Asteroid Dust, Anyone?

 

Last Thursday, Oct. 30, the NASA spacecraft Osiris-Rex sampled about four pounds (2 kilograms) of material from an asteroid named Bennu.  If the rest of the mission goes as well as it has so far, in October of 2023 the sample container will land in the Utah desert, bringing the largest amount in history of asteroid material to earth.  Japanese space probes have previously succeeded in sampling pieces of asteroids, but never as much material as we will get from Bennu.

 

In the nature of such projects, planning probably began more than a decade ago.  This is the type of project that scientists devote entire careers to, and I'm sure that dozens or hundreds of people have been working on it for most of the twenty-first century so far.  The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral in September of 2016, and spent about two years catching up to Bennu, whose orbit lies partly inside that of the Earth.  In fact, one reason Bennu was chosen as a target is that there is about a 1 in 2700 chance that it will collide with Earth some time in the next ten years.  Bennu is a small asteroid by asteroid standards, only about 490 meters (1600 feet) across.  But it's big enough to do plenty of damage if it entered our atmosphere.  An old rule from combat is "know your enemy," so if we find ourselves scrambling to avoid Bennu's wrath and want to do something about it, knowing what it's made of will help.

 

Once the spacecraft reached the asteroid, it went into orbit about a mile away.  Even an object as small as Bennu has enough gravity to enable a satellite to orbit in that fashion.  Then, in a horribly tricky 36-hour process, Osiris-Rex crept up to the surface and snatched a four-pound sample and put it in a can to return it to Earth.  And NASA has pictures to prove it.

 

The entire project, including the launch rocket, cost under $1 billion.  That is chump change compared to the least expensive manned mission the U. S. undertook, Project Mercury back in the early 1960s, which cost about $2 billion in 2020 dollars.  My point is that if you just leave the people at home, you can do extremely impressive things in space for a whole lot less money.

 

What do we get for that $1 billion?  Well, if you like to put it this way, the world's most expensive dirt, at $250 million a pound.  Space exploration and astronomy seem to be the main beneficiaries these days of what is left of pure-science curiosity.  That is why the U. S. government found the wherewithal and the consistency to fund the Osiris-Rex project from its inception in the early 2000s to its completion sometime in 2023. 

 

And that is appropriate, because from my worm's-eye view teaching young people who are technically inclined (electrical engineers), many of the best of them seem to seek out space-related jobs.  One of the best electromagnetics students I ever had went to work initially for Boeing, and she is now at Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.  And just last week, I was talking with a former grad student of mine who wants to go into aerospace engineering or science to develop space probes. 

 

In terms of frontiers of exploration, it makes sense to look upward, as there's a lot of room out there and a lot of things to find out.  Every age has what philosopher Richard Weaver calls its "metaphysical dream."  This is not necessarily a religious thing.  But just as most of us need some basic reason to get out of bed in the morning, a society needs something to look forward to and hope for.  Astronomy and especially space exploration, both manned and unmanned, seem to satisfy that need in a way that few other current enterprises do.

 

While interest and pride in unmanned projects like Osiris-Rex is justified, another point to be made is that if exploration is all you want to do, leaving the people at home is by far the most efficient way to do it.  This argument does not go down well with the space-as-manifest-destiny crowd, who believe that Earth is to space as Europe was to America:  a place we'll simply look back on and say yes, we came from there, but we're glad we're here now. 

 

The danger in making space the ultimate destiny of mankind is the same danger that any other utopian project brings.  For whatever reason, it seems that if people convince themselves that there is a perfect future out there for them, infinitely better than anything we have now, they begin to justify all manner of wickedness and injustice in the present for the sake of the ideal perfect future that somehow never arrives.  This sort of thing is most easily observed in the history of Marxism, which led to the death of millions on the altar of the perfect workers' paradise that never got here. 

 

Maybe you think that hoping to colonize other planets or space in general can't cause serious problems here on Earth.  Well, think of it this way.  Marriage is supposed to be a lifelong total commitment of two souls to each other.  But if one of the parties starts thinking, "Well, things are fine now, but if (he, she) gets old and floppy, I can always find somebody else," just the harboring of that thought can cause invisible corrosion of the relationship that can eventually lead to a total rupture.

 

Once we start looking at Earth not with the eyes of a homeowner, but with the eyes of a renter who has no long-term commitment to the upkeep of the property, you can see what problems might arise.  Everybody involved in Osiris-Rex deserves praise for their persistence, skill, and commitment to a long-term project that could benefit all of humanity, and not just a few space scientists.  By the same token, let's not look on Earth as just a starter apartment, but as the place where humanity has committed to stay and live peaceably and responsibly as long as we can.

 

Sources:  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer carried the AP article "Asteroid samples tucked into capsule for return to Earth" on Oct. 31, 2020 at https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Asteroid-samples-tucked-into-capsule-for-return-15685773.php.  I also referred to Wikipedia articles on Osiris-Rex, Bennu, and Blue Origin.

SpaceX Launches NASA Astronauts At Last

On Saturday, May 30, American astronauts flew into orbit on an American-made space vehicle for the first time since 2011.  SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carried Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, both veterans of the old Space Shuttle program, inside the Dragon capsule, and once the capsule separated safely, the first stage returned automatically to earth and landed intact on a barge to be reused.  Meanwhile, the Dragon capsule has been catching up to the International Space Station (ISS) where, assuming the docking goes smoothly this morning (I'm writing this Sunday), the astronauts will stay for the next several months.  The return flight in the Dragon capsule is planned to end in the ocean, a mode of re-entry that hasn't been done for over forty years. 

Many news reports remarked on the contrast between the good news of a successful launch and the general tone of recent U. S. news events:  the COVID-19 virus and all its consequences, riots over police brutality, and so on.  But this is nothing new. 

The space race between the U. S. and the USSR over who would get to the moon first was conducted during what was probably the most tumultuous decade in the last half of the twentieth century.  The 1960s were not exactly peaceful:  the Vietnam War, antiwar protests, race riots, and the sexual revolution are just a few items of turmoil that come to mind.  But amid all the strife, America found the will and the capability to land men on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Engineers are not much into symbolism.  But space exploration carries a heavy load of symbolism, and it's worthwhile considering what that means in light of the huge effort and expense that sending people into space entails.

In retrospect, the Apollo program was mainly a way to carry on the Cold War by peaceful means.  Its extraordinary expense was justified not for scientific reasons, although there was some useful science done.  But being the first nation to put men on the moon would show our technological superiority to the world, and in an age dominated by technology, that achievement had implications that everyone understood.  It took a couple more decades for the USSR to crumble away, but it did.  Nevertheless, in their rough-and-ready way, the Russians maintained their ability to travel into space despite all kinds of political reverses, and once the Space Shuttle program outlived its usefulness, America turned inward with regard to space and paid taxi fare to the Russians to put people on the International Space Station.

When one asks about the ultimate motivations of the younger generation of space cadets—Elon Musk being their spiritual leader—the answer isn't as clear-cut as it was for my generation.  Nationalism pure and simple doesn't seem to be a big factor, although Musk is enough of an American to take pride in the fact that the rocket was made here and launched from here.

To be sure, profit is a motive as well.  That's why the fact that SpaceX and not NASA was the builder of the rocket is so significant.  It may be the case that SpaceX is a long way from turning a profit with direct commercial space activities, as opposed to government-subsidized projects such as the ISS launches.  But with ideas such as asteroid mining around, it may be that some of the next great fortunes may be made in space. 

If I had to guess, though, I'd say that the new space explorers see themselves taking part in a long-term project that will end up putting significant numbers of people out in space, in places that will be just as habitable as Earth, if not more so.  Every so often I come across a student who wants to get involved in the space program somehow, and there's often a kind of glitter in their eye when they talk about it.  The phrase "manifest destiny" has fallen under a cloud in recent years, as its original meaning that the United States was destined to conquer the whole midsection of the North American continent has been taken to be insensitive to the people (and animals) who were already here.  But presumably, displacing natives is not a big problem in the solar system, at least.  And believing that humanity is fated to found colonies on other planets, and perhaps beyond the solar system, seems to be close to an article of faith for many space enthusiasts.

It's interesting that the word "fate" came up in a quote from Musk himself as he commented on the successful launch yesterday.  Remarking on the contrast between Saturday's successful launch and the earlier attempts that were scrubbed by weather conditions, he said, "Today, I don't know, it felt like just the fates were aligned." 

Without putting undue weight on what may have been just an offhand remark, I think it's interesting that the leader of the company that launched Americans into space for the first time in nearly a decade attributes success to the fates being aligned. 

Musk mixed his metaphors, for one thing.  The usual phrase is to say that the stars are aligned, which harks back to the time when astrology—forecasting auspicious times and events by observing stars and planets—was every bit as respectable as forecasting the progress of pandemics is today.  And the Fates were mythological goddesses who presumably determined one's lifespan and, well, fate in life.  Either way, he was saying that despite all the highly technical and cross-checked planning involved, there is an element in the venture that wasn't under human control.  But we don't believe in Fates or astrology any more, do we? 

It depends on what you think life and the world are about.  If the most one has to look forward to is playing a brief role on a stage where your only hope of immortality is to make a big splash that will be remembered by future generations, then living a Musk-like life makes some sense, especially if humanity is fated to live among the stars.  Then you will be viewed by future generations as a Columbus (if that name isn't too offensive any more), or someone equally famous for venturing out to discover and eventually populate new worlds. 

But if everything we do and are is owing to a supernatural Ground of existence, namely a God who is intensely interested in what we puny humans do, then one has a different perspective on things.  It still may be worth while to explore space, and even for some people to live there.  But other priorities and other goals may intervene.

Sources:  I viewed the pre-launch clip and read the accompanying news copy about the SpaceX launch at https://apnews.com/da66485df4d82c055ce9d6b84a20e450.