Where have all the spaceships gone?
Justin Dragos
Issue date: 12/7/09 Section: Opinion
Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the starship … nothing? I might not be a Star Trek fan, but even I can notice the distinct lack of any kind of space travel these days.
We send a couple of shuttles out to the space station now and then, or launch a few more satellites, but that's it. It's been 40 years since the first Apollo moon landing, and our technology (especially in computers) has made enormous jumps since then, so why don't we have people living and working on the moon? Where are manned shuttles to Mars? Why don't we have space vacations for anyone other than the very rich? The answer: We just don't care anymore, at least not as much as we used to, and that's a shame.
In 1966, NASA was pulling in nearly 5.5 percent of the federal budget as funding, employing more than 34,000 people directly and approximately 375,000 contractors to help get the Apollo program going, and successfully land people on the moon.
Sadly, however, in 2009 NASA's budget made up less than one percent of the government's budget, which has fallen more or less consistently since 1967. It's true that these are hard times, but those 400,000 jobs NASA was providing in the '60s seems like something we could use these days.
Investing in space exploration has more benefits than just jobs (although the jobs would call for more scientists and engineers, who we sorely need). However, it's an investment in technology and in ideas.
Aside from the obvious construction of spacecrafts and managing to put men on the moon using computers so old the circuits were sewn on the boards, there are a myriad of technologies we use today (both big and small) that came as by-products of the space industry. Some examples are satellites and satellite dishes (OK, maybe a little obvious), medical imaging (a la MRIs, accurate pictures of your insides), ear thermometers, smoke alarms, cordless tools, invisible braces and many more.
This stuff isn't critically important for the most part, but all these things came from a single institution as a result of research needed just for travel to the moon.
We send a couple of shuttles out to the space station now and then, or launch a few more satellites, but that's it. It's been 40 years since the first Apollo moon landing, and our technology (especially in computers) has made enormous jumps since then, so why don't we have people living and working on the moon? Where are manned shuttles to Mars? Why don't we have space vacations for anyone other than the very rich? The answer: We just don't care anymore, at least not as much as we used to, and that's a shame.
In 1966, NASA was pulling in nearly 5.5 percent of the federal budget as funding, employing more than 34,000 people directly and approximately 375,000 contractors to help get the Apollo program going, and successfully land people on the moon.
Sadly, however, in 2009 NASA's budget made up less than one percent of the government's budget, which has fallen more or less consistently since 1967. It's true that these are hard times, but those 400,000 jobs NASA was providing in the '60s seems like something we could use these days.
Investing in space exploration has more benefits than just jobs (although the jobs would call for more scientists and engineers, who we sorely need). However, it's an investment in technology and in ideas.
Aside from the obvious construction of spacecrafts and managing to put men on the moon using computers so old the circuits were sewn on the boards, there are a myriad of technologies we use today (both big and small) that came as by-products of the space industry. Some examples are satellites and satellite dishes (OK, maybe a little obvious), medical imaging (a la MRIs, accurate pictures of your insides), ear thermometers, smoke alarms, cordless tools, invisible braces and many more.
This stuff isn't critically important for the most part, but all these things came from a single institution as a result of research needed just for travel to the moon.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
iHunger
posted 12/08/09 @ 7:46 AM CST
"But let's face it, at the rate we're destroying our planet and increasing our numbers, the Earth just isn't going to hold us forever. Your children or your great-great-grand children are going to run out of land, out of resources and out of luck if we continue to put exploration and investigation on the back-burner. (Continued…)
Paper Writer
posted 12/09/09 @ 2:48 AM CST
Really it is a question where all spaceships are gone.
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