The article reviewed in this blog
post is actually a collection of two smaller articles written by two professors
from the University of Central Florida. The article was posted in the schools
magazine and is a great piece to study because it argues both sides of the
manned vs. unmanned space exploration debate.
Dr. Joshua Colewell is the associate chair of the department of physics
and he argues strongly for the development of manned space exploration. Dr.
Daniel Britt is a professor of astronomy as well as a specialist in the field
of remote sensing. Dr. Britt’s research has produced equipment that has been
used on all Mars rovers to date, including the Curiosity rover. Both professors
have years of experience in the study of space exploration and research. Both
professors include three major themes to each of their arguments, which are
safety, monetary cost and the pursuit of human curiosity in general.
As a Military aviator, the topic of
safety resonates with me especially loud. The amount of time and effort spent
on keeping humans safe during earth-based flight is enormous. When looking at
outer space, not only do engineers have to spend many hours building system
that can keep fragile humans safe in a harsh environment, but they have to
spend many more hours building redundant systems that do the same thing as the
primary systems, but with different equipment that function independently. Dr.
Britt argues that the amount of time and money spent trying to build these
bulky primary and backup systems will detract from the scientific research and
value of the mission in whole.
As a tax paying American, the topic
of money is of large concern as well. Dr. Britt argues that the cost mentioned
above in regards to redundant safety systems is something that is just not
worth the effort. Dr. Colewell actually agreed with the fact that the cost of
adding humans to space exploration is something that would not necessary be
repaid for by advanced scientific discoveries. Often, NASA likes to compare
scientific discovery to a dollar amount, but in the case of human space travel,
the thing that the human race gains is not so much academic, but it is
existential progress as a species.
To consider human exploration of
Mars to be essential to the existential progress of the human species is
actually the root argument behind Dr. Colewells article. To some, this may
pluck at their heart strings as well as allow others to reminisce about the
feeling when they watched the Apollo missions land on the moon, but to the
current politicians and budget analysts, this argument does not justify
spending billions of dollars.
In todays economy and political
environment, I feel that are only two reasons why humans should go past the low
earth orbit of the international space station. The first reason is if we
discover intelligent extraterrestrial life within the reach of human space
travel. The second reason is if we are required to colonize another planet due
to the earth becoming either over populated or unfit for human life. Other than
those two reasons, I feel the use of humans for the exploration of Mars is
unjustifiable dangerous and expensive. The current department of defense
research and development funding is being cut at an enormous rate each year, if
we needed to also fund human exploration of Mars, on top of military research
and development, we could possible lose our military technological edge that we
enjoy today.
References:
Colewell, J., & Britt, D. (2014, January 1). Are robots
or astronauts the future of space exploration? Retrieved April 23, 2015, from http://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/opinion/
No comments:
Post a Comment