B8001-1 Going to Mars

Every now and then a person appears on television arguing for greater space exploration spending. There is always a rather extended list of benefits the nation stands to collect if only it is wise enough to spend some $50-60 billions each year on rockets. I find those arguments amusing in the extreme.

Space exploration was a Cold War exercise, principally between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. It was a technological bet that purported to prove which society was somehow superior to the other on the basis of sending men and equipment to the moon. It was curiously similar to an advanced drag race between two teenagers with multi-billion dollar equipment. In the end it proved only that one nation sent men to the moon before the other nation without settling the bet on cultural superiority.

What I find so amusing is the extended arguments of those participants of early attempts at space exploration (Buzz Aldrin, et al.), who now talk about colonizing Mars or other planets, without realizing what actually happened in the 1960s. The pilots went for a plane ride in very expensive equipment back then and all of it was quite thrilling. But it had nothing to do with “advancing the frontiers of mankind” (supply your own favorite cliché here). It was a carnival ride pure and simple. And today they confuse that carnival ride with something important.