Kline Williams Dr. Rosenberg Rhetoric and Civic Life 1 17
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Kline Williams Dr. Rosenberg Rhetoric and Civic Life 1 17. November 2016 Space Program: Then to Now We are a very curious society. After almost everything on our planet had been explored, it was natural for inquisitive human beings to look elsewhere to see what might be beyond our earth to explore. Other than the phenomena that had been observed by the naked eye and through telescopes, everything else was completely uncharted territory for people. Perhaps it was apathy or perhaps the task seemed too daunting at first but the spark eventually came. When an explorer such as Columbus had the idea of crossing the ocean to North America, a method of transportation had already been developed to facilitate such a journey. Now imagine this same curiosity, but with no method of transportation with which to travel. We needed to completely start from scratch. Engineers had to test and design entirely new methods to study and explore space. From the early 20th century to now, space exploration technologies have been getting ever more sophisticated and efficient. When the space program began we were curious, determined, and anxious to be the first country to reach our goals. There were only eight years between when we sent the first man into space and when we set foot on the moon. During that time, governments were the primary source of funding for such endeavors. In the past 30 years space exploration has changed from being financed mainly by government agencies to being funded by private companies. Williams 2 This change has occurred not only in the United States, but across the globe as well. Space exploration has become less of a necessity in the eyes of our society and has now shifted into the hands of scientists and enthusiasts. A Brief History Enthusiasm for space exploration began in the early 50s. Russia commenced the fervor when they launched the first satellite into space in 1957. Russia dominated the “space race” until the 1960’s when the United States took a “giant leap” and put humans on the moon. The exploration of space had become a worldwide competition. Although it undoubtedly was a successful endeavor, it did have some setbacks. Despite the fact that some American Apollo missions had major malfunctions and even fatal disasters, the majority of the American population had immense drive to beat the Russians. Trial and error was essential for successful space travel. After the launch of Apollo 18 in 1975, the Apollo program was terminated and the focus shifted to planets. Talk of visiting Mars existed just months after we had set foot on the moon. The 1970s was a decade of tests and mainly unmanned missions to space. Voyager 1 and 2 were both launched in 1977 with the intention of being the first space probes to reach and transmit data from the far reaches of our solar system. These two machines had gone farther than any other man made object. Scientists now believe that these two space probes are beyond our solar system. In the 1980s, NASA began conducting launches of its new Space Shuttle program, which consisted of a reusable living/working module, attached to a large Williams 3 launch mechanism to save money on missions. Although the shuttle program was a major step forward for engineers, it already displayed our decreased interest in visiting places past our orbit due to its inability to do so. From 1981-2011 the Space Shuttle served as a cost effective and efficient way for astronomers to reach orbit and conduct tests. In addition, the Shuttle missions were vital in launching, assembling, and maintaining the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station (ISS). In addition, these missions allowed NASA to achieve many firsts in space. The first women went into space aboard a shuttle in 1983 and the first non-US citizen came aboard a shuttle in 1994. Much like any other series of space missions, the Shuttle Program had its share of setbacks. There were some fatal disasters on launch and takeoff that caused society to question whether or not space exploration was even worth it. Starting in 2003, after a Space Shuttle burned up upon reentry to Earth, the shuttle program began to die off along with NASA as a whole, but our government isn’t completely done in this field. Both George Bush and Barack Obama have made statements encouraging space exploration as a whole. President Obama even signed legislation that put NASA’s main focus on exploring Mars and asteroids. In the last 15 or so years, space agencies have been conducting routine flights into orbit and sending orbiters/rovers to other planets, comets, and moons. These missions have been a combination of government funded and privately funded explorations. NASA’s funding from the government has been declining steadily for a long time. It peaked during heart of the Apollo era, dropped after the last Apollo mission, and then rose again to fund the shuttle missions. It stayed pretty constant until the Early Williams 4 1990s when the government thought that the exploration of space was nothing more than a recreational activity and began to cut funding. A lot of the country just lost interest because there wasn’t anything new or exciting happening in the field. The new and potentially more beneficial reality of space travel is that it is now up to private companies to collaborate and work together. The New Normal In the last 20 years, we have been seeing an obvious decline in NASA’s involvement in the exploration of space. They continue to monitor conditions via telescope, but we have not heard much of their plan to visit new frontiers at all. Although they have proposed a plan to visit the red planet in 2030, NASA says very little in terms of human exploration. Most of their talk is about plans that could benefit or protect us directly like asteroid mining, defense systems, and asteroid/comet/meteorite monitoring. Their hope is that this gives our government incentive to maintain funding, but they’re having minimal success. Luckily private companies seem to be taking over. SpaceX, a private company based in Virginia, has recently proposed a plan to colonize mars within the next 15 years. In addition, this company has completed various tests of its reusable rocket system that can put an object into space and then land the launch system on a floating pad in the middle of the ocean. This system is powerful enough to send payload into orbit and beyond. SpaceX’s main goal from the start was to drastically reduce the expenditures of space travel and eventually go to Mars. A lot has already been accomplished by the collaboration of private companies in the last 14 years. Williams 5 There are two main topics related to space exploration that seem to dominate pop culture recently: alien life and exploration past the moon. Scientists, on the other hand, have been continuously perfecting previous technologies and accomplishments while also putting a fair amount of time into the “cooler” stuff that people like to hear about. NASA and SpaceX have been teaming up since 2006 to develop a method of transportation to shuttle NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. Instead of NASA pioneering the field of space exploration like it has in the past, it now uses its funds to pay other companies and even other countries to assist them. Space exploration in our country has gone from being largely associated with American pride to being accomplished by wealthy and entrepreneurial enthusiasts. When there is a milestone accomplished or a discovery made, most of the various mediums of social media are covered with news articles, posts, statuses, and tweets. People enjoy this. In recent years, social media has been a vital component in the growth of these privately owned companies. It is almost as if there has been a spark of interest in the field. The discoveries are once again interesting to much of the world. The increased interest tremendously helps the companies making the discoveries. With increased attention, comes an increase in funding and that is always a good thing when it comes to space travel. President-elect Donald Trump has explicitly stated his support for NASA funding with a specific focus on colonization of Mars. Although he told a 10-year-old girl that fixing potholes was a more pressing issue, he and members of his team have shown concern for space travel, which could be impactful in the near future. Williams 6 Why? Times have changed and so has the capabilities of technology. Some of the science fiction movies and shows that have been popping up since the 1960s are starting to become less science fiction and morphing into laborious possibilities. The millennial generation, much of whom grew up watching Star Wars, has sparked the new era of space exploration because of their early exposure to the astronomical subject. Star Wars depicts a time where intergalactic travel is a reality, so the millennial generation is making strides toward that. Furthermore, the trend for movies and TV shows depicting alien scenarios has been very popular for decades. Now, many astronomers are focusing on finding evidence of such creatures. Movies and TV shows acted as a motivator to society. It made people dream about the depicted scenarios, which in turn now motivates them to make them into realities. As technology increases in sophistication, it acts as another incentive to work towards these dreams because people realize that they may not be far off from becoming real. It has been said that we, at this very moment, have the technologies to visit Mars.