Space is silent, still and cold, yet we have a strange infatuation with it. The black, lifeless void stirs our imaginations that inspire us to explore, create and innovate. We look at critically acclaimed movies such as Interstellar, Gravity, and Arrival that give us both clarity and confusion about what space even is. This desire for knowledge in these fantasies is what drives us to learn more and more about it. In 2016, the United States Federal Government budgeted $18.4 Billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. That's 18 times the amount of money California is given for education. So what’s the big deal? Why is space exploration so significant in our day in age? And more importantly, why is it worth spending $18.4 BILLION on it? Before we dive into these questions, let us journey back to our high school world history classes to brush up on the Cold War.
The Cold War lasted around 45 years between the United States and the USSR. It has been historically called the ‘Cold War’ due to the fact that there was not any direct physical violence between either nation. Instead, these two superpowers were involved in the ideological and economic struggle for power as the world's most dominant nation. It was the clash between communism and capitalism, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and space was their championship arena.
During the height of the Cold War, the United States Federal Government spent millions of dollars on space exploration. But this wasn’t just for getting the first man to the moon, rather it was used to begin the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative that was almost immediately dubbed “Star Wars.” President Ronald Reagan at the time wanted to look at theoretical ideas that could be made practical. The United States was so terribly afraid of communism and what it would do if it infiltrated the country and turned the people against capitalism and democracy. Especially with the creation of nuclear weapons and the Atomic Bomb. People were in a perpetual state of fear that communism would ruin their lives and maybe even kill them. These space defenses were created to not only explore outer space, but because it became necessary to keep up with the USSR. This drive and push for technological advancement gave hope and inspiration for those that wanted to know more about the universe. The technological advancements that came from NASA gave way to creations that changed life as it was. One of the most proximate inventions to us was the creation of Dynamic Random Access Memory, or DRAM (not to be confused with the rapper D.R.A.M). DRAM was a technological infrastructure that allowed the creation of powerful personal processors that enabled technology like the iPhone to be created. Without this type of processing, we would all have a very difficult time checking our latest emails from our professors or watching our most recent snaps from BAE. We would no longer have instant access to information at the tips of our fingers, life saving apps that fuel our need for entertainment, or the ability to send someone a text halfway across the planet. DRAM was just one of the many tools to come from the Cold War era, without the drive of discovery the Cold War provided DRAM would have never been created. This was just one of the major technological discoveries that launched humanity forward in time, NASA is significant because of this. By the continuation of funding to NASA, we will see innovation after innovation and it will create a wave of inspiration for generations to come.
NASA’s next major interplanetary mission is for the Mars 2020 rover. Wherever this rover lands will create a ripple effect for all future exploration missions to Mars. In addition, NASA has been consistently working on the Orion Spacecraft which will carry four astronauts to missions beyond the moon that will provide entirely new capabilities to travel deeper into space. Once more is learned about Mars from these spacecrafts, the placement of habitable domes on Mars to continue scientific research may occur, and eventually maybe CO2 terraforming. CO2 Terraforming involves pumping CO2 into Mars atmosphere to heat up the cold, lifeless planet. If this was successful, we would literally be changing the geological structure of Mars's atmosphere, making life habitable on the planet. This could mark the beginning of interstellar colonization, where we can see movies like the Martian come to life, but without Matt Damon's boundless charm. There are many interstellar “dreams" in our galaxy, we just need to invest into these dreams to see them come to life. With the help of NASA, we may see the first man on Mars, and maybe with time, the first interstellar colonization. The next generation will be inspired to better our future, improve the conditions on our planet and finally learn more about the complicated idea that is SPACE.
