continuingexplorationfinaldraft

Continuing Exploration 1

Continuing Manned Exploration

Jerome Jackson

April 1, 2013

Author’s Notes

Peer reviews are the most nerve cringing part of writing any paper. Having my paper read by my classmates was the best thing for motivation. At first, I thought my paper was great, but as time went on and I read my paper over and over I began to worry about whether I reached my goal. To my surprise, the peer reviews were a motivating experience. Hearing people say that they enjoyed my paper is one of the things I was aiming for, and the feedback on what could be improved was minimal. I don’t think I’m that great of a writer, but I do appreciate hearing that I did a good job. Peer reviews are a great way for me to get a different perspective of my paper.


Abstract

Human beings have been explorers since first setting their feet to the ground. We have traveled

across our own world and even entered worlds unknown to us. A great pride has been held since

the United States first sent man to the moon. Now, that pride is dying. Lack of funding and a

boom in robot technology has replaced the need for human explorers in our seas, our planet, and

the rest of the cosmos. We should not stop a new age of explorers. Instead, we should reach for

the stars, and continue manned space missions to learn more about our world and the history of

the universe in which we live.


Continuing Manned Exploration

Who do you see as the greatest explorer? Is it Christopher Columbus and his daring sail

across the seas? Is it Marco Polo, Lewis and Clark, or even Neil Armstrong? Exploring is a trait

that many humans carry deep within their character that makes them wonder what the world has

to offer. Since ancient times, nearly every species alive today has taken a daring leap of faith into

the unknown, whether migrating to a new land or simply peeking over the bush. Some people

believe that we have discovered most of what we need to, and will ever, know about the earth

and the universe itself. The importance of exploration, especially space exploration, has

decreased over the years because of the public’s loss of interest and funding cuts to NASA and

other exploration programs. We should not give up on exploring other worlds.

Many people throughout the United States, and other countries, had the opportunity to

witness both the launch and the landing of Apollo 11 in 1969 and other manned space missions.

Some believe the evidence found by Apollo 11 was a hoax, while others see it as a new hope for

mankind. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr. reached the surface of the moon for 21 hours and

made it back to earth safely after the 8 hour round trip (Asimov, 1994). Skeptics viewed it as

unthinkable to send a man outside of this world, but it had been done. Until this point the only

exploration that had been done was that of our own world, and what can be seen through

telescopes. It is important to reflect on our past successful missions that laid the foundation for

space exploration. Since landing on the moon, humans have taken many trips to space and have

launched countless probes and other research tools into orbit or the outskirts of the universe.


This interior view of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) shows astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module

pilot, during the lunar landing mission.

UPI Photo/Neil Armstrong.

What makes us want to launch ourselves into space? A similar question may have been

asked to explorer Christopher Columbus in the mid 1400’s. According to the 1998 Encyclopedia

of World Biography, “In 1475 Columbus made his first considerable voyage to the Aegean

island of Chios, and in 1476 he sailed on a Genoese ship through the Strait of Gibraltar. Off Cape

St. Vincent they were attacked by a French fleet, and the vessel in which Columbus sailed sank.”

The fate of Columbus on that day is similar to what people today fear with space exploration.

The idea that we will fail, and waste billions of dollars in research and technology, hovers over

the public and creates a negative vibe; just as Columbus encountered in his time. Risk and failure

did not leave Columbus discouraged. After the death of his wife, Columbus dedicated his efforts

to exploration theories and the discovery to a new route leading to Asia. After many rejections

from powerful, wealthy, leaders like John II, Columbus finally found help through Ferdinand in

Spain. In 1493, he discovered what he believed to be new land, and sparked a new age of

exploration throughout the known world (Columbus, Christopher, 1998).


The story of Columbus is taught in classrooms around the world despite the historical

issues associated with it. Most people in the United States recognize Columbus as one of the

greatest explorers of all time. He is a role model for keeping an open mind and taking risks.

Today the fate of space exploration begs for an open mind. Citizens of each respective country,

and the funding parties for space programs, are trying to comprehend the risks such as cost,

publicity, politics, and effort in order to cut corners and risk less. Those who work in the field of

space science understand these risks, and as time goes on the risks become greater, and greater.

In the 2010 PBS production Space Dangers, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about the

risks of launching manned space shuttles from Earth in great detail. From the lift off to the

landing, putting human lives at risk is more than evident. Dr. Tyson talks about how the dangers

of simply leaving our own planet can jeopardize entire missions. Over time advancements in

technology have expanded, and mankind has launched thousands of objects such as radio,

communication, television, and world mapping satellites into orbit. This fact leaves explorers

with a problem. The impact of those satellites or space dust, thousands of small rocks the size of

a pea, can literally shred the space craft to pieces before it even completely leaves the Earth’s

outer atmosphere. The force of the takeoff, many times greater than the average aircraft, is a

danger that the crews aboard must also overcome. Years of training is required to overcome the

speed and stress required to get the shuttle off the ground. Lastly, crews must be able to safely

reach their destination, complete their mission, and return without harm; facing those same

dangers on the return trip (Space Dangers, 2010). This seems scary, but these are exactly the

kind of situations brought to Columbus when he set on his voyages. Space programs around the

world have seen many failures, but the success of even one mission can change the views of

everyone across the world and lead to new age of explorers. These new fearless explorers will be


the definition of what it means to be human, and tell us more than we could ever know about our

own world and the world around us.

Deep sea explorers are also struggling to maintain an influence on what we know about

our planet, and the history of mankind. In a Newsweek article on piloted dives, researcher James

Cameron states:

The quickest way to destroy ocean science… is to take human explorers out of the water.

The issue is not one of robots versus piloted vehicles, it's one of national will. The U.S.

public is not engaged in deep science and exploration. And the quickest way to get even

less interest and engagement is to take human explorers out of the vehicles, and have it

all done robotically (Cameron, 2013).

This is not only the perspective of deep sea divers, but of space programs and other

exploration programs alike. One factor that may be influencing the interest of the public is the

big spenders funding the programs. Without the positive interest of the public, the funding

parties see no need to continue keeping a sinking program’s head above water. If nobody wants

to know what lies at the bottom of the sea, what happened to our distant ancestors, or if there’s

life outside of our own planet, then there is no investment to be made. “They avoid criticism

while funding science and exploration only when the public believes this is something good and

necessary, and that only happens when the public is engaged and excited by the exploration

itself” (Cameron, 2013).

Sylvia Earle, an oceanic explorer, also feels the heat of less funding in a similar fashion.

In her Newsweek article, she revisits her last expedition inside of the submarine Pisces IV with

great detail. She states that, once the public looked away, their exploration suddenly ceased. Less


money was spent on dive missions, giving robots the chance to shine in the spotlight (Dokoupil

2013). The cost of human diving is a great expense, and the risks are far from being overlooked,

but we have found a great deal of treasures through deep sea exploration. Recently, explorers

have found many treasures in a land mass off of the coast of Egypt, which they believe used to

be a thriving city. Scientists and underwater explorers have been finding underwater relics of

what they believe to be remains of the very city that Cleopatra use to rule. The present issue is

that the “city” they found requires explorers to risk going into the deep to retrieve the fragile

objects by hand. The article also states that the researchers may also have the key to life and

death of Alexander the Great. Imagine how much of our own history is beneath the surface, and

how much is left to be found. We can find the same kind of treasures with manned space

missions. Who knows what we may find even on our own moon. This can completely change

how we view our planet, our human lives, and even life itself as we know it (Ezzat, 1997). Can

this be enough to spark a new interest among people today? People still want to know what is out

there, but we are changing how we get that information.

Current advancement in technology has encouraged humans to unconsciously replace

themselves with automated machines. Explorers bring a new perspective to this idea. Their jobs,

training, and everything that they have worked and dream for, are instantly taken by an object

that is cheaper, faster, and more efficient. Instead of explorers, scientists can send unmanned

machines into an unknown world and retrieve data with far less people to pay and easy on-site

data. What these robots lack is the senses that every human is born with. Everything the scientist

sees may only be through micro cameras and substance monitors mounted aboard the machine.

The human element of the project will lack validity of evidence and an experience that the public

can connect with (Lakdawalla, 2012).


This NASA image taken on February 3, 2013 shows a self-portrait of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity created

by a combination of dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), on the

surface of Mars, February 20, 2013.

UPI/NASA

In contrast, some believe robots are the future of modern exploration, and many machines

have already been launched to investigate other worlds.

The $2.5-billion Curiosity rover was sent to…examining a location containing rocks

more ancient than any previously studied by a Mars lander. With a suite of 11 science

instruments, aided by a dozen engineering cameras, and with a total size twice that of

Spirit and Opportunity combined, Curiosity will investigate whether those ancient rocks

preserve evidence for habitable environments (Lakdawalla, 2012).

The capabilities of Curiosity are close to what can be done in a science lab here on earth.

Instead of risking lives to bring back live samples to earth, the rocks and soil samples of Mars

can be examined by the robot on-site, and that data is then sent to the earth without making a

dangerous round trip (NASA EDGE, 2012). The public seems to be more on-board with this


process. Even with a dwindling interest, news media across the world receive updates from

NASA to broadcast to those who may be interested, and lately the response has been

encouraging.

With the lack of support from the public, and the takeover of robots for our exploration,

human beings are speedily being replaced because of decreases in funding, lack of public

interest, and an explosion of advanced technology. We may no longer see a new age of great

human explorers. Has the need for manned exploration been replaced by a promising outlook in

robot technology? Manned missions to other worlds teach us more about the world we live in,

the history of ourselves, and give us a new direction to unlimited human capabilities. There

should be no halt, no seize, and no decrease in our efforts to send live volunteers to worlds we

wish we could understand. Mankind’s history is deeply rooted in exploration, and it seems we

have lost connection with what it means to be human. We should never give up on exploring

other worlds.


References

Asimov, I. (1994). Human beings on the Moon. In Asimov's Chronology of Science &

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Cameron, J. (2013, January 11). Don't Give Up on Piloted Dives. Newsweek, 161(02), 5.

Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezp-012ro.lirn.net/ps/i.do?id=GALE


Columbus, Christopher (1451-1506). (1998). In Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit:

Gale. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezp-012ro.lirn.net/ps/i.do?id=GALE


Dokoupil, T. (2013, January 11). The Last Dive. Newsweek, 161(02), 1. Retrieved from



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