Beyond the celebrations

This year marks the 50th anniversary of man’s first landing on the Moon, reminding us of the startling strides made in the field of science and technology.

On July 20, 1969, the world was stunned by the news of the moon landing. Neil Armstrong, who died in 2012 at the age of 82, made history by becoming the first person to walk on the Moon. Millions of people watched this historic event, reflecting man’s desire to control nature, using it for the benefits of civilisation.

But many today wonder whether it has helped solve the earthly problems that have been plaguing the lives of billions of souls? Can this event be described as a major victory of man over nature? Critics believe it is time to do some soul searching. Dissenting voices are demanding that we revisit this event and the way it was heralded as a great victory for humans. The celebrations should not blind us to the lethal race for destructive weapons that it helped trigger. The financial cost should not be ignored and its impacts on society should be discussed to draw a reasonable lesson.

The event may have triggered a ripple of excitement among those who may have wished to defeat the Soviet Union in space technology but it did dampen the hopes of those who wanted the two big powers of the cold-war era to put their differences aside and work for the common good of mankind.

The US and the Soviet Union started devoting ever more resources to conquer the world and space. Their competition in space had grave implications for the billions living on the earth. Space emerged as another battleground for the two ideological rivals.

But not all criticism is valid. It is a fact that the landing on the Moon was an impressive technical achievement which helped humanity appreciate how unique the Earth is. It is also believed to enhance our understanding of issues – especially of human space flights.

According to Dr Stuart Parkinson, “It’s generally straightforward to identify the benefits of this type of space mission. Satellites have become essential for telecommunications and monitoring the state of the Earth’s environment, while missions beyond Earth’s orbit have helped our understanding of the Sun and other planets. This latter knowledge has been useful, for example, in helping us to predict the effect of solar changes on our weather and improving our comprehension of the greenhouse effect. But with human space-flight, the benefits are harder to identify, while the negative elements are rather more obvious.”

One of the objections to such missions has been related to its financial cost. Critics claim the US pumped a lot of money into this project, asserting the Apollo programme consumed four percent of all federating spending in 1964-66, the time when the space agency was building up to the first Moon landing and the programme was a top national priority. More than 34,000 employees and 375,000 contractors from industry and academia were working on the project.

In 1973, Nasa submitted congressional testimony reporting the total cost of Project Apollo as $25.4 billion (about $153 billion in terms of 2018) but citing Nasa estimates Dr Parkinson claimed the Apollo programme, lasting for a decade, cost more than $200 billion in today’s money. Such a huge amount could have been spent on millions of privileged sections of American society that were struggling to meet both ends in the decade of the 1960s.

The race for space superiority triggered by this event also damaged the environment. Prof Mike Berners-Lee of Lancaster University calculated that the carbon emission of one Space Shuttle flight was at least 4,600 tonnes. That’s about the same amount of pollution as driving 230 times around the Earth in a small car – or over 9 million kilometres.

The professor says, “Given the International Space Station orbits the Earth at an altitude of only 350km, that is one very polluting commute. Newer space-craft are significantly more efficient, but are still very polluting. For example, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy – which had its first successful test-flight last year and is designed to carry humans into orbit, to the Moon and beyond – emits about 1,200 tonnes per launch. That’s similar to driving a small car 60 times around the Earth. And this estimate does not include the warming effects of water vapour and black carbon in the upper atmosphere, nor the carbon footprint of the space-craft itself or the launch infrastructure. Even the Virgin Galactic craft – which is only planned to take tourists to the edge of space – would create significant pollution problems due to its emissions of black carbon into the stratosphere. Indeed, it is hard to see any justification for space tourism – which will just be a plaything for the wealthy – in a society which needs to rapidly reach net zero carbon emissions.”

The intensification of the arms race distracted the attention of the world’s ruling classes from the most pressing problems faced by the world. The US on its own has pumped more than $601 billion into space technology since the inception of Nasa. Russia, Japan and some Western countries have also invested billions of dollars over the years. Now, India and China are also lavishing money on their space projects. This is in addition to the billions of dollars being pumped into arms sale and military spending the world over. According to a report, the world spent more than $1800 billion on military spending in 2018.

Such huge spending is being carried out in the world where more than two billion people live on less than five dollars a day. More than 150 million people are homeless across the globe while 1.6 billion do not have an access to adequate housing. The majority of the people in the developing world is still bereft of basic necessities of life like pure drinking water and sanitation. Literacy is still a dream in several parts of the world while wiping out epidemics still seems to be an arduous task despite all the development in science.

So, we also need to ask why mankind that has been planning to conquer space has failed to tide over extreme poverty on the Earth. Why is ‘man’, who is struggling to discover water on different planets, destroying such a precious gift of nature on our planet? Why are the thinking minds that are tracing the beauty of nature on various planets turning Earth into an ugly phenomenon by imposing wars, conflicts and invasions?

What is the logic in detecting the traces of life on other planets while we are annihilating the same on Earth? It is time we went beyond celebrations and posed serious questions. This should also serve us as an opportunity to question where we need to be spending our resources.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Email: egalitarianism444@gmail.com