Let’s go to space, but slowly

The image of a black hole at the heart of the magnificent spiral galaxy, NGC 3147, was captured by NASA’S Hubble Telescope and released a few months ago. The black hole is located approximately 130 million light-years away from us, with one light year being equal to about six trillion miles. The image reveals information about the black hole, which contradicts our present theoretical understanding, and therefore opens new avenues for us to better explore our universe. Earlier this year, SpaceX performed their first trial of a commercial spacecraft, Dragon 2, capable of carrying crew to space and back.

Space exploration, generally considered a slowly advancing field in terms of technological advancement, has come a long way since the first object was sent to space during WWII. Nonetheless, it takes enormous amounts of effort and funding to run a space programme. The usual socially acceptable justifications given for space exploration include improving our understanding of the universe, finding new renewable resources, and studying potential outside risks to our world from in advance, among other things.

Although the said reasons for space explorations are partially correct, they don’t change the fact that the first object to cross the Kármán line (the imaginary line between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space) was a guided German ballistic V-2 missile used in WWII. It was the era of glorifying one’s military strength to get ahead of the opponent, and it was this military power play and national pride that resulted in the so-called “space race” between the Soviets and the United States post-WWII. However, since then the potential benefits of these missions to humanity have arguably become much greater.

The hot-off-the-press news stories about India’s orbiter-lander-rover mission, Chandrayaan-2, reminds me of the first scene of the 1999 Hollywood movie October Sky. The scene shows the Americans’ anxiety while listening to news of the Soviet satellite Sputnik, the first man-made satellite launched into space to orbit the Earth. Sputnik was launched in 1957; a year before the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was founded. Consequently, it was the Soviets that sent the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1961. But the Soviets soon found out about the man on the Moon in 1969, orchestrated by NASA, within just over 10 years of NASA’s inception.

Although Chandrayaan-2 missed the moon landing by a very short margin, it was enough to make us anxious as a nation and triggered a national debate on our space programme. This is not a bad thing. However, we need to evaluate the situation and act accordingly, taking slow and steady leaps. We are not the Soviets or the US of the post-WWII era. Mere national pride is not enough to justify space exploration given its cost to a nation struggling with its economy. Space exploration can only be justified if done for significant scientific advancements with national pride as a by-product. For example, scientists are looking into landing on the Moon to split Moon ice into oxygen for breathable air and hydrogen as a fuel for further exploration from there onwards. If successful, the project will pave the way for new innovations in science and technology that benefit the whole world. If we would like to launch a new space mission, it must advance science and be part of a project of national interest.

Space science is interdisciplinary in nature and lies at the interface between engineering and the sciences. A prerequisite to a successful space exploration mission is on-ground technological advancement and adequate research infrastructure in almost all fields of engineering and science. Our academic institutions and research organisations ought to be better supported to perform high-quality space-based research in collaboration with world-leading research organisations to devise novel scientific projects assisted by internal and external partners. Rest assured that this would serve both our national pride and our goal of advancing science.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2019.

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