Seven Sons

On Saturday October 23, 2010 the International Space Station will have been continuously occupied for 3,645 days, breaking a record previously set aboard the Russian Mir space station. Humans will be able to claim a continuous presence off the surface of the planet for almost 10 years, and children born during that time may be the first generation not universally confined to the surface of our home planet.

Around the world nations are struggling to make difficult choices as their economies contract, and it would irresponsible to ignore the (pun intended) astronomically high cost of the space program when prioritizing budget line items. The space program does not deliver many obvious and immediate benefits beyond some stellar (there I go again) wall paper for your computer desktop. But I would argue that as we weigh the resources that we put into various efforts as a nation and as the steward species of the Earth, the space program should be grouped with investments in education, transportation and communications infrastructure as “weightless” on the balance.

While we humans have a penchant for quick fixes, instant gratification and impulsive decisions, we have proven for millennia  that we also have the unique ability among animal species to plan ahead, work together on a massive scale and lay the groundwork for future generations to survive and prosper. While space exploration and experimentation are still very expensive, our progeny three or four generations from now will not regret the resources spent on the hundreds of small things we are learning about living off-planet as they look out into the solar system for the raw material and real estate to thrive. Here is a small and very incomplete list of things we can only learn by continuing to support the manned exploration of space:

• long-term physical conditioning in micro gravity
• The psychological effects of long-term isolation
• nutrition in space
• re-acclimatization to the Earth after a long time away from it
• methods and protocols for communicating with the ground
• shuttle socking protocols, safety, methods, waste management
• power management
• the logistics of rotating crews and supplies from the Earth
• space debris monitoring and avoidance

For an even better discussion of human space flight by people who actually know what they are talking about, see this Freakonomics article.