Space exploration necessary for progress

By Mike Nicholson

We all woke up to some rather bad news a couple weeks ago. A space shuttle failed - again. As I saw the images of the shuttle breaking up, I was eerily reminded of the Challenger disaster of our childhood years. Seventeen astronauts have now died in an American spacecraft. This makes many of us wonder if space travel is worth it. The answer is a very strong yes.

The disaster of a couple weeks ago probably began shortly after Columbia left the launch pad. A piece of insulation, only two and a half pounds, fell off the large orange fuel tank shortly after liftoff and scraped the delicate heat shield tiles on the bottom of the space shuttle. It appears that one or more of these tiles then failed during the re-entry maneuver exposing the aluminum shuttle skin, which is about as thick as a cookie sheet, to over 3000 degree temperatures. This caused the skin to melt, which then caused more tiles to fall off and eventually the entire shuttle to break up.

This disaster has brought back into question the importance of spending money on space exploration. The Columbia spacecraft alone cost nearly 2.1 billion dollars to construct, not to mention all the experiments and equipment onboard. Some people argue that this astronomical sum of money would be better spent here at home on welfare or education.

However, if we cancel the space program because it is not directly beneficial to our fellow Americans, would that not also mean the cancellation of all other pure research projects? Pure research projects and similar long term expendintures such as investing tax dollars in the fine arts, are core to our cultural development.

Although our knowledge of space has changed greatly since the 1940s, our fundamental reason for venturing there has not. The adventurous nature of the human spirit is always on the search for a new frontier to explore, and space is one of the only ones that remains.

Manned space exploration does not stop at adventure, though. Many down to earth discoveries that apply directly to us today were only made possible by this dangerous activity. Many protein and hormone crystal formations, which teach us much about how our bodies work, are only possible in micro-gravity environments.

We have also learned much about weather and the environment from our high perch in orbit above the Earth. One of the experiments onboard the Columbia when it was destroyed was examining the effects of gravity on tumor growth, and even though the shuttle was destroyed much knowledge was gleaned from that experiment.

All of the discoveries we have made that directly benefit us on the ground are only a small part of the potential of human space flight. The true benefits of our steps into space are probably little known as of yet. Who would have assumed, even 60 years ago, that there would be thousands of pieces of metal orbiting the earth reflecting radio waves for our communication purposes, or who then could have dreamed of the satellite pictures we take for granted now. The technologies from our space travel that are most important to our survival and happiness we may not know until they hit us in the face years, or decades from now.

For all we know manned space flight could yield discoveries in alternative energy sources to reduce pollution, or spot the early signs of some devastating natural disaster and save millions of lives as a result.

I would like to hope that we understand the importance of our space program, because it is more than a point of national pride, and even more than an expensive source of a limited number of spin-off technologies, medical experiments and environmental discoveries. What we are doing now in space could well save humanity in a big way someday.