Why we explore space.

We are bounded in a nutshell of Infinite space: Blog Post #23, Free Form #4: Why we explore space.

        In most cases, this blog attempts to convey the how, the means by which the amazing phenomena which are peered at through huge lenses occur and how they unfold, how they are described and understood. I could now do the same thing, speak to how the human race has risen from its humblest beginnings, looking at the stars above and seeing themselves in them, as we rightly should. I could describe how we, puny specks on a pale blue dot, managed to develop amazing technologies which enabled us to go to the moon, to reach the fourth planet from our star, to send a man-made object outside our own solar system, but few would listen. The how has become boring, part of the so-called “rocket science” so many revere, disapprove of, or believe themselves incapable of understanding. Our society has forgotten why we explore space, why we search for the complete unknown, why we are willing to invest in people who work on projects which will not bear fruit for decades, why sacrificing funding for new projects sometimes, rarely in the modern age, was better than ignoring and defunding the work scientists have done for the past century.

       So now, in the most recent election cycle, the United States, like most democratic nations, chooses its leaders after months of parades, speeches, shows, hyperboles and spectacles, where to speak about space is to speak of immediate poll drops. The facts are these, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States has become a third rail of politics, not the agency which defined the modern world. Its funding, from among the largest sixty years ago, has now been reduced to less than a percent of the U.S. Federal Budget, and every day more and more scientists are unable to pursue the research they want for lack of funding, or the difficulty in procuring it. Another fact, the once acme of all science and scientific discovery, the U.S.; the place where the atom was split, where men were sent to land on the moon, where polio was cured, and where the greatest amount of Nobel Laureates in a single country live, is ranked 27^th in Mathematics, 20^th in Science, and 17^th in Reading. Although these numbers are clearly marked by the steep social disparity in the United States, the fact remains the best graduates of the public schooling system in the United States are still years behind the best students graduating from the systems in China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan, among others. Nevertheless, this is a solvable problem, it is an attainable change, but to do so, it will require an event, a sudden change which will leave the entire world reeling, a cataclysmic or miraculous incident that will redefine humanity… like it’s happened before. 

      In the last 100 years, there have been two World Wars, a Cold War, and the scientific accomplishments just mentioned. Every single one of these events triggered...something. The Second World War spurred the creation of the Polio vaccine, the Cold War prompted a nation not 200 years old to plan to go to the moon within a decade of setting this course, and the creation of a scientific tool inspired millions to use it to spread messages, ideas, radical statements, and revolutions, at the speed of fiber-optic cables across this world wide web. Furthermore, when the words a “giant leap for mankind” thundered throughout the world, it dawned the modern age of science and research, it inspired millions to go out and learn, to lead new fields, and usher in the next age of humanity.

     So what happened? What changed in the perspectives of society so science was no longer the goal of humanity? This was once the trend, long ago when science was thought to be the practice of alchemists, and it has become this once again. The modern age has seen a resurfacing of the same idea that science is a discipline to be thought of as occult teachings, knowledge to be feared, and in the minds of some revered. But this does not even include the main reason science is our greatest tool, the fact of it being fallible, disprovable, human.

      Therefore, a new “small step for [a] man” is necessary, a demonstration of human innovation and a reiteration of our potential, and there are few who are capable delivering on a promise such as this. The fact remains, we’ve done it before, and there are enough of us willing to make it happen once again. Beyond the technological marvels created in the endeavor to reach the next interstellar destination, the effect new discoveries have on the world; beyond the possibility of new materials and sheer brain-power concentrated on tasks which only benefit humanity. Why we explore space awakens something deeper. Space is the next step, it is as the New World was to the 15^th century, and it is what will continue to harken to our sense of exploration. We are inspired to reach for the stars, to then look beyond them, while remembering the fragile blue sphere and recognize it as our home, one we are charged with caring for. We are all humans, product of 13.68 billion years of stellar evolution… and as innate as a child searching for its parents, we must understand where we came from and who we are, for it is part of our being.

References: 
http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-rankings-2013-12
http://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11.html
http://i.imgur.com/2wNay.jpg