February 11, 2003
What's Next?... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
For many of us, the Columbia accident is the Challenger all over again. Complex space technology fails dramatically, and humans die with it. We stand helpless, not comprehending, not even knowing what questions to ask. Even those of us who are competent in such matters can ask all the relevant questions they want, but they may not be answerable. What is clear, however, is that we are all in this together.
I, for one, am comforted by the palpable honesty of the space program managers, their emotions barely contained, their resolve re-doubling before us. But I believe that what we do now is not merely a question of finding problems and fixing them. We need to decide on a bigger vision - a cohesive human vision - on why we are going to space.
And this is a question I believe everyone has to answer for himself, independent of technical background or actual interest in the space program per se. For it has to do with the fact of being human.
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Humans have only populated the earth for roughly 2 million years, and our appearance came some 65 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct.
Now, the dinosaurs didn't come to their end by over-populating, creating a hole in the ozone layer, or using up all the natural resources. No, they were sitting here minding their own business when a big chunk of planetary junk - about 6 miles in diameter - came zipping out of space and smacked right into planet Earth. The dinosaurs had just spent 150 million copasetic years living here, but they couldn't survive the relatively short-lived but harsh global weather which ensued. And if we had been there, we wouldn't have either.
Just knowing this imparts a note of fragility, and the scientific fact of it makes us different from our early ancestors. They believed the earth was flat, but as the population of the Earth grew, some among us - the scientists - kept looking for answers. And scientific knowledge is not the kind that each of us must discover for ourselves, like trust or betrayal. It's collective human knowledge, from which we all benefit. It's about the truth of our world.
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Ancient maps show that which lies beyond what is known as mysterious, frightening and dangerous. And just 500 years ago, Columbus set out across the ocean in a tiny boat with an incorrect premise and very little data.
And are we so different today? What is our map of the world? What lies beyond the edge of space as we perceive it? Will our descendents look upon our ideas in the same way we look at those early maps, painted as they are with dragons and sea serpents, remembering, of course, that ours will be embellished with clips from Star Trek and Star Wars.
We humans never seem to have the whole answer, but when it comes to science, we always get better and better. And when the answers come, they benefit everyone.
For whatever divine reason or absolute coincidence man came into being, he is an intelligent animal, capable of building technology. He, unlike any before him on this planet, can actually leave it.
It is time now to look beyond the next fix. We've got to find out about this great expanse of space in which we live. And then we will have answers to questions we never even thought to pose.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
