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Prospects of the Final Frontier

By Christopher S. Krier
During its era of supremacy in the Colonial Era, the Kingdom of Spain flexed its national power and imprinted indelible marks on the landscape of the New World. The landscape of outer space exploration somewhat resembles that of colonization in the 1500s. One nation (the United States) and a handful of other countries have the power and the technology to explore a new frontier not yet utilized to its full potential. The Cold War yielded the greatest era of human space exploration for the United States and the Soviet Union committed vast recourses and manpower in a race to become the first nation to propel men onto the moon. The space race ended in 1969 as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to traverse the moon. Since 1969, no human has wandered further into the cosmos. The United States has explicitly lost its edge in human space exploration to the Russians and appears to be giving ground to other industrialized nations. The United States of America should invest more in outer space exploration to regain its ascendancy in cosmic exploration, to prepare its economy for the economy of the future, to reap concrete and abstract economic benefits, and to maintain military advantages in space. When in the event that humans successfully colonize a celestial body such as Mars or an exosolar planet, will the language spoken on that colony be English, Russian, or Chinese? Given that Russia is the current medium in which American astronauts now travel into space, Russian is most likely to be the dominant language spoken on any future human colony in the cosmos. American entry into space has now become a bargaining tool to be used by the Russians (Dowd 63). The Peoples Republic of China has recently accelerated its space program as has India, Brazil, and the European Space Agency. China especially poses a dire threat to American space

Krier 2 supremacy following its destruction of one of its weather satellites with a surface-to-orbit highspeed missile; a demonstration that may only be attributed to an autonomous space power (Tyson, Back to the Final Frontier 4). China has blatantly expressed its intention of becoming the worlds premier space-faring nation. The United States must invest more in outer space exploration if it aspires to maintain its ascendency over China and Russia in space. The widespread effort required to facilitate successful outer space exploration is a tremendous catalyst for serendipitous scientific and technological innovation in a variety of fields. Various fields of engineering are utilized in aerospace initiatives as well as countless fields of science. The Apollo program that successfully put Americans on the moon also produced technologies that have improved kidney dialysis, water purification systems, sensors to test for hazardous gases to humans, efficient building materials, and improvements to the fabrics worn by firefighters and soldiers. (Tyson, The Case for Space 5). In his 2013 State of the Union address, Obama stressed energy efficiency as imperative and necessary for the livelihood of our posterity. A successful mission to Mars is inclined to not only innovate energy efficiency in the United States, but is likely to revolutionize it. Technological revelations are abundant in any space program. The Hubble Space Telescope, an instrument utilized to peer deep into the cosmos, experienced a flaw in the design of its optics system. Improvements in its imageprocessing software utilized to facilitate identification of stars in the telescopes small lenses led to revolutionary adjustments in mammograms used to detect early signs of breast cancer. Because of the Hubble Space Telescope initiative, numerous women have been given a fighting chance to defeat breast cancer (Tyson, The Case for Space 6-7). Serendipitous discoveries are inherently involved in any outer space exploration project. Increased investment in the U.S.

Krier 3 space program would not solely benefit the fields of astrophysics and astronomy, but would also stimulate innovation in a wide variety of fields that would benefit Americans. At some point of time in the future, the natural resources of the cosmos will be within reach of humanity. The United States needs to maintain its advantage in space technology to ensure priority exploitation of the solar systems vast resources. Theorists have proposed turning the moon into an orbiting power plant by burning its abundant supply of hydrogen and helium gas to create nuclear energy (Doeden 12). Theoretical methods to utilize the solar system for economic benefit are plentiful. John S. Lewis suggests beaming solar power to Earth, mining the Helium isotope for use in fusion reactors, and mining asteroids for iron (Elvis 39). However, the capital required to send a spaceship to an asteroid or Mars to mine resources and to have it return surpasses any foreseeable economic return. Because any private investment in outer space exploration is inevitably unprofitable, government funding is the sole medium in which a space program is to function successfully. Exploitation of the cosmos does not only entail concrete economic benefits such as those stemming from asteroids or Mars. Successful outer space exploration yields abstract and incalculable benefits to the economy of the United States. High-profile space program missions such as Apollo garner national attention that inspires a whole generation of scientists and engineers. A new generation of American scientists is exigent to the United States workforce because foreign countries are edging the United States in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education. The rate of peer-reviewed journals submitted by the U.S. has waned, more than one-third of U.S. graduate students in science and engineering are foreign nationals studying while on temporary visas, and a phenomena of brain drain is occurring in which those very foreign graduate students are returning home due to a prevalence of American

Krier 4 anti-immigrant sentiment and an abundance of job opportunities in Asia and Europe (Tyson, The Case for Space 6). Additionally, a healthy space program promotes a technologically superior economy that prepares the United States to compete for todays high-tech jobs. Esteemed American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in his article Back to the Final Frontier reasons that a healthy space program is like a new force of nature operating on a nations economic prosperity. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, investments in science and technology have proved to be stimuli of economic growth. By investing more in outer space exploration, a more prominent American space program would motivate an entire generation of Americans to aspire for careers in STEM. Moreover, a healthier space program would invigorate the technology industry of the United States that is gradually falling behind those of other industrialized nations. The future theater of warfare is outer space. President George Bush said amid the Global War on terror that, national security is critically dependent upon space capabilities. (Dowd 59). Global Positioning System satellites are an integral part of a nations military reconnaissance, surveillance, and air strike capability. In recent years, the United States has begun to lose its dominance in low-Earth orbit. Russia has launched more satellites into space than the United States and an array of nations now have satellites in low-Earth orbit (Dowd 60). If the United States is going to adequately preserve its space capabilities, satellite operations, and its access to space, then a robust space program must be present. The United States needs to invest in outer space exploration to maintain its status as the worlds supreme power. The United States may only maintain this status by being at the forefront of cosmic exploration, technological innovation, and military might. Greater investment in the space program will ensure that the United States is the Mount Everest of the

Krier 5 global landscape. The motivations of the Apollo mission that sent Americans to the moon are different than those of todays motivations for space exploration. During the 1960s the United States was an explicit world superpower with a prevailing influence over international affairs. However, the United States is on an apparent decline due to economic recession, political gridlock, and military mishaps. The one-half percent of the United States budget that NASA receives is not indicative of the importance that a nations space program has on its reputation, economy and citizenry.

Works Cited Brand, Vance. "U.S. Human Space Exploration in Peril." Aviation Week & Space Technology 174.36 (2012): 58. General Science Collection. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. Doeden, Matt. Human travel to the moon and Mars: waste of money or next frontier? Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books, 2012. Print. Dowd, Alan W. "Surrendering Outer Space." Policy Review 156 (2009): 55. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. Elvis, Martin. "After Apollo." Harvard International Review 33.4 (2012): 38. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. Tyson, Neil deGrasse. "Back to the Final Frontier." Discover 33.3 (2012): 52. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. Tyson, Neil deGrasse. "The Case for Space." Foreign Affairs 91.2 (2012): 22. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.