Sunday, November 2, 2014

            Space has been mystifying and exciting humans since humans could look up at the night sky. The possibility of life outside of earth--or an explanation for the life on it, hidden in the stars—has inspired novels, films, songs, and even religions. And most people consider the moon landing of 1969, subsequent moon landings, and all endeavors in which man-made objects fly beyond our home as the greatest human achievements of all time. With all of this in mind, why has little progress been made in space since the Apollo program?
            To answer this, let’s examine computers. In 1965, Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, observed that the transistor count on a microchip doubles every two years, meaning that processing power in computers increases exponentially. Today, “Moore’s Law”, has remained true, proving that since their creation, computers have been meticulously innovated and improved. But, while simple calculators of the 1960’s have blossomed into amazing machines that we use to solve the world’s most pressing problems, sending people to the moon has become as labored and painful as passing a kidney stone.
            One key difference between computers and spacecraft explains this difference in development: selling computers generates profit while doing anything relating to space is tantamount to throwing money into a black hole. NASA spent an average of $1.5 billion for every space shuttle flight and the space shuttle program as a whole ultimately cost us $200 billion. From these flights, we have only gained small advances in our understanding of space and bragging rights.
            In our capitalist nation, you can’t innovate something that you can’t sell and unfortunately, increases in computer processing speed yield more profit than awe-inspiring strides in human achievement.
            The only possibly profitable ventures outside of earth are asteroid mining and space tourism. Asteroid mining proves to be a risky investment, which either fails and brings home nothing, or succeeds and significantly lowers the price of its product by increasing its availability. And space tourism will most likely decrease in popularity after this week’s fatal Virgin Galactic crash. Unless we can revive cold war era competition, the U.S. will have no motivating factors to push further into space.
            The era of space exploration has, for the most part, ended, but many Americans, myself included, remain dazzled by our seemingly endless universe. Until we can find a way to profit from extraterrestrial travel, this curiosity and awe won’t turn into any meaningful achievement. And because that day is so far in the future, we have no choice but to say to those kids who aspire to be astronauts, “Sorry, there’s no money in that.”


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1 comment:

  1. Mr. FitzgeraldNovember 4, 2014 at 3:47 AM

    Yeah, Liam, this is a great post. Thanks. It is substantive, interesting, and well written. I wish I had more to offer. The debate team debated this issue a couple years ago. While advocates of a federally funded space program did present some evidence that the U.S. space program yielded tangible benefits to our economy and well-being, ultimately, I believe you are right. Our motivation to innovate in this country comes from the potential for profit. Regretfully, there is little profit in space exploration.

    There are only two parts of this post that I found less than precise. First, the simile about the kidney stone doesn't really work. You didn't think through that comparison. You just chose an easy example. It doesn't jive with the content or tone of your response. Everything should jive in a tight piece of writing. That simile didn't. Second, I don't think that you can assume that space tourism will "decrease" because of the recent tragedy. That felt like a superficial statement in an otherwise informative and engaging piece of writing.

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