Observing 40 years of space progress (July 20)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
The observances commemorating the 40th anniversary of Americans landing on the moon usually have been accompanied by thoughts of how little it seems has been done since then to explore outer space.
But that isn’t true. Just because we aren’t routinely shuttling back and forth to the moon doesn’t mean space hasn’t been the place for continued demonstrations of scientific ingenuity.
While going to the moon was an achievement, the moon didn’t prove to be much in the way of valuable real estate. The act of getting there, however, created a reservoir of scientific accomplishment that goes on today.
Look at the satellite technology that we take for granted. That was an outgrowth of the moon project. While we learned to put satellites up before we made the lunar landing, lunar technology helped scientists make the satellites much more useful.
The Hubble telescope project has revealed the universe to us, but could not have done so without our having the ability to fly up and repair it.
The international space station provides a laboratory for scientific research that would otherwise be impossible. What was learned on the moon trips made the shuttle trips and space station possible.
Some say that after the shuttle program ends, we should stop sending people into space because robots could do what people do in space, only more safely.
Should we go back to the moon? Should we go to Mars? Might it be better to develop newer generations of robot explorers such as such as those on Mars now that have told us so much about the red planet. If we did that, we could concentrate our peopled missions on further development of the space station, creating a much bigger scientific platform that could give us more bang for the outer-space buck.
We have these options because of the legacy left by those who made that first step on the moon possible.
