In light of the touchdown of the Mars Rover, Curiosity, day to day conversations have inevitably run amuck with accusations that the Mars Science Laboratory Mission is a waste of money and time. These accusations sometimes inseminate into a discussion where a resentment of NASA in general starts to show.
There are many claims one can make when justifying why NASA should receive more funding, not less. From non-stick frying pans to GPS, it’s not hard to think of ways in which funding NASA has greatly improved our quality of life and well being. But there is another, less capitalized upon justification for why we should give NASA, or rather, science in general, more funding.
For those who don’t know, the above image is the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. A very long shutter speed was used to take a picture of what would be nothing more than a pencil’s eraser size portion of the night sky via the Hubble Space Telescope. And when all was said and done, this image came out. For many (myself included), this is one of the most poetic images I know of, and not simply because of the sheer aesthetic beauty it possesses.
No, it’s much deeper than that. With virtually ever bright dot in this image being the faint resonance of a remarkably distant galaxy, each comparable to our own Milky Way, the mind is inevitably struck with wonder and mystery. And when an effort is made to comprehend the vastness of the universe, the mind hits an opaque wall. For just within this image alone, you have ten thousand galaxies, each with billions or trillions of stars, most with their very own set of planets. And when one is reminded of this fact of life, as indeed what happens when you gaze into the HUDF, you must confront the fact of your relatively (on a cosmic scale) insignificant existence. If nothing more, this image is a lesson in humility.
But to me, this image is even more than just a reminder of my insignificance. It also represents some of the most important questions our species holds so dear. I’m talking of course, about questions of origin.
Questions of origin have always plagued our species’ pursuit of knowledge, and rightfully so. And we’ve adopted various strategies to answer these questions, though unfortunately, some strategies have been worse than others. Regardless, questions about the origins of life and the origins of our universe have always best been examined through careful observation, even if some people resent empirical analysis.
But what is so elegant about the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, at least to me, is that it makes one reconsider their origins. The phenomenon of life is likely not an isolated incident, and if we could explore each solar system one becomes aware of just by looking at the HUDF, well, I suspect you’d learn a lot about the phenomenon of life, and indeed, more light would be shed on the mystery of our own biological origins.
Even our own views of the universe are quickly put into perspective. To think, many of the galaxies present in the HUDF are snapshots of history, long evolved into differently structured galaxies. And far into the future, many of these galaxies will become invisible to us, pushed beyond the boundaries of detection by the repulsive force of dark energy. The HUDF is a reminder that we have an understanding of the origins and evolution of our universe thanks entirely to investments made in science.
I have yet to meet a mature human being who thinks these questions, the questions of origins, are a waste of time, and I suspect if I ever do find one who holds such a stance, I’m almost certain they will be lying. And these are the questions and mysteries that NASA and the entire scientific enterprise have been painstakingly shedding light upon.
If we are to take seriously the questions surrounding the origins of our own species and the phenomenon of life at all, we must be willing to investigate wherever answers may turn up. And this means supporting and funding organizations like NASA, where missions like the Mars Science Laboratory seek to find answers.
OK, MP,
Enjoyed your blog. I love the photos, and I wish they would download more Mars photos faster.
What cost is a reasonable cost?
Thanks
Ghost.
This is an amazing defense of NASA. Learning about our origin as a species and the origin of the universe are truly some of the greatest scientific pursuits we have ever undertaken.
I think that a big part of the hate that’s being directed towards NASA can be linked to the creationist movement and their general hate of science. Hopefully this anger will die down and we can begin putting proper funding into both NASA and IASA.
I hope to hear more from you. This was a good read.
Not to mention that NASA’s budget is just 0.5% of the US’ annual budget. Increasing it shouldn’t be much of a problem if they cut back on the defense front a bit.
My curiosity about space begins to work again after reading this post! Thanks for sharing…
So Cool, and so true!!! Thanks!
Funding NASA is also important so that they can have better celebrations again: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/celebrations-at-nasa/ This time, I didn’t even see cigars.
The best thing about human beings is their opposing thumbs and their thirst for knowledge. Forget about what (direct or otherwise) science and space exploration does to better our lives, remember that we shouldn’t allow the ‘if God had meant us to fly he’d have given us wings,’ types to win out.
Very deep point, yours.
Well, from a less poetic perspective I think the 1970 letter from Ernst Stuhlinger to sister Mary Jucunda is another good point for Space Exploration. Here is one of the millions of quotes of these days: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html
Cheers,
Barney
I wonder where our knowledge will be in 200 years. What else will we have discovered about the image above.
this blog is amazing i wish mine was as good and popular as yours. i understand now why funding NASA is important thanks
I do not resent NASA. I have been interested in what’s in outer space since childhood. What I resent is a complete waste of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. What purpose, what conceivable gain can can their be in forwarding space exploration by finding out if Mars was ever teeming with life? SO WHAT? BIG DEAL! So, we find out all the little green men died millions of years ago. So–what now? We let Curiosity play with itself until all that is left is plutonium waste?
More would have been gained by sending Curiosity, and so much of our tax money, passed Mars and onto Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, any of the moons that orbit those planets or beyond. Maybe even the other way to Venus.
I am against NASA wasting any more of my tax money on frivolous, needless, and foolhardy searches for things that will do nothing to assist us in planning manned spaceflights to places we know much less about than Mars.
Absolutely Mind Boggling waste, Curiosity is.
What an incredibly ignorant comment.
Notice what the name of the rover is? “Curiosity”? Its goals reflect its name exactly, it is a mission to explore Mars for scientific and philosophical purposes to answer long-standing questions within these communities. The mission itself was also pioneering and an incredibly technically complex; knowing that we have the capability to successfully deploy payloads on other worlds inspires confidence in our ability to do it again with much more precious cargo in the coming years; human beings.
Every mission taken to Mars brings back more vital information for our eventual manned missions; dismissing it as a waste of money is a very narrow minded opinion.
Good post! I think funding should not be cut from space exploration simply because answers are not coming instantly. We need science to advance so society can advance.
People will always be curious about what might be out there, and what the implications of first contact might be. To discover that there is indeed life on other worlds would be a pivotal moment for us as a species, something that would arguably mean more for our species than any other scientific discovery to date.
It is a fascination I feel has been nurtured by ourselves through our own media. I recently delved into this topic in this blog post: http://daliennation.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/they-came-from-outer-space/
thank you
nice post
…there is no doubt that we should continue funding NASA and scientific R&D around the world. It is the only thing that creates valuable assets. history is proof that only those civilizations have prospered that have encouraged exploration, both in science and philosophy.Great to have come across your blog. Totally worth following!
NASA should be funded if they publish all data openly. There should be no secrets. Their behavior in the past has been reprehensible. All telemetry should be available to scientists in real time without censorship. NASA should not instantly poo-poo whatever speculation there may be. Let everyone debate, and let the data rule. There should be no knock down of any speculation in press conferences. Present the data and don’t force any agenda. Let the “silliness” be if that is what you think it is. Don’t be afraid. Let the data be, and don’t try to spin what you think is näive anthropomorphism or whatever. There is no panic but your own about the truth. Let everyone be silly and if that is what it turns out to be, you will laugh. But ultimately, if you are committing criminal hiding of data you will pay. Without candid admission of culpability for withholding data, NASA is dead to any new missions. They are very lucky they held onto the last one.
Those were really nice thoughts. I encountered something/someone said, “To think that we are the only beings in this universe is simple arrogance.” If you think about it, there may be some truth to that.
Enjoyed reading this. Thank you.
It comes down to a question of perspective–do we look up, or do we look down. If we look down at the activities of Earth and care more about what we and others in similer circumstances can touch, see, hear, and feel, then spending money on sapce appears wasteful.
But if one hopes that the cure to various ills of the human condition can be found elsewhere, then there are very few “elsewhere”s left on Earth to search.
I’m not opposed to funding NASA, it’s better spent tax dollars than the other places politicians waste tax dollars… but discovering our origin is free, read the first chapter of the Bible. It’s much more humbling to submit to the authority of God. The shear fact that one must be trained to reject the most obvious, creation. Also, the biblical view is that no one is insignificant (When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Psalms 8:3-5)
). This beautiful universe, including us were created by Jesus, for Jesus (In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1:14-17).
If your looking to be humbled and valued look to the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ.
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Great blog! I follow NASA events and put links to Space Weather pages on my blog. I am antitheistitc too …
I really like what you have to say here! This reminded me a lot of what Hank Green had to say about NASA a little while ago:
Great thinking. But on the other hand this is waste of time and money cause in this world many countries survive with poverty. Our global situation is not under control. So many of us think give time and money for this world first.
Where do you think that $2.5billion was spent? They didn’t pack it up, put it on the rover, and send it to Mars. They spent it here on Earth, creating good jobs for educated people, and over the span of an entire decade. That’s what a REAL economic stimulus looks like.
This is an intresting debate. I have read some good comments on both sides on your blog. My take for what it’s worth as our deficit nears 1 trillion bucks for the 4th staight year is that someting has to go. Most American’s live on a budget and don’t get everything they want. It’s time for the government to be able to justify all expenses, hold these people accountable! What do we need more? Pictures of Mars or feeding the homeless, improved Health Care, relief at the pump, and a host of other things. If funding for NASA needs to continue than something else needs to go…just my take. Nice Post
And that “something else” has to be the one beneficial thing that the government funds, and more imporantly that’s small enough to strangle. Not trillions in bank bailouts, not trillions in military spending to blow people up, not those. We all know those are the real culprits of destruction but hey, we know we’ll never be able to take them down, right? So instead let’s channel our frustration inappropriately and attack this teeny little organization over here that’s got a budget that’s about a quadzillionth of those other things and somehow manages to do tons of incredibly worth things like coming up with lots of useful technology and employs educated people — they’re small enough that we can attack them instead even though they are totally worthy and the wrongest target imaginable for our anger and frustration, and we’ll be able to kid ourselves that we’re accomplishing something when all we’re doing is aiming our anger someplace it shouldn’t go because deep inside, we know we’ll never be able to confront the real culprits.
Who’s with me?
*sigh*
Curiosity amounts to $7 per American, spread out over ten years. Less than a movie, and even if that’s all this is is entertainment, it’s WAY better than spending $15 to watch a FAKE rocket shot at a FAKE monster, innit? And let’s remember that that $2.5b was spent here on Earth, a living wage for thousands of educated people — that’s what I call an economic stimulus. And they built an actual thing, mind.
And it was spent over A DECADE. Compare that to the $10b a MONTH dropped on Iraq. TRILLIONS given to banks who got us in this crapo economic situation to start with by squandering ALL of it and then begging for more. Give trillions to bankers and they destroy the globe. Give a fraction of a fraction of that to scientists, and they build rockets and send them to other worlds. And employ actual normal people who don’t stash all their money in the Cayman Islands and waste it all on personal jets, hookers, and cocaine.
And hey, BIG side benefit to the money given to NASA as opposed to the money blown on banks and the military: no freakin DEAD PEOPLE! I don’t know, maybe I’m weird. I sort of like people who build rockets and don’t blow people into bloody rags and bone chips with them.
$7 is less than your average naysayer spends on porn and video games, and they don’t seem to care about starving kids when they’re wanking off or playing first-person shooters. But hey, let’s spend way more money playing a game that lets us all shoot FAKE rockets at FAKE people so we can make FAKE serial killers out of ourselves, instead of spending $7 to send a real rocket to someplace real and learn actual STUFF. *shakes head* Oh, and create good jobs, like government spending is supposed to do.
I know I’m a little pissy about this, but the whole topic makes me pissy. I think this little clip of film might help to address what all the naysayers sound like to me, and why I lose patience with all of it.
I’ve always felt that questioning someone about their support (or lack their of) for NASA was a great litmus test. I think people tend to fall into two categories: those who value the pure pursuit of knowledge, and those who simply do not. I much prefer to surround myself with people of the former category.
This post is marvelous because it reminds me once again that seeking knowledge is meant for more than just alleviating curiosity; it is a large part of our legacy as a species. We owe it to ourselves to keep fighting for funding for NASA. Thanks for writing this.
I have been fascinated by space since I was a child growing up in the 60s. Watching the moon landing at school, watching Star Trek and thinking that earth back then could have used a few Vulcans. Today man is once again reaching for the stars, and the more we learn about the universe, the more we understand ourselves. As to the origin of life, it’s been debated as long as man has been around. regardless of your religious beliefs, political background or philosophical outlook, man has studied the heavens since before recorded history. This knowledge allowed us to understand how seasons come and go, have a calender, and even your daily horoscope. o NASA keep up the good work.
If only we could find a way to change our budget so that all of our military expenditures are funneled into NASA, the world would be a much better place.
Global disarmament. We wish. War is business.
Nice article. We need to invest more in space exploration. I think the international space-station is a great example of humanity coming together in the spirit of cooperation. And we need to see more examples like that.
Totally agree! Questions on origins and the cosmos are never a waste of time.
There is an innate desire in us to explore that “grandest of mysteries”. The cosmos reminds us that we are of part of something greater than ourselves.
I think that, whilst the budget needs to stay flexible enough to be reactionary, things like science and the arts, which offer more intangible benefits, or ones that only show their utility further down the line, should never be having their funding cut short.
Space exploration isn’t taken seriously by people. If we manage to find another life-friendly planet in another 50 years or so (without destroying ourselves) world could finally have world peace.
But again, war is bad for business.
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