Five decades ago, the Soviet Union sent a man into space. The United States countered twelve years later by putting footprints on the moon. We orbited the Earth, launched satellites to the furthest reaches of the solar system, and built a space station in the heavens. Yet recently, our ambitious have slowed, the shuttle program was discontinued, and those footprints are quietly fading away.
The United States should renew its love affair with space and set out to put a man on Mars by the end of this decade.
A thoughtful reader should ask the two following questions: Can we do it and should we?
To the first question, yes. I’m not a rocket scientist or a physicist, or even someone who knows anything more than what you learn in Astronomy 105, but we can put a man on Mars.
We’ve landed crafts on Mars before. They haven’t carried human beings and we don’t really know how to take off and come home, but it’s been done. It’s fair to say we are at least part of the way there.
Sputnik went up in 1957 and the United States put a man on the Moon within twelve years. In ten years, surely we can develop the technology needed to improve our travel to Mars so we can land safety and come home.
No one knew what to do in 1957, but by 1969 they had figured it out. We can do it again, all we need to do is direct our best minds and give them whatever help they might need.
The more pressing question is the latter one: should we devote time and resources to putting a man on the Red Planet? Absolutely.
Now you might think this is a worthless pursuit in a time when the we have problems at home and abroad and are fighting battles over how much to cut. Why should we spend our precious resources on traveling to another planet, when so much work is left to be done at home?
I’ll offer you three reasons.
The first is innovation. The space program produces all kinds of accidental and intentional inventions that make our lives on Earth better. Aside from some of the traditional inventions necessary to go into space, the journeys to outer space have yielded some useful products. Innovation often happens by
accident.
Ear thermometers, shoe insoles, smoke detectors, invisible braces, scratch resistant lenses, memory foam, concrete grooving, cordless tools, water filters and long distance telecommunications are all products of the space program.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that almost all of those things played a role in your life in the last year. Imagine what we might find during a trip to Mars.
Another reason to go to Mars is inspiration. We need kids growing up in America to, quite literally, reach for the stars. Putting a man on Mars will push a generation of young people into math and science.
By every measure, the United States is falling behind the rest of the world in math and science and something needs to be done about it. Instead of trying to get kids excited about a textbook, see what happens when you show them a video of someone walking on Mars.
The Moon landing and the space race inspired people to become astronauts. Most of them didn’t make it, but a lot of them turned into great scientists.
Finally, this might sound cheesy and intangible, but putting a man on Mars will bring confidence back to a country that doesn’t seem to believe in itself anymore.
We’re always saying, “We can put a man on the Moon but we can’t…?” Putting a man on Mars will help. It’ll inspire people to reach beyond what they previously thought possible.
You can’t measure that or see that, and you certainly can’t put a dollar figure on that, but it’s there. Big challenges don’t seem so big in the face of great accomplishments.
Innovation, inspiration and confidence are three things we need more of in America today and sending a man to Mars will give us all three.
Maybe you’d rather spend the money on something else or not spend it at all, but you can’t deny what the first space race did for our country. We need a second one. We need to put a man on Mars.
