Trends: The Attempt to Stop Space Exploration

It costs a lot of money to fund space exploration, and there are always people who say that that money should be spent on social programs - subsidized housing for the poor, and so on. But money has been spent on social programs since the 1960s - with what result? There are more poor now than ever before - thanks to welfare programs that don't discourage waiting to start a family until you can actually afford it, and so on. "The poor are always with us," as I believe the Bible states somewhere.

Obviously, the money spent on space exploration shouldn't be wasted, by funding projects that will never go anywhere, but we - as in Americans, and as in the world - need to make a concerted effort to get out into space. Only a few thousand people will be able to make the trip, probably...but if the best and the brightest can go set up a colony full of atheistic capitalists on Mars, or Titan, or similar, and found a kind of Galt's Gulch, there might yet be hope for mankind, in this writer's opinion.

But let's see what Isaac Asimov thought about American's attitude toward space travel, way back in July 1939, when he was 19. (He shares the story in his essay, "How Easy To See The Future!")

...Even at the age of 19 I was aware that all those technological advances in the past that had significantly ruffled the current of human custom had been attacked by important segments of the population who, for one reason or another, found it difficult to accept change. It occurred to me, then, that this would surely be true of the development of spaceflight as well. My story "Trends" therefore, dealt primarily with opposition to space flight.

It was, as far as I know, the first description of ideological opposition to mankind's advance into space. Until then, all those who had looked forward to the new development had either ignored the reaction of humanity, or had assumed it would be favorable. When there did indeed arise ideological opposition, in the late 1960s, I found myself accepting credit as a seer, when I had merely foreseen the inevitable.

Below is an article, an opinion piece from the New York Times, reprinted in a local paper, first pubished on January 31, 1973, the dilemma of the expense of health care. Note that the example the writer offers - of an expensive program that can be given up - is space exploration.

The article will appear small here at this blog, but click on it and do a save as, and the large version will appear that you can read.