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Human Spaceflight: the Pursuit of Happiness (continued)
Indeed, the human component of space travel was very important in the past: the success of the Apollo program led to modernization and future space programs. Because the United States had landed on the moon, the country began to change quickly. As author Andrew Chaikin noted, "By the time Apollo 11 landed, we were already a changed people; by the time of Apollo 17, we were irrevocably different from the nation we had been in 1961" (Chaikin 583). Computers, exercise equipment, and synthetics became common, household items. We realized that if we can go to the moon, we can accomplish whatever else we set our minds to, and there is no turning back from that mindset. As a result, Apollo encouraged the United States to begin pushing onward, past the moon, to Mars and the rest of the solar system, although, with the Vietnam War still to finish, the country was not ready for Mars at the time. Still, Apollo inspired NASA to continue developing its space technology; the return to space was inevitable.
For that reason, the human component of exploration is still important today in three different ways. Firstly, it is important for the United States as a nation, especially if we wish to remain as one of the top technologically advanced countries in the world. As astronaut Dr. Jay Buckey stated in a class lecture on April 20, 2010, the United States needs to be the forerunner of the "next new industry." By being the first nation to land on the moon, we set a standard and we need to maintain that standard because the rest of the world reveres us. We can certainly accomplish this if we continue to support our human spaceflight program, especially as other countries like China and India look towards developing their own advanced space programs and sending their own men into space.
Secondly, the program is important for the human race in general because it encourages every individual to literally reach for the stars and obtain at least a certain appreciation of space. When we observe the astronauts up in the International Space Station, space becomes applicable to us all because we know that there are men out there, beyond Earth, and it was our human ingenuity and dedication that brought us there. As Chaikin notes about the Apollo program, "Only the astronauts could actually see what earth looked like from 230,000 miles away, but anyone following the mission could share, in some measure, that unprecedented leap in perspective" (Chaikin 2006, 54). Furthermore, human space exploration encourages good science and mathematics skills so that we can become well-rounded people, for if we no longer continue to foster science and mathematics through human exploration of space, we may lose the knowledge which we have worked so hard to acquire. Just as if one stopped exercising, one would lose his muscle tone. In addition, the International Space Station has brought together astronauts and scientists from all across the world, particularly from the United States, Russia, and Japan. Though the United States has often been in conflict with Russia and Japan, the space station clearly offers everyone the chance to work cooperatively in the pursuit of discovery.
Finally, human spaceflight is important for the development of science. The program allows us the opportunity to learn more about our own planet, particularly because we can leave Earth and study ourselves from afar. Because of the negligible effects of gravity in space, the space station offers a unique location to carry out all kinds of new experiments which we could not otherwise perform on Earth. By studying the effects of microgravity on the human body, including bone density and balance, we can better understand how to treat medical conditions on the ground. Clearly, we ought to continue all of the above endeavors because they help us cooperate with one another and form a better understanding of ourselves as human beings.
Now, out of all the issues mentioned when debating the usefulness of human spaceflight, the most controversial issue considers the use of robotic spacecraft in lieu of humans. Those against human spaceflight claim that it is not necessary when we have robotic spacecraft to travel into the universe for us. For instance, the Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, can essentially think for itself with the help of some new software that was recently installed on it. The new technology is called AEGIS, which stands for Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, allowing Opportunity the capability of deciding which objects it wants to explore. With this upgrade, Opportunity's wide-angle navigation camera can take pictures of the surrounding rocks and determine if the rocks meet specific criteria. For instance, it can look for a light-colored rock, and then it can use its narrow-angle panoramic camera to focus in on a specific rock and take pictures of it through three different filters. During a trial run, Opportunity found exactly the rock that the scientists wanted it to find. Thus, if robots can start thinking on their own, like Opportunity, we will no longer need to send astronauts to the Red Planet. Robots are also more useful than humans since it is not very feasible for the astronauts to travel throughout the entire solar system due to the great distance to travel and the long time delays during communications.
Conversely, human spaceflight is still an important part of our lives. It must be acknowledged that human exploration of space does require a certain amount of prior investigation by robotic spacecraft. For example, the Viking 2 mission to Mars, launched in 1975, helped us prepare for future robotic missions which can bring us one phase closer to actually setting foot on the Red Planet in the future. As of yet, we are simply not ready to send humans to Mars, but we are working towards that goal: as NASA researcher Bret Drake said, "We're still looking at human exploration of Mars as one of the goals of the future at the top level" (Choi 2009). Despite our robotic technology, we are still thinking of sending humans to Mars because humans are indeed important in space travel. For instance, robots do not have experience: they only perform the tasks which they are assigned to perform and they have no response to what they are studying, they cannot interact with the material. Even if robots can make their own decisions about what they want to study, like Opportunity, they are programmed to find certain things. It may happen that there is something on Mars which we do not know about, and therefore, since we have not programmed the spacecraft to find that certain feature, it will never notice it. As an example, the Apollo 17 astronauts made a significant discovery when they found orange soil on the moon, but a robot probably would not have noticed this soil. Additionally, sometimes the robots experience problems that would have easily been fixed by a human: Opportunity's wheels got stuck in the Martian soil, but a human easily could have picked it up and let it go on its way.
Evidently, both robots and humans have certain advantages in the exploration of space. Therefore, there should be a balance between robotic missions and human missions instead of one extreme or the other. Robotic spacecraft can only be the precursor to manned missions into the solar system: just as the Surveyor program was the precursor to Apollo, so Viking 2 and Opportunity may be the precursors to a manned mission to Mars. Perhaps venturing any further than Mars is unreasonable because the distance is too great, but humans definitely play a significant role in the exploration of low-Earth orbit, the moon, and Mars. Thus, a partnership between humans and robots is ideal: we should not rely solely on robotics to explore space when humans, too, are beneficial. For example, on the International Space Station, the robots could help set up an experiment, then the astronauts could do their work, and the robots could clean up. Or, robots could travel to Mars ahead of the humans in order to set up a habitable environment. This cooperation between robots and humans seems to be the best compromise because it would save time, make the science performed in space more productive, and still allow humans to explore space at least part of the time. In this manner, humans would continue to pursue knowledge and exploration because that is what we love to do.
Lastly, the issue of highest priority for me is if we should pursue human space exploration purely for the experience of it. Opponents of the human spaceflight program claim that we cannot risk sending humans into space simply for the warm, happy feeling or the excitement we get inside because that does not seem to be worth the millions of dollars we spend on the program. We could be doing better things with our time and money. On the other hand, advocates argue that space is "cool," thereby necessitating human space travel merely because it makes us happy.
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