$3 billion to save humanity
Or, it’s all about resources.
A 10-person panel released a report for NASA today, titled “Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation”. In it, they basically suggested scrapping current plans for a space shuttle replacement in favor of a cheaper, simpler option, and sticking to shuffling astronauts to and fro the ISS rather than launching grand plans of lunar or Martian colonization - that is, if current funding continues on the same path. More importantly, they said this:
“About $3 billion a year more would be needed to have a robust exploration program, and even more than that to keep the existing program essentially on schedule, according to the report.”
The future of humanity is worth just $3 billion a year. That’s less than two bucks per human being. That’s about one percent of what we spent on unemployment and welfare in 2008. It’s HALF of one percent of what we spent on social security. That piece of shit film called Titanic grossed two-thirds of that. TITANIC!
But because we’re fighting wars and saving our economy and wasting money on unnecessary medical procedures, it’s more than we can spare. And really, it seems so insignificant now - what good does going to Mars do for us, when we probably wouldn’t even get there for at least a decade or two. By that time, those in power today will be far more worried about the future of their own ageing organs to care about the future of the human race. In fact, no viable colony is likely to be possible in my lifetime. So why should I care? It’s so much easier to just be short-sighted.
Because I’m sick of living on a planet where my species is perpetually fighting over resources. Every conflict comes down to the fact that we live on a planet with limited surface area and limited materials and our evolutionary imperative drives us to accumulate those materials for our own kind - our family, our race, our ethnicity, our religion. Any time you hear that someone is fighting in the name of their god, they’re lying, and usually to themselves. They may hide behind a façade of religious fervor, but at some stage the conflict they’re so passionately maintaining is really about resources.
The only way to solve this is to let the scientists do their jobs and find a way to get some of us off of this rock. The resources on our planet are finite, and as long as we stay here we’re doomed as a species to keep fighting over them and eventually destroy ourselves. Only with improving our technology can we break this destructive cycle.
But don’t listen to me, listen to Stephen Hawking:
“I think the human race doesn’t have a future if it doesn’t go into space.”
And why do I care? Because I don’t want to be forgotten. I don’t want all of my achievements, whatever I leave behind me when I’m dead and buried, to go to waste if my species fails. I want my legacy, whether tangible or genetic*, to continue as long as possible.
So what can one do in this situation? Write your congressman, write to Obama? Encourage private sector innovation to fill in the gaps in NASA’s capabilities? Wait for the Chinese space program to get to Mars first? I’m all ears.
*By genetic legacy I mean the genetic legacy all of humanity shares from our common ancestors
