The Guardian view on space exploration: awaken the force with a global effort
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Version 0 of 1. The face said it all. Moments after floating aboard the International Space Station, Tim Peake, Britain’s European Space Agency astronaut, was on our screens and beaming. Who can blame him? After years of tough preparation, Mr Peake had at last reached space. He is there to do science, and is clearly intent on enjoying himself while he does it. The first module of the International Space Station was lofted into orbit 17 years ago, when Cher’s Believe led the UK singles chart. Since then, the station has grown to the size of a football field. It now functions as a unique laboratory for studying the space environment. Under the latest pledges from supporting nations, the lab will remain in orbit until 2024. Plenty has been learned from building and maintaining it, and experiments playing out. And there is far more science to be done. But as the space station approaches its final years, a fresh focus is called for. The veteran space nations, and those that are emerging, must work together on humanity’s next adventure in the heavens. In 2004, a year before Michael Griffin became Nasa’s chief administrator, he wrote a report for the Planetary Society with the US astronaut Owen Garriott. The report lamented the state of human space exploration. “We have made shamefully little progress in exploration beyond low Earth orbit in the decades since Apollo,” they wrote. More than a decade later, the situation has not changed. Nations will always want to pursue their own agendas in space. But that should be done within an agreed strategy which recognises that deep space exploration must be a global effort. Piecemeal exploration is wasteful. With coordinated missions, spacecraft from the US, Europe, Asia and elsewhere can be designed to communicate, rendezvous and work together. Leading space nations outlined a global exploration strategy for space in 2007. But implementation is everything. And while a coherent plan is emerging, it could easily be knocked off course. Nasa wants to lead the effort to land humans on near-Earth asteroids, and to build a habitat between the Earth and the moon. From here space agencies can test technologies needed for the long-term goal of sending crews to Mars. Meanwhile, the Europeans and Russians are well placed to lead humans back to the moon, a necessary stepping stone on the way to Mars. Despite the Apollo programme, we have not been there and done that. Those missions barely scraped the lunar surface: US astronauts explored only a minute stretch of land near the equator on the moon’s near side. Future moon missions are needed to work out best practices for turning natural materials into buildings; to develop ways for humans to work alongside robots, and to prove technologies that extract water, oxygen and other valuable resources. All of these are needed if humans are to ever occupy a permanent base on Mars or any other planetary body. The moon is a natural proving ground and, unlike Mars, it is close enough for emergency rescue to be a realistic option. These two strands of exploration must be entwined, each one supporting and informing the other. That way, the lessons learned from different missions are learned by all. The duty of the major space agencies is to ensure they bring others with them: China, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia and African nations, to name a few. The bar to entry must not be set too high. The strategy is not perfect. Plenty of important details are missing or obscure. But as a coherent plan for the future that encourages global cooperation, it should be supported. Charles Bolden, the head of Nasa, warned recently that a change of direction by the next US administration would doom the agency. Other space agencies face similar political uncertainties. Carl Sagan, the great American astronomer, once said that the dinosaurs died out because they did not have a space programme. The goal is worthwhile. We must not squander the opportunity. |