[ale] [OT][Fwd: Arthur C. Clark on the Shuttle disaster]

[Michael D. Hirsch]

Freeman Dyson made some similar points long before the Challenger 
explosion.  He said, in effect, that exploring is and should be dangerous.  
Thousands died exploring the oceans and the new world.  Test pilots used 
to drop like flies.  But we've decided that space exploration should be 
safe and when it isn't we freak out.

He was arguing for a much cheaper space program that would also be more 
dangerous.  It's kind of a gruesome thought, but with some truth to it.

Michael

On Friday 14 February 2003 11:38 am, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> As many people on this list are interested on space exploration just due
> to the cool geek factor alone, I am forwarding this note from Arthur C.
> Clark that was sent out to the alumni of Princeton University as well as
> several government political leaders. As to be expected, it is very well
> written and expresses many of the same sentiments I have been thinking
> about these past weeks. The quote from Larry Niven should be made the
> official motto of NASA.
>
> -----Forwarded Message-----
>
>
> Tribute to Columbia
>
> In a few months we will be celebrating the first centennial of
> heavier-than-air flight.  It is now hard to believe that when the Wright
> Brothers started the revolution which has changed our world, most
> Americans papers never reported the event  because they were sure it was
> a hoax.  Leading scientists had "proved" that it would defy
> the laws of Physics.
>
> The conquest of the air took many lives  though only a fraction of those
> lost during the millennia when the Oceans were opened up  for
> navigation.  As Kipling wrote: "If blood be the price of
> Admiralty,  Dear God we have paid in full"!
>
> Well, with Columbia and the earlier Apollo 7 and Challenger tragedies,
> we are starting to pay the price of Astronautics, and inevitably some
> are asking "Is it worthwhile"?  A hundred years from now such a
> question will seem as absurd as criticisms directed at the importance of
> aviation, c1900.
>
> No-one will deny the enormous value of space technologies for
> communications, weather forecasting, surveying  and peace keeping.
> However, most, if not all, of these duties can best be performed by
> robot satellites: what useful work can men - and women  do in Space?
>
> Lost satellites  have been saved by an astronaut with a screw driver -
> and it is not easy to make robots perform this sort of feat.  Whole new
> branches of medicine will be opened up in the weightless environment of
> space, while this will also attract countless tourists during the
> decades to come.
>
> Although space travel is still extremely expensive, there is no reason
> why it should always be the case.  One day the noisy, inefficient and
> dangerous rocket will be replaced by the Space Elevator, which is
> exactly what its name implies.  It costs about $1000 worth of electrical
> energy to take a human being up to  Geostationary Orbit  - and perhaps
> $100  for the round trip, since most of the  energy can be recovered on
> the downward journey! For years I have been saying that one day the
> chief costs of space travel will be for catering and in-flight movies.
>
> More seriously, there is a vital reason why we must explore Space: the
> very survival of the human race may depend upon it.  There were at least
> three major meteor impacts during the last century, and almost every
> week our atmosphere protects us from meteorites which could deliver
> kiloton blasts if they reached the earth's surface.
>
> Some 60 million  years ago a comet or meteorite changed the course of
> evolution and gave an un-prepossessing little mammal a chance to replace
> the  giant reptiles who were then lords of the earth.
>
> In 1973 I opened "Rendezvous with Rama" (choosing the ominous
> date 9/11!) with a devastating meteor impact on Europe. In that novel I
> proposed the name "Spaceguard" for an organization which
> would watch out for dangerous celestial projectiles, and deflect or
> destroy them.  I am happy to say that when Congress ordered NASA to look
> into the matter, the resulting report (Jan 25th 1992)  was called the
> "Spaceguard Survey", with due acknowledgement to the novel.
>
> As my fellow science-fiction writer Larry Niven summed it up: "The
> dinosaurs became extinct because they did not have a space
> programme".  If the same thing happens to us, we will have proved
> our unfitness to survive.
>
> Arthur C Clarke
> Colombo.  10 February, 2003

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