The Case for Hope in Outer Space

Despite ever increasing investment in the sector, public sentiment still sways towards the notion that exploring space is a waste of money and a billionaire’s game. But could such sentiment in fact risk our climate security and technological progress? Let’s follow a thought experiment to explore how the argument holds…

Go back 70 years to post-war Russia and the US. The first experimental satellites were being launched, including Sputnik, the first man-made object to reach space. But instead of the cold-war reaching unfathomable heights, and public excitement for the potential of space habitats and Moon colonies reaching fever-pitch, focus on peace and the needs of the devastated, post-war economies take precedent. Mankind never launches but a few satellites into space, and even at that, public sentiment strongly condemns the spending of public funds on such frivolous exploits as ‘exploration’ and ‘expensive science’.

Fast-forward to today:

The world seems to be thriving although the threat of climate change looms. Without well-funded space programs ever having taken off, all our land-based telescopes can make out are fuzzy images of the our planetary neighbours such as Mars, Venus and Saturn. Even the surface of the Moon cannot be captured in much detail. Despite all our technology, including nuclear energy and the internet, we have no images of galaxies and don’t know they exist.

In fact, satellite navigation is unknown to us. We’ve developed an advanced, autonomous image recognition software that automatically navigates ships and planes using the stars, the location of the Sun and Earth’s magnetic field. But the capability only exists in large complicated set-ups, and certainly can’t be fitted to people’s cars.

Also solar panels do not exist. Originally developed to power large satellites, they were never invented in this universe. Society’s main source of renewable energy is wind power, which is proving impossible to implement as a reliable alternative to coal and natural gas.

In fact, without Earth observation satellites measuring temperatures around the world and sea levels, mapping forest fires and understanding the content of our atmosphere, climate change is not terribly well understood. We understand that CO2-levels are rising and certain localities are becoming warmer, and that there tends to be more flooding and fires but all these phenomena are hard to map and understand in a larger, system-wide context.

Society finds itself in a position where it doesn’t fully understand what’s happening to the climate, and doesn’t really have the technological capability to do much about it. Fighting climate change is no longer a matter of will, it’s a matter of capability.

On top of all this, without the advent of the space-race and resulting space-stations, planetary exploration programs, Moon landings and space-based astronomy, generations of children are left uninspired and do not venture into engineering or science. Science, critical thinking and rational fact-based learning has less of a priority than even today, and pursuit of it is seen as somewhat ‘pie-in-the-sky’ thinking.

We are left blinded as a society, not really knowing our place in the Universe among our planetary neighbours, without the engineering capability or know-how to do much about our plight and with an Earth-bound, myopic outlook on life and the potential of society to rise above its problems…

Now back to reality:

Could this be us in 70 years from now? Could this be us if we shy away from the potential space exploration has for humanity? What will happen to us if we only ever set-up a few ‘experimental’ Moon and Mars bases? Would our situation not be the equivalent to the alternate universe just described? Limited technological and engineering capabilities, a dim view of our place in the Universe, a society uninspired and unfocused on advancement of science and technology and blissfully ignorant of looming threats and how to deal with them?

Let’s go back not 70 years, but 500 years, to the time of audacious ship captains and explorers who navigated the high seas in the search of new lands and opportunities. What if these ‘expensive’ expeditions had never been funded? The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would not exist as we know them today. European values of democracy and science-based thinking would never have spread, to be embraced by the Western world and the international community. These values are not necessarily superior or unique, but they did result in massive economic growth and innovation that essentially created the modern world we live in today.

So here’s a strong ‘yes’ to space exploration, to being far-sighted, and to funding ‘expensive science’ and space programs. Here’s a strong yes to the money SpaceX, Blue Origin and the rest of the space-sector is putting into expanding our space-faring capabilities. Because ultimately, exploring the Moon, and Mars, and perhaps even other bodies in outer space such as Europa or the Kuiper belt, will have unimaginable engineering, scientific and psychological benefits for our society. And suddenly Earth won’t seem like being hopelessly trapped in a house on fire, but instead like being on our home-planet, facing a manageable situation solvable using tools at our disposal.