Jerry Wilson Over Coffee Appearing each Wednesday in the Edinburgh Courier, the weekly newspaper in Edinburgh, Indiana and periodically in Indiana's Daily Journal newspaper.

Why Explore Space

NASA has certainly had its problems over the past few years. In the early part of this decade, it seemed like there were more failures than successes on NASA's tote board, including the ill-fated Hubble Space Telescope.

More recently, however, NASA's black eye was beginning to heal, thanks to some high-profile and very successful missions. A mission was sent to repair the Hubble Telescope, for example. And last year, there was a successful Mars landing that employed a small robotic rover that was sent out to explore Martian rocks and soils. It sent back some excellent photos of the Martian surface, not to mention reams of data.

The first round of NASA failures, beginning with the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle, was due to mismanagement and complacency. It led to a wholesale overhaul of the space agency, and resulted in a more efficient use of time and money, with an emphasis on safety.

More recently, NASA has started to see an increase in the failure rate of missions again. Two spacecraft that were to study Mars were lost just in the past three months. These more recent failures, however, probably stem from the fact that NASA is severely underfunded. The agency is trying to do too much with too little.

There are those who question the importance of sending spacecraft to far-off worlds. They question what good it will do us. They say the money would be better spent on education or to help eliminate poverty.

That way of thinking is shortsighted. It fails to recognize all the positives that have come out of the space program. Hundreds, even thousands of items we use every day were made possible by the space program. Everything from freeze-dried coffee to the computer chip that keeps your car engine running is a direct or indirect result of the space program. It would be difficult to imagine the things we take for granted but which would not have been possible if it were not for the space program.

But space exploration provides far more for our society than gadgets. It is much more important than to simply supply fringe benefits for our modern world. Probably the most important reason the space program should not only be continued, but better funded, are the other things it provides that are not so obvious – the intangibles.

What price is too much to pay for a depth of understanding that could not be achieved without exploration?

Why do parents send their children to school, compulsory education laws aside? Why do parents encourage their children to participate in things like athletics, choir, band, and other nonessential aspects of education? Why are field trips to art museums and stage productions considered positive educational experiences? And why do we force our children to learn about history, the arts, humanities, or even science?

Is it not possible for people to get by knowing only the minimal basics of education? Some people have done quite well in life, having no more than a sixth-grade reading level, and knowing only basic arithmetic. So why is it so important for children to learn all the "extras?"

The successful people who lack a good formal education are usually the first to encourage kids to stay in school and learn all they can. The fact is, those "extras" are just as important as the basics. No parent wants to deny their child a comprehensive education. And yet, it is sometimes very difficult to express to a student why it is important to learn all they can about a variety of subjects.

"Why do I need to know what happened in 1812," they ask. "Why should I learn how to solve algebraic equations? I'll never need to know how to do that in life!"

Children fail to realize that the problem-solving techniques they develop while learning how to solve those equations will be of great help in a variety of real-life situations. And the higher-order learning that is achieved through a rich and well-varied education is immeasurable.

The same arguments can be related to space exploration. There are those who don't really care whether or not there is microscopic life on Mars, or if there is water under the surface. There are those who can't really see the importance of learning what it's like on another planet, just as some children don't see the importance of learning algebra or of observing works of art in a museum. But the rewards are always greater than the investment, even if those rewards are not immediately apparent.

Michael Faraday, one of the pioneers of electricity, once performed an impressive demonstration showing the effects of an electric current on charged pieces of foil. The audience was impressed. But one gentleman stood up and said to Faraday, "It's quite impressive, but of what practical use is it?" Faraday quickly responded, "Of what practical use is a newborn baby?" When the future rewards, even the intangible ones, start flowing in, will we still have to ask of what practical use is the exploration of space?

Copyright © 2001 by Jerry Wilson.