5 Crucial Points Long-Time Space Advocates Need To Consider

In this handout photo provided by SpaceX, a Tesla roadster launched from the Falcon Heavy rocket ... [+] with a dummy driver named "Starman" heads towards Mars. (Photo by SpaceX via Getty Images)

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As the years click by and timeframes for unmet space goals fade in the rear-view mirror, it’s no wonder the public’s eyes tend to glaze over at the mere mention of crewed missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

American presidents have used the mantra of back to the Moon and on to Mars for decades now. And neither the European Space Agency nor NASA have concrete dates for landing a human crew on Mars.

But, in truth, despite the recent furor over the coming total solar eclipse, interest in astronomy and space among the public usually tends to be a mile wide and an inch deep.

Thus, here are five reasons why space advocates are sometimes overly optimistic about humanity's quest to explore our solar system and beyond.

Not Everyone Shares Your Enthusiasm About Space Exploration

Most Americans are looking for some sort of return on investment in terms of their taxpayer dollars.

As former NASA chief historian Roger Launius writes in his recent book, “From NACA to NASA to Now,” “At a fundamental level, [political will] is the most critical challenge facing those who wish to venture into space in this century. It is even more significant than the technological issues that also present serious challenges.”

Planet earth from the space at night . 3d render, textures furnished from ... [+] https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/144875/earth-at-night-black-marble-2012-color-maps-v2

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As for the advent of commercial space?

It’s true that Elon Musk and SpaceX have completely revolutionized the launch business, hosting over half of global launches on SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets, as author Rod Pyle, Editor-in-Chief of The National Space Society’s Ad Astra magazine, told me via email.

But we appear to be years away from having a Lunar Starship Human Landing System as commissioned by NASA a few years back, and that’s likely to delay NASA’s current Artemis lunar landing program significantly, says Pyle. SpaceX has a lot of work to do, as does Blue Origin, to stay on NASA’s already delayed schedule for Artemis, he says.

Many Still Don’t Understand The Tech Benefits Of Space Exploration

Those who argue against space exploration are often badly misinformed about the technological benefits of national space programs.

It’s well accepted that for every dollar invested in the Apollo program, between $16 and $25 came back to the U.S. economy in one form or another, says Pyle. And the benefits to technological leadership and STEM-focused education, as well as the resultant increase in highly educated professionals, are significant and recognized, he says.

Space Tourism And Commercial Exploration Currently Have A Very Limited Market

While there may be a market for space tourism of the sort that Star Trek’s William Shatner experienced on his recent Blue Origin trip into low-Earth orbit, a new generation of stratospheric balloons should soon be able to take people up for hours at a time.

This should give greater numbers of the public access to the overview effect, a transcendent cognitive shift that strikes astronauts who get a glimpse of planet Earth against the blackness of space. But all without crossing the Karman line, a 62-mile-high line of demarcation between the edge of Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.

As for mining asteroids?

Grandiose ideas about extracting mineral riches from near-Earth asteroids which were so popular fifteen to twenty years ago have lately gone nowhere.

Early entrants into asteroid mining underestimated the difficulty of the project, were grossly underfinanced, and were not able to make enough progress with the money they did have to continue operations, says Pyle. Main Belt Asteroid 16Psyche is estimated to have perhaps as much as $100 quadrillion worth of minable platinum, he says.

The problem remains how to return these precious metals such as platinum and rare-earth metals to earth in large enough quantities and in a safe manner to make it profitable.

Many See Space Exploration As Irrelevant To Solving Earth’s Problems

Travel to low-Earth orbit is also helps the general public realize both how fragile our planet and why we should do our best to protect it.

The only reason we know as much as we do about our environmental challenges is due to space-based assets—mostly orbital satellites, says Pyle. A significant portion of NASA’s budget is spent on monitoring Earth, both regarding climate and more generally weather, and the environmental impacts of both, he says.

Space Exploration Remains In Its Infancy

“Going from the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk to the Moon in 66 years is a stunning accomplishment,” Launius writes in his book.

As for getting humans to Mars?

Consistently, only about 40 percent of Americans polled have supported human missions to Mars, Launius notes in his book. Absent a major surprise…, I doubt we will land on Mars before the latter part of the 21st century, he writes.

Pyle agrees that sending humans to Mars currently remains well out of reach.

The more we learn about the conditions of Mars, and the stresses on the human body during extended time in space, the more expensive and demanding the effort appears to be, says Pyle.

Pyle thinks it makes sense to use some form of artificial gravity while sending human astronauts to and from Mars. Artificial gravity would be both hugely expensive and remains completely unexplored technology, he says.

Long-term fail-safe life support, radiation shielding, and other factors are better explored technologies, says Pyle But they all still need substantial development before being flung out to perform a human-rated mission that can’t return home in less than a year, he says.

How much would all this cost?

Estimates range from the moderate tens of billions of dollars to as much as a trillion dollars for a substantive, safe human Mars expedition, says Pyle.

The bottom line?

In the near term, I suspect the future of human spaceflight will remain largely the domain of government employees, the well-heeled adventurer, and, eventually, people of more moderate means on suborbital flights, says Pyle.