WHY EARTH IS OUR ONLY OPTION AND NOT SPACE

 

When it comes to space exploration we have been spinning our wheels like people living in a stone-age era.  Stuck with primitive tools trying to invent a wheel that doesn’t exist. From humanity’s first humble origins to today’s marvels of technological innovation, it has always been propulsion that has inspired us, from marching on foot to all kinds of contraptions that don’t require humans expending human energy; just sit down and either let the horse pull your wagon or put horsepower in your tank and engine and off you go.  We’re hung up on propulsion as the only way to move forward.  It has always required a physical source of energy; electricity, hydrogen, nuclear, gasoline, steam, coal, jet fuel, hydroelectric, wind, solar.  We have been applying the same kind of thinking to space travel and space exploration.  The persnickety problem is space itself.  Not only hostile and deadly, but vast, as in billions of lightyears.

We have peered into the heavens with some mighty telescopes and they have returned amazing images of faraway planets and other solar systems.  Planets galore that may well harbor life, planets even similar to ours.  Great.  But the problem is distance.  Even one rumored to be only 1 lightyear away from Earth.  But here comes the problem.  One lightyear is 9 trillion kilometers.  A crewed spaceship like Apollo can reach speeds of up to 39,000 km/h.  Travelling at that speed it would take 27,000 years to travel 1 lightyear.  Einstein already calculated that the cosmic speed limit of light cannot be surpassed.  So, how likely is it for humanity to even entertain such a dubious undertaking?  Any volunteers?

At a space symposium in the late nineteen nineties a top expert from NASA postulated that if humanity were serious about space exploration we would have to think outside of the box.  What did he mean with that remark?  Conventional, physical space crafts are costly, uneconomical, time consuming, inefficient and lacking a space infrastructure that is needed for refueling, repairs, maintenance, food, water and other essentials and creature comforts.  You name it, it doesn’t exist.  Size and weight determine speed, limitations, costs and efficiency.  The only way to effectively explore space could be accomplished by doing away with all physical aspects of space travel.

What would it look like?  If we were able to transform matter—organic and inorganic—into anti-matter and use wave technology—light or sound—it could transform space travel and exploration into an actual reality.  We could get to that faraway planet within the span of one year.  Forget Star Trek and Star Wars or any other space fantasy concocted in movie studios.  Great characters, huge ships and story lines, but it has little to do with reality and the harsh conditions of a space environment.  Farfetched?  The alternative is continuing on the current path, wasting billions of dollars on ineffective propulsion methods and technologies and not getting anywhere.  We’re flushing money, time, energy and effort down the drain and we will remain stuck on Earth, wishing, trying and hoping, but not getting anywhere.  The alternative—and a healthy one—is to concentrate on planet Earth, preserving and protecting what is left.  Fewer of us, doing with less and stop wasting precious resources.    Should we give up on alternatives?  Should we stop trying?  We won’t.  But perhaps we can keep one eye on the ball and the other on what our feet are doing on the ground.