What is the point of having human beings in space? The legendary physicist Freeman Dyson points out that there are two types of space exploration; space science and space adventure.
We have a very successful space science program, carried out largely by machines. The Phoenix Mars lander just wrapped up a mission in which it discovered water - a pre-requisite for life as we know it - on the red planet. Our robotic probes have examined all the planets of our solar system in more or less detail.
The adventurous part of our space program is embodied in the space shuttle. This aspect of the space program is far more expensive, complicated and dangerous, and produces almost nothing in the way of tangible results.
The two things have become confused in the eyes of the public, Dyson says, as people believe that the shuttle program is doing science, and the program as a whole is in trouble because the human program is in trouble. Of course, the human program is in trouble because it lacks any clear goals, and the mechanized program is doing just fine. Here's an example of the work our probes have done:
This photograph was taken by the Cassini module as it turned its camera back towards the centre of the solar system. Saturn is dramatically eclipsing the sun, and if you look really hard at the space just above the rings on the left side of the picture, you can see none other than our own planet as a tiny bluish-white speck against the darkness.
And yet it is the manned missions that capture the public's attention. The idea of human beings working in space is deeply appealing, and the moon landing captured humankind's imagination for a reason.
Freeman Dyson believes that the human exploration of space is something that we must do and that does not need any justification, and I agree with him. It's in our nature, and maybe even in the nature of life as a whole to continue to expand and explore into new territory.
The shuttle program will be retiring in two years, giving way to the Orion program. Orion is a new type of spacecraft based loosely on the design of the Apollo modules and will have its first human flight in 2014. Orion will return humans to the moon in 2020 after a 50-year absence, and will ultimately send astronauts to Mars and beyond.
Interestingly, Orion shares its name with a theoretical nuclear-bomb powered spacecraft that Dyson worked on in the 60's, but that's a topic for another post.
The future of human spaceflight might also lay in private hands. The Anasari X-Prize was given out to Paul Allen's SpaceShipOne program in 2004 when his craft successfully entered low-orbit, and Richard Branson is actively planning to make an industry out of space travel with his Virgin Galactic.
I think that eventually the technology will become cheap and common enough that the average person will be able to go into orbit, at least for a vacation. The amount of computer power in your cell phone is hundreds of times more powerful than that used in the Apollo moon landers, after all. I just hope that it happens in my lifetime.
I believe that humanity is still in its adolescence, and I think that our ultimate destiny is in the stars. I know as a journalist that nothing captures the human imagination like a good story, and there is no grander story than humanity's ultimate place within the cosmos.
