Let's Welcome the New Space Race
Flying has always fascinated humans; soaring across the sky
is the ultimate sense of freedom; in essence, man has eternally envied the
birds. Flying has progressed from Asian kites
to space travel. Americans were shocked
by the Soviet Union’s development of the first inter-continental ballistic
missile in August of 1957, in the middle of the Cold War, and the launching,
two months later, of the first artificial satellite in history, Sputnik. President Kennedy (1960-1963) welcomed the
Soviets’ challenge with confidence and rallied the American people behind a
play-to-win determination; in doing so, he gave America a national dream. Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon in
1969. The United States not only won the
space race to the Moon, it became the world leader in space scientific
exploration. Satellites launched a communications revolution that is still
changing how we live today. The
Hubble Telescope turned out to be more than a great idea; it revealed the
wonders of the universe to humanity.
President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) tried to preserve the national dream, and in 1984, he proposed the creation of the American Space Station Freedom; he made it part of his State of the Union address. Funding for the project was denied by Congress, and the United States instead joined Russia, the European Union, and Japan in building an international space station. In addition, myopic planning on the part of
our government caused us to lose the valuable tool of the American Space
Shuttle; the program was terminated without any replacement in 2011. America was left without any effective space
launching capacity for years to come; it had to rely on Russia's rockets. The American space program has been severely
weakened by serious budget cuts in the last 20 years. It has become a timid shadow of its once
glorious past. As recently as 2006, we
were still talking about an American Moon base and a manned trip to Mars, but
in 2010 NASA was instructed to forgo those plans and limit space activities to
servicing existing systems instead. What
NASA and the American people were being told by our government was to stop
dreaming.
We now know that there is
a huge quantity of water on the Moon and material elements that can be
mined. Of strategic interest is the
presence of industrial quantities of helium 3, a material that is extremely
rare on Earth and that is known to be the key to the development of energy from
nuclear fusion. The winner of this race
could perhaps dominate the future source of viable energy. The space program is
a legitimate energy program in itself; clean energy will come from space in the
form of new materials and new space-based energy projects. It will also provide us with emotional
energy; it will be a new American dream.
While we dismantled our
space program, lowered our sites, and shelved our national dream, the People’s
Republic of China is poised to replace us as the foremost space-going
nation. Communist China’s military
programs in space are also to be feared.
They recently blew up one of their satellites in orbit by shooting a
guided missile at it from Earth. This
technology could give them the capacity to blind us during an armed conflict. Their intentions for the militarization of
space are also worrisome. Fortunately, in
the past four years, a new government administration has significantly increased
funding for NASA, and the arrival of American private enterprise into the space
business, with Tesla’s Space X and others, has made our future in space bright
again. We are once more talking about
landing Americans on Mars. Also, the
threat of Chinese weapons in space is being met with the creation of an
American Space Force.
Establishing the first
working base and a permanent human colony on the Moon is another space race
that we must be determined to win, and again, we should do it on a set and
ambitious timetable. We have learned
that although the surface of the Moon is inhospitable because of cosmic rays,
micrometeorite bombardment, extreme temperature variations, and other factors,
immense underground tunnels present infinite possibilities for human dwelling. These tunnels, known as “lava tubes,” known
to exist on the Moon and Mars, were created by the flow of volcanic lava in the
past. They are large enough to fit the
Empire State Building and run for many miles.
Water, the essential element of life, is also abundant on our Moon;
frozen water is everywhere. Using electricity
in the simple process of electrolysis, future lunar inhabitants will extract
from water oxygen to breathe and hydrogen for fuel. The negative effects of differential gravity
on the human body can be eliminated by the establishment of artificial gravity,
which is usually created by inertial force on rotating platforms.
The Moon is a quarter the
size of the Earth, is near us, is full of resources, and is the stepping-stone
that will catapult us to space exploration.
A solar system full of playful humans is in the cards for this century, and America should not be remiss to be a leader in its realization. What a wonderful dream we can create and how
great the need we have for it.
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