The Perpetual Allure of Space
Engineers constructing the James Webb Space Telescope in 2017. Source: San Diego Tribune
Carl Sagan wrote in his 1980 bestseller Cosmos, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.” Since then, and indeed well before, humans have been captivated by the allure of space. We learn about Galileo, Newton, Kepler, and Copernicus in school. We see this fascination nearly every day reflected in the news, movies, television shows, books, and games. With new advances in science and technology, the space programs of SpaceX and Blue Origin, and the advent of the U.S. Space Force, the perpetual allure of space in the minds of humans continues.
One of the most recent developments in the world of space exploration was the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on December 25, 2021. The telescope is a result of efforts from NASA, the European Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency to “seek the light from the first galaxies in the early universe and to explore our own solar system, as well as planets orbiting other stars, called exoplanets.” The Webb Telescope is designed for an initial mission of five years, with an additional five years planned as long as it continues to function properly. Unlike the Hubble Telescope, the Webb is not designed for regular maintenance and thus will only remain in use as long as its parts will last. It is also designed to explore deeper into space, much farther than Hubble, with the stated goal of discovering light from the first stars created after the Big Bang.
Over the past few years, conversations around commercial or private space flight began to circle as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and their respective companies began to make serious progress. On July 20, 2021, Blue Origin launched its first crewed mission into space carrying Jeff Bezos and three others. Now the company has successfully launched two other human spaceflight missions carrying such notable celebrities as William Shatner and Michael Strahan. Meanwhile, SpaceX is still fine-tuning its designs for Starship, a fully-reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle. At a recent event SpaceX CEO Elon Musk remarked, "Our worst case scenario is that we would be delayed by six to eight months to build up the Cape [Canaveral] launch tower and launch from there." Both Blue Origin and SpaceX seem poised to continue this rapid advancement in space technology, but this has many concerned because of the inaccessibility of their programs.
As the newest branch of the U.S military, the Space Force is still trying to gain its footing in the world of the American armed forces. Recently, the Space Force has launched a new effort in Los Angeles to contract with commercial space companies who do not normally work with the government. This is part of an effort to invest in “high potential technologies.” All this comes as the branch is trying to make itself separate with the understanding that, due to its small budget and personnel size, it must remain tightly coupled with the Air Force. Furthermore, the failure of Congress to pass a 2022 federal budget is negatively impacting the Space Force, causing several planned satellite launches to be delayed.
On a different, but not unrelated note, the “perpetual allure of space” has also been fertile ground for conspiracy theories and flat out lies. One such instance made its way around social media circles, claiming that NASA had hired twenty-four theologians to assess how humans would respond if alien life was discovered. As sensational (and honestly really intriguing) as this headline may sound, it is false. The Associated Press reported that the claim had no merit but that NASA’s astrobiology program did grant some money to the Center for Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey in 2015 to “assess societal implications for NASA’s astrobiological and search for life efforts.” This was the work of a team of humanities scholars who convened to discuss the implications of astrobiological research for publication, not to advise NASA.
It is surely safe to say that the tingling of the spine Carl Sagan and others have felt while pondering the cosmos will continue far into the future. The great leaps of technology and science that have dominated the past several decades will continue and the “great beyond” that has seemed distant will grow ever closer within our reach. Yet, for those of us who cannot afford a trip on Jeff Bezos’ rocket, we still have the movies, the television shows, the news, and the comforting voice of Carl Sagan, to keep our imagination and love for space going forever.