Yesterday, the NASA expedition Artemis II successfully launched, initiating a new era in US lunar exploration by humans rather than unmanned missions. What are we to make of this new phase?
I was 15 years old when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It was super exciting watching it on TV. Two years later I was in Florida at Cape Canaveral with my father to watch the liftoff of the Apollo 16 mission. My father was intimately involved in space missions as a director of the National Reconnaissance Organization, a top-secret group that built spy satellites starting in the 60’s.
I had two experiences with the subsequent Space Shuttle program. The first was when my wife’s uncle, Karl Henize, an astronomy professor astronaut, flew as the mission specialist on Challenger in 1985, at that time the oldest person to go into space. The second was watching in horror from the roof of my company in Melbourne, Florida, as the Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch in 1986.
The history of human exploration is a fascinating one - the challenges and risks, the technology, the courage. To the extent it embodies a quest for knowledge and experience, it is a wonderful and admirable human quality. But, of course, it has also been strongly associated with some of the worst human traits – greed, violence and conquest.
This new phase of lunar exploration and potential colonization comes over 50 years after the first visits to the moon. The motivation seems to be primarily competition and fear of losing ground to other nations. In recent years China, Russia and India have all announced their lunar projects. These include establishing lunar bases (China has termed it an International Lunar Research Station) at the South Pole to take advantage of water sources and extended sunlight. China and Russia will potentially partner to install a nuclear power plant.
There is real potential for conflict as nations jockey for position on the moon. Can competing nations conduct their operations without resorting to violence? If history is any judge, then the answer is no. Every past exploration saw nations battling endlessly to gain advantage. The only exception has been the exploration of the Antarctica, which is presumably because to date there has been little material advantage in that exploration.
But aside from the potential future conflicts between increasingly antagonistic nations, there is the nagging question of whether we earth inhabitants can justify reaching for the stars when we have so many problems to solve on our own planet. The resources and riches required to conduct space missions are prodigious. Can we in good conscience dedicate that wealth to our space dreams when disease and poverty hover over billions of earthlings and climate change and pollution threaten the lives of everyone?
Alas, that question will never be seriously pondered, because space conquest, like war, AI and the re-invigorated arms race, is inevitable. Fear and hubris, in equal measure, are the inertial drivers that no force of good will or love seems to be able to counteract.
I admire the ingenuity and curiosity that enable us to explore our universe, and I will be fascinated by the various stages of accomplishment and the new discoveries that occur, regardless of which nation succeeds. If we could only abandon warfare and the wasteful arms race and work together in these endeavors, I would be doubly proud of their successes. But I cannot unreservedly praise our space quest when it must ultimately divert attention and resources away from much more urgent human needs on this earth.
