Do Humans Need to Return to the Moon? Or Go to Mars?

I've always been a fan of space exploration. There were good reasons to send people to the surface to the moon, as we did starting with the landing of Apollo 11's lunar excursion module on July 20, 1969. From that date, a total of twelve people walked on the Moon, the culmination of NASA's Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects.

But from a purely scientific perspective, one wonders about the wisdom of the new NASA program to return humans to the Moon, establish a space station there, and use it as a launching site for a trip to Mars.

Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland argued against manned space exploration in yesterday's New York Times. It's an argument many scientists are making. In a nutshell, they say that manned spaceflight adds inordinately to the expense of exploration and that robots can do the same work we want to send humans into space to do.

To some, this assertion by the scientific community will seem to echo the resistance of space scientists to the original Mercury astronaut program back in the late-1950s. That resistance was memorably, if cartoonishly, portrayed in the movie, The Right Stuff. The scientists of that era, however, underestimated the pychological importance of proving that humans, particularly American humans, people whose nation was caught up in a deadly Cold War, could go to the Moon. The space race challenged the two nuclear superpowers to enact their hostility in a postive pursuit that didn't involve them in shooting at one another. It was a mano a mano contest pitting the free human against his Communist counterpart.

But there is no such psychological need for manned space flight today. Should we explore the cosmos? Absolutely! But, many in the scientific community argue, we can cut the costs of space exploration and enhance its scientific value by using unmanned flight. Writes Park in his op-ed piece:

Much of what we yearn to discover in space is inaccessible to humans. Astronauts on Mars, locked in their spacesuits, could not venture far from shelter amid the constant bombardment of energetic particles that are unscreened by the thin atmosphere. Beyond Mars, there is no place humans can go in the foreseeable future. The great adventure of the 21st century will be to explore where no human can possibly set foot. The great quest is to find life to which we are not related. Could nature have solved the problem of life in some other way, in some other place? When we find out, we will know much more about ourselves.

Two mechanical geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, are doing this even now, by searching for evidence of water on opposite sides of Mars. They don't break for lunch or complain about the cold nights, and they live on sunshine. They've been at it for nearly two years, yet their mission costs less than sending a shuttle to the International Space Station. The brains of Spirit and Opportunity are the brains of geologists back on Earth.

The expression of a kind of scientifuc hubris? Maybe. But I'm inclined to think that Park makes a lot of sense.

I've never bought the argument made by many against space exploration that says until we solve our problems on earth, we shouldn't send rockets into the cosmos.

For one thing, the science that has made space exploration possible has proven beneficial to solving problems here on earth. (Weather satellites, for example, have been beaming back images of Hurricane Rita which will prove, at the end of the day, to have played an essential role in saving the lives of thousands.)

For another, if we wait to create utopia on this planet before undertaking hard scientific projects, be they privately or publicly funded, science will grind to a halt.

But prudence and wisdom about spending in an era of massive budget deficits seem appropriate. The Bush Administration may be tacitly acknowledging this in the timetable it has approved for returning humans to the Moon. According to the recently announced NASA plan, it's to take place by 2018.

In 1961, as Park points out, with far inferior technology, President Kennedy set a goal of reaching the same destination for the first time by the end of the decade. Had Kennedy not been killed and had he been re-elected in 1964, the moon landing might have occurred before the end of his second term on January 20, 1969.

In other words, Kennedy's goal put the heat on him and his administration to get the feat accomplished during his tenure. This latest program establishes a deadline for landing on the Moon that's nine years beyond January 20, 2009, the date on which Bush is scheduled to leave the presidency.

A cynic might say that this is the classic ploy of Presidents who want to put off the days of reckoning for programs by dumping the tough decisions on their disposition and funding onto their successors' desks.

Park and I may be underestimating the need the public has for a human connection with space exploration. Absent the involvement of human beings hurtling through space, Congress and the American public could be less inclined to support space exploration.

But my own guess is that in a time when we're footing the bill for a war on terrorism, a war in Iraq, hurricane relief, addressing the Avian Flu challenge, and the need to shore up our aging American infrastructure, people will want to save a few bucks by not sending Buck Rogers into space. He (and his female couterpart) unnecessarily add to the costs of doing what we need to do: explore our universe.

I could be wrong, as always. But that's what I think.