It’s 30 years since the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ picture of Earth taken by Voyager 1 as it left our solar system. When reading about it, see here and here, the Badger was struck by the obvious fragility of our existence on a planet that’s barely a speck of dust in the Universe!
The picture caused the Badger to if our Space ambitions align with the interests of human life and our planet. The oversight of projects involving very talented ‘Space techies’ developing software for interplanetary missions, earth observation, and satellite control featured many times during the Badger’s career, and it’s pictures like the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ that are good reminders to stay realistic about ‘Space – the final frontier’. It’s right that we should have ambitions, dreams, and scientific knowledge pertinent to Space, but it’s also right to regularly wonder if we have our priorities right. This decade sees US astronauts return to the Moon and a raft of other missions led by different countries and commercial organisations. There’s a view that Space is the new ‘Wild West’ and that ‘Space has shifted from a place purely to ‘go’ to a place to do business’. Hard to disagree! The global Space market will double to ~£400 billion by 2030, so this decade could see Space really become the ‘Wild West’ given it’s no longer the preserve of just governmental agencies but of private companies jockeying for position and commercial advantage as well.
Staring at the ‘Pale Blue Dot’, the Badger cogitated on our Space priorities given the importance of preserving life and our speck of dust in the Universe. After doing some reading, perusing recent items like those here, here, and here, and some research on how Space impacts our bodies, the Badger quickly formed an opinion. Unmanned Space exploration makes sense and helps the scientific and engineering advancement needed to benefit human life and our planet, but manned Space exploration is an expensive holy grail because biologically and psychologically we are designed for Earth and do not adapt well to extended periods in Space. What’s the point in putting humans in Space at vast expense when robots are better suited to the hostile environment? As the video here concludes, using robots will tell us more about our planet and the solar system, whereas using astronauts tells will tell us mostly about ourselves.
Has the time come for man to curtail manned Space exploration and use the money for urgent human life and on-Earth planet sustainability initiatives instead? The Badger thinks ‘probably’. Just an opinion…you should have one too! Surely The sustainability of humans on our ‘Pale Blue Dot’ is much more important to us, our children, and our grandchildren than man in Space will ever be. After all, a Wild West in Space in the coming years is no use to anyone if we, or our speck of dust, disappear.
