisions. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASA\u2019s been battling budget cuts for decades now. We spent $4 trillion in the Iraq War – a quarter of that amount of money could fund NASA for 55 years. How do these decisions get public approval? The challenges of navigating budgetary constraints for space age era remain a significant concern for the agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep space missions require a power source other than solar because of the sun’s diminishing\u00a0energy beyond Jupiter’s orbit. The missions tend to therefore rely on nuclear RTGs like Plutonium-238 for power. Where is\u00a0this Plutonium-238 sourced from? Until now, from military installations dealing with nuclear research. It’s only now, after 3 decades, that the US produced some amount of Plutonium-238 for NASA.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: Why We Need Plutonium-238<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Return of The Space Age<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, I\u2019m beginning to feel things are changing. The generation that grew up watching men land on the Moon now forms a large chunk of the planet’s workforce. The impatience is showing – space movies made a comeback in 2013 with Gravity, and we\u2019ve been getting one every year since then. NASA received a budget beyond its expectations<\/a>\u00a0this year. Multiple billionaires – Bezos, Elon Musk and more – are willing to burn cash in private space corporations – an industry most VCs would advise you stay away from. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a dearth of interest in the space industry, we\u2019re having rocket launches (and landings<\/a>) being live streamed to millions. It does look like the Space Age is on its way, and it\u2019s primarily because the current generation is subconsciously fed up with how things have gone ever since 1972. It\u2019s come to the point where SpaceX, a private organisation, claims it\u2019ll put men on Mars by 2025, a full decade before NASA claims it\u2019ll do the same, ushering in a new era of the space age.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next half a decade, we\u2019re going to be launching a submarine to Europa. We\u2019re going to send astronauts up to the ISS in a private capsule for the first time, and we’re going to build a test habitat for our future Mars colonists, marking significant advancements in the space age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what\u2019ll really usher in the Space Age – is if we discover anything that\u2019ll arouse humanity\u2019s territorial instincts. If we were to hypothetically discover oil on Mars, however unlikely that is, or profitable mining opportunities on nearby asteroids (there’s already a firm involved – Planetary Resources), I\u2019m willing to bet our R&D will go into overdrive trying to turn mining from these locations into a cost-effective option, regardless of how astronomically (pun intended) unfeasible it is right now. Military involvement<\/a>, and occupation is likely to follow. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s war that drives us. You can get rid of world hunger, and poverty. But war? Unlikely.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"As<\/a>
As we venture into the space age, the prospect of a mission to Mars becomes increasingly tangible, sparking new waves of innovation and exploration – source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

An opposing, optimistic approach to this would be urging each other to give science education the priority it needs in schools, the world over. Our space efforts right now are coming in from a generation that grew up dreaming of a space age. The generation in schools right now is not growing up amidst the hype of the Space Age, Moon landings, or dreams of orbiting hotels. A couple of decades from now, we might be in for another subdued period of little scientific progress if things aren\u2019t corrected on the ground right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A correction is unlikely in my realistic opinion, because of how we take poor decisions as a collective populace. In which case, I\u2019m just going to hope for oil on Mars or diamonds on asteroids.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask anyone in their mid 30s to 50s what they thought of the future while growing up – space colonies, orbital vacations and a Mars base will likely figure on most lists. These were the expectations a generation growing up in the 60s and 70s had and always imagined the future would be the space…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[713,714,715],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20792"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37084,"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20792\/revisions\/37084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}