The costs of human space flight are high. So are the benefits

Almost since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) opened its doors 60 years ago on October 1, 1958, it had to be ready to answer a question: "Why send people the costs and risks associated with theft? inhabited?

In six decades, NASA has launched just over 400 different people, many of them for more than one mission. Of these, only 24 traveled beyond Earth's orbit to the Moon and back; three made this trip twice. The rest stayed close to their planet of origin. Although space flights financed by private, sub-orbital and orbit funds and beyond are planned for the coming years, only NASA and its Russian and Chinese counterparts have so far developed the capabilities needed to carry out missions in the near future. crew.

The 60-year experience should be enough to demonstrate the benefits of spending public funds to send humans into space.

Or maybe not. There is certainly a lingering debate about the benefits of manned spaceflight. For example, a perceptive assessment conducted in 2014 by the prestigious National Academies of Science and Engineering found that "no arguable calculation of tangible and quantifiable benefits – derived technologies, attraction of scientific careers, scientific knowledge, etc. demonstrate a positive return on the massive investments required by manned space flights. The authors of this study suggested that only "intangible benefits" could justify a "new sustainable public investment in spaceflight". in space, not because the public wants it so much, but because counterfactual space exploration dominated by vehicles and astronauts from other countries seems unthinkable.

Of course, there are counter-arguments to this judgment, suggesting that the presence of humans as operators and investigators adds significant value to space activities. But overall, I believe that the main justification for manned spaceflight has been and continues to be its intangible impacts. And although the last decades have not allowed us to use as much as before, these impacts are no less real.

This has long been recognized at the highest levels of decision-making. Even before the creation of NASA, a space policy statement prepared in June 1958 by President Eisenhower's National Security Council declared that "inhabited exploration will represent the true conquest of space. No unmanned experience can substitute for human exploration in its psychological effect on the peoples of the world. "By recommending in May 1961 to President John F. Kennedy to fix a lunar landings as a national goal, his senior space officials C 'is the man, not just the machines, in the space that captures the Imagination of the world.

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The iconic image "Earthrise" captured by Bill Anders of Apollo 8 has certainly redefined the perception of humanity's home planet as a fragile oasis in the darkness of space. As the poet Archibald McLeish pointed out at the time, the image gave us the ability to "see the earth as it is, small and blue and beautiful in the eternal silence where it floats" and "to to see us as riders on the earth together. "

The context of the US space flight program has certainly changed dramatically since the time of the Cold War competition that propelled the Apollo project. Astronauts are no longer instant celebrities with "good things". Most Americans probably could not name an active space flyer. Even in this case, having lived in space remains an experience that "captures the imagination". When an astronaut, old or current, meets the public wearing his blue flight suit, a "golden glow" appears. a degree of envy. Many of us want to go into space ourselves. More than 18,000 people have applied to be among the 12 new NASA astronaut candidates announced in June 2017.

Most members of this group are likely to set foot on the lunar surface over the next ten years or be among the first to reach Mars in the 2030s, once again transforming astronauts into explorers. a few hundred kilometers above their planet of origin. If this happens, then the calculation of the value of humans in space would be very different from what it was since the last Apollo astronaut left the moon in December 1972. With colleagues from MIT, I I participated ten years ago in the drafting "The future of manned flights". I believe that the conclusion of this article remains valid.

We concluded that the main justification for sending human beings into space was "exploration". We defined this word as "the expansion of the human experience, bringing people into new places, situations and environments, expanding and redefining human. "We have suggested that" the human presence, and the risks associated with it, turn a space flight into a story that attracts a large number of people. Exploration also has a moral dimension because it is in fact a cultural conversation about the nature and meaning of human life.

Most of what the United States has done in space since the last Apollo mission in December 1972 is not, by this definition, an exploration. Repetitive shuttle flights and sequential stays aboard the International Space Station are certainly valuable, but, as suggested by the study of the National Academies, they may not be sufficient to justify their costs. But since President George W. Bush announced in 2004 "a new plan for space exploration and a human presence on our solar system," the United States is preparing to resume human exploration of the Moon. and beyond. In December 2017, President Trump signed a directive inviting NASA to "conduct an innovative and sustainable exploration program with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion into the solar system."

In my opinion, the implementation of this directive will lead to a space exploration program that justifies its costs and risks. Next summer marks the 50th anniversary of humanity's first steps on another celestial body. It is high time to move on to the next steps.

John M. Logsdon is Professor Emeritus at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. He is editor of The penguin book of the exploration of outer space, available now. The material cited in this essay comes from this book.