Ad astra per aspera
A rough road leads to the stars.
Yesterday, the Artemis II mission launched from Cape Canaveral, site of both glory and tragedy. It is the first step on landing astronauts back on the Moon, and eventually establishing a lunar base for further explorations into the Solar System. (Why do we need the Moon? Firstly, our satellite is filled with valuable minerals. Secondly, it is much easier to launch missions from the low gravity of the Moon than from Earth.)
I was born on July 19, 1969. I was born a day before Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on another heavenly body. I have vague memories of watching the final lunar missions as a toddler. This led me, with my brother's help, to Star Trek, and science fiction, and dreaming of what humanity could achieve.
What I remember growing up in the aftermath of the Apollo Project was the sense that the stars were there for us to explore. That the Moon landings were merely a precursor to humanity becoming a multiplanetary species, expanding beyond our fragile blue dot, continuing the eternal human quest for exploration and knowledge. We are all colonizers; Homo sapiens as a species colonized this globe, pushing out and outcompeting other Hominin species. Homo sapiens is defined by its need to break out, branch out, establish itself in new lands. This need to test ourselves is one of our prime traits.
But we didn't. We retreated. In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, we shrank. We became small. We didn't dare greatly. The space shuttle program was not a worthy successor to Apollo. And for all the good work that has been done on it, the International Space Station also doesn't excite the imagination. It doesn't fill that need for the doing of great deeds, of humanity pushing itself beyond what it thinks is possible.
Or, the dream has been hijacked by the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who wish to turn exploration into simply another commodity in their drive to rule the world. A reality in which they dominate space exploration is nothing other than the dystopias of Alien and Blade Runner. Their visions offer nothing spiritual; they do not feed the human sense of wonder.
Why should we waste time on space, when we have so many problems here on Earth? A very valid question, voiced many times. But it is not a choice of either/or. We can dream and dare greatly both here on Earth and out among the darkness of space. I would argue that the two go hand-in-hand. Exploration and the technologies developed during humanity's first Space Age had multiplier effects for our lives on this green planet. Our second Space Age promises even more. Imagine getting our minerals from asteroids rather than digging into and despoiling the Earth. Imagine allowing the Earth to heal because we've left its womb to travel through and live in space, extracting what we need from an almost limitless supply. And imagine the cooperation needed between nations to achieve this. Artemis II features a Canadian astronaut. Future missions will have officers from other nations.
We are at a time in human history where we need a grand narrative. We need something bigger than ourselves. We've lost so much of our sense of wonder, as we plod along, killing each other, oppressing each other, engaging in a war of all against all. That's no human life. We are past our adolescence when displays of brute strength are expected. All that has led to is a collapsing planet, a collapsing civilization. We need the epic poetry which something like Artemis II provides. We need to know that there is something more besides the mundanity of life, the grind of survival. And, Commander Jeffrey Sinclair puts it perfectly:
A rough road leads to the stars. But humanity has trodden nothing but rough roads, and both survived and thrived. It is in our nature to not shrink in fear from a difficult path. Those paths lead to the greatest rewards.
Godspeed Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. Help us dream great dreams again.