Rediscovering the final frontier

The future sure isn’t what it used to be.

Consider: In less than one year, according to sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke’s vision of the future, manned spacecraft should be approaching Jupiter — with support from a manned lunar base and numerous orbital installations — to study the mysterious monolith that sent astronaut Dave Bowman on a seriously trippy roller-coaster ride culminating in a second infancy, to the tune of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”

OK, the bit about the monolith and the acid trip was creative license. But whatever happened to the bold vision of manned spaceflight and exploration? We chose to go to the moon in the 1960s, and all eyes were fixed on Neil Armstrong as he descended those ladder rungs in lunar-gravity-induced slow motion, taking that giant leap for humankind. In the early ’70s there was Skylab, in the ’80s the space shuttle. Even if dreams of manned missions to Mars by 1986 were a bit utopian, at the very least the idea of venturing into the final frontier of space was a firmly entrenched part of the popular imagination. “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” based on the cult sci-fi series of the ’60s, was a huge commercial success largely because of its optimistic vision of humanity’s future in space.

Where is all that now? The space shuttles are scheduled to be decommissioned, without any alternative available for at least five years. Astronauts will have to piggyback on archaic Soviet-era launch vehicles to get to the International Space Station, a project that has hardly captured the popular imagination in the way the Apollo missions did. There is some talk of commercial ventures into space, but so far this has been limited to glorified roller coaster rides for billionaires wanting to add another entry to their list of outrageous accomplishments.

NASA has sent several unmanned probes to Mars and other destinations to collect valuable scientific data, but proposals to send manned spacecraft to these destinations — former president George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, for example — are widely considered to be flawed and underfunded. Wanting to be an astronaut is a phase children are expected to grow out of. To take an example closer to home: While there are numerous campus organizations promoting awareness of cultural, political and artistic issues, there is only one organization dedicated to aeronautics, the Princeton branch of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

One might argue that we have more important things to worry about. When faced with a frightening economic crisis that shows no signs of abating, ethnic and religious tensions on the rise, the potentially devastating impact of human-induced climate change and other challenges, we might be forgiven for not turning our eyes upward more often.

And yet it is the magnitude of the global challenges we face that should make space exploration more compelling, not less. Though we do not necessarily want to bring back a Cold War mentality, we would do well to remember that the Apollo and other space programs inspired a whole generation of young scientists and engineers which gave the United States the innovative edge it currently enjoys (though this edge is being blunted by the dismal quality of American science education in recent decades).

The historian Arnold Toynbee argued that a civilization thrives when it responds creatively to difficult challenges. Former president John F. Kennedy recognized this when he noted in his Apollo program speech that we chose to go the moon and do other things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” In uncertain times, people look for a symbol of hope, a communal experience that reinforces a sense of possibilities. Exciting manned missions such as a return to the moon or a trip to Mars could provide that experience once again.

But space exploration need not have only symbolic or inspirational value. Within the next few decades, it may become feasible to harness the nearly unlimited mineral resources of the moon and asteroids, and the economic benefits would be truly astronomical. For example, it was estimated that the 433 Eros asteroid contains more gold, silver, zinc and aluminum than has been or could be mined on the entire surface of Earth.

Of course, human beings are notoriously shortsighted when it comes to long-term scenarios. But even in the near future, increased investment in space exploration could stimulate the economy in various ways. Spinoffs of technologies originally developed for space travel have found widespread commercial application, such as Velcro. A thriving aerospace industry provides a big boost to whatever local economy hosts it. Just as in the 1960s, excitement over the potential of space exploration would eventually attract more students to the sciences and engineering, increasing innovation and job creation.

At the moment, though President Obama has made clear his commitment to investing in America’s future prosperity, few people see space exploration as a way of doing that. But I still have hope that in my own lifetime I will see a renewed interest in space and maybe even the realization of Clarke’s seemingly outlandish dreams. In the meantime, I will buy a ticket to J.J. Abram’s “Star Trek” remake and hum Strauss to myself on my way to class.

John David Walters is a religion major from Thessaloniki, Greece. He can be reached at jdwalter@princeton.edu.