I wrote a little while ago about whether or not it was worth sending missions to Mars. I questioned if it was really worth it. I received responses about how there are always better places to spend money, that the knowledge we gain is worth the money and that there may be metals or rocks not available on Earth that can benefit us. But after reading a whole month's worth of news on the Mars trips, future space plans and other programs under way I still must wonder if this is the right thing to be doing. Being a Canadian I realize that these are not my tax dollars that are being used for space exploration. But are the American people happy with spending their tax dollars this way?
Lets look at some of the facts. The cost to send the 2 current rovers to Mars was over $800,000,000. The current government has $5 trillion dollars earmarked for the space program over the next 10 years. There are many thousands of jobs associated with NASA and its many projects. We typically think of the Americans that live in south Florida and Houston as those who are affected by employment. In Florida alone there are over 23,000 employees working for over 200 businesses with payrolls of $4.5 billion. The new project that has started to build a new shuttle replacement vehicle is expected to cost $6.6 billion over the next 5 years. But it spreads further than that. There are the Canadian engineers who developed the Canadarm and there is a small company in Whitehorse, Yukon by the name of Icefield Instruments that has been hired by NASA to develop a drill for use in a future trip to Mars. But still is it worth it?
The quest for knowledge that comes from space travel is imense. And the value can be immeasurable. James Burke, the British author, host, and narrator of the acclaimed television series Connections, is fond of saying that any time humanity's view of reality is changed by new knowledge, reality itself is changed. This statement is very true and the missions to Mars have definitely increased the knowledge of humanity. The new findings that Mars once had flowing water and saltwater are huge discoveries and will help scientists better understand the evolution of Mars. They may or may not find minerals on Mars that don't exist on earth. This make several more trips with more specialized equipment. But what does it mean to us?
Then we have news from NASA that they have found a 20 year old problem on the space shuttles. A potentially disastrous problem with the space shuttles rudder went undetected for two decades. The defective gear was installed in the top position on the tail-mounted rudder, where it was subject to the least force. However, the faulty gear could not have handled the most extreme forces during landing if it had been in the bottom position. This error in the gear being installed backwards could have disabled the rudder by jamming it open or closed. The loss of the rudder speed brake would have meant the loss of vehicle and loss of crew. So let me understand this correctly...NASA can spend billions on their space program annually yet the best engineers in the world can't catch a potentially disasterous error for 20 years? Maybe they need to spend their money fixing the current space program before they expand it.
The lack of collaboration on the Mars program is also disturbing. No less than 5 space agencies have sent space vehicles to Mars in the last 6 months. Why are these space agencies not working together to accomplish what they are all trying to do seperately? This added waste of money is in the high billions.
We have many problems in the world today. There are wars. Money though can't end the wars. Most of the wars are related to religion, nationalities and politics. Money can't help that. But the money being spent on the space program can help other problems on earth such as drought, food shortages, housing shortages, health care issues, education issues, global warming and pollution. If the money spent on the space program was spent on trying to make a dent on the problems back on earth we would all benefit from it. Think about it...what is the good of exploring Mars and the rest of space when we have serious problems at home. What good is this exploration going to do if we continue to kill Earth with greenhouse gasses and pollution. Will it make any difference that water “was” on Mars when our own planet is destroyed and uninhabitable? You know what also troubles me? We built a space ship in the 1960s that could go to the moon, land and return to earth. We can build shuttles that can go into orbit, deploy satellites and then return to earth to be used again. We can build a space station that can orbit the earth and give us a place to do scientific experiments and exploration. We can build a spacecraft to take rovers to Mars and be able to control them from Earth. We can do all that but we can't build more energy efficient vehicles for travel on earth? Maybe if the kind of money being spent on space was spent on developing energy efficient vehicles we could be severely cut the amount of greenhouse gases that are currently destroying the ozone layer of our atmosphere. I am sure if the money was spent on developing new food sources and building homes for the homeless and cleaning up the pollution we are creating that we would generate equivalent numbers of jobs that are currently employed in the space program. Let's consider solving the problems at home before we solve the problem of Martian life.
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