Falling Back to Earth
Published July 20th, 2009Today marks 40 years since the greatest engineering feat in all of humankind - putting man on the moon with the Apollo 11 mission. I mean no hyperbole - today’s cell phones are orders of magnitude more powerful than the computers used during the Apollo missions. They really did achieve something that could have been considered impossible at that time. But they made the impossible possible and did it. Six times no less. And saved one crew that was within a hair’s-breadth of being lost. This was done by solving a seemingly impossible problem.
For all this marvel and wonder, the sad fact remains that 1969 was the pinnacle of human exploration of space. We have not since surpassed the achievements of the Apollo program. We have explored no more than a small city park’s worth of the moon, close-up. We have not returned in over 30 years. While we have made great technological strides in robotic exploration and put some semi-long term structures in low-earth orbit, we have not actively explored much of anything since Apollo. And that is a failure.
Science and technology go hand-in-hand but are not the same. Apollo was mostly about applied technology, cutting-edge technology. That technology was meant to eventually facilitate science. But it did not happen that way. Since Apollo we have contracted our horizons. Soon they will contract even more. We do not currently possess even the technology to go back to the moon, in person. No heavy lifting rockets. No lunar modules. Our best bet, if for some reason we had to go back on short notice, would be to dig up any remaining engineers and blueprints from Apollo and try to replicate the designs. This is sad and pathetic. This is like having to fight a war today, but your only way of doing so would be to dig up plans for jet fighters from the Korean War. Or considering the plans for the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria as your best bets to cross the Atlantic. We have failed in our technological advancement in space exploration - and travel, for that matter.
Why is any of this important? People who aren’t particularly interested in science and technology often wonder about space exploration - whether it’s worth it. Apollo was just about rocks and flags - but it was supposed to be a starting point, not an end point. And you have to start somewhere. But more importantly is that humans are explorers - it’s what we do, it’s what we do best (besides fight, maybe). Every civilization that has ceased to explore has stagnated and choked on it’s own problems. Not immediately, but eventually. It is not just about political and economic isolation (things that don’t apply to space) but about societal isolation.
The 20th Century was the bloodiest in all of human history. The greatest technological triumphs were applied to both war and peace. The atom bomb and the Apollo program are pinnacles, their application is separate. We must learn that we cannot fight wars AND advance humanity. Fighting a war brings us all down. We must expand our horizons. The space shuttle program was a contraction of horizons. The ISS is a pathetic joke, it is seen as an end and not a stepping stone. Technology must be used to advance us, to further us, not to build dead ends. The longer we spend collapsing in ourselves, the heavier will be the weight of this rock being all there is and all we know.
Think about this next time someone trots out the line “we can put a man on the moon but we can’t do X” - because right now, we can’t put a man on the moon. We once did. But we can’t anymore. This would be like Columbus crossing the Atlantic but in 1532 no one having had followed him and Europe no longer having a single ship that could make the trek. We must explore or we will shrivel up and die. We must advance ourselves or we will end up consuming ourselves in the fires of our failed dreams and forgotten hopes.
Someone hasn’t watched The Fifth Element.
We (humans) know how to love and it will save us all!
Jerk.