In 1970, Sister Mary Jucunda, a Zambian nun, wrote a letter to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, who had become the Associate Director of Science at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center because of his original research on the Journey to Mars project. In the letter, Sister Mary Jucunda asks how he can afford to spend billions of dollars on projects as far away as Mars when there are still so many little children on Earth who can't eat.
Stuhlinger quickly responded to Sister Jucunda's letter, along with a photo titled "Rising Earth," an iconic photograph taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968 while in orbit around the Moon (in which you can see the Moon's ground). His heartfelt reply was subsequently published by NASA under the title "Why Explore the Universe".
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Dear Sister Mary Jucunda:
Every day, I receive many similar letters, but this one touches me the most because it comes from a compassionate and searching heart. I will do what I can to answer this question of yours.
First of all, allow me to express my deep respect to you and your brave sisters for dedicating yourselves to the noblest of human endeavors: helping your fellow human beings in distress.
In your letter, you asked me why I was spending billions of dollars on a voyage to Mars when there are still children on Earth who are threatened with death from starvation. It was clear to me that you certainly didn't want the answer, "Oh, I didn't know before that there were little children dying of starvation, well, from now on, suspend all space programs until the children are fed." In fact, I was aware of the problem of starving children long before mankind was technologically capable of dreaming of a trip to Mars. And, like many of my friends, I believe that this is the time to start the great expeditions to the Moon, Mars and even other planets. In the long run, I even think that the engineering of space exploration would be a better solution to the current crises facing humanity than aid programs that are either debated and argued over year after year, or which are not implemented even after compromises are made.
Before I go into detail about how our space program is helping to solve crises on the ground, I'd like to tell you a short true story. It was 400 years ago, and there was a count in a small town in Germany. He was a kind-hearted man who gave a large portion of his income to the poor of the town. This was very admirable because there were many poor people in the Middle Ages and there were frequent outbreaks of plague that swept the country. One day the Count came across a strange man who had a workbench and a small laboratory in his house, and who worked hard during the day, devoting a few hours of his time each evening to his research. He ground small pieces of glass into lenses, then mounted the ground lenses in a mirror tube, with which he observed tiny objects. The Count was mesmerized by this never-before-seen invention that allowed him to magnify things. He invited the eccentric to live in his castle as the Count's protégé, and thereafter he could devote all his time to the study of these optical devices.
However, the townspeople were angry when they learned that the Count was spending money on such a strange man and his useless contraptions. "We're still suffering from the plague," they complained, "and he's spending money on that idler and his useless hobbies!" The Count was unmoved when he heard this. "I will pick up as much as I can," he stated, "but I will continue to subsidize this man and his work, and I am certain that one day it will pay off."
As fate would have it, his work (and the efforts of others during the same period) won a rich reward: the microscope. The invention of the microscope brought unprecedented advances in medicine, and the resulting research and its results eliminated the plague and a number of other infectious diseases that ravaged much of the world.
The money spent by the Count in support of this research and invention, the end result of which was a great alleviation of human suffering, was a far greater reward than if it had simply been used to provide relief to those suffering from the plague.
We currently face a similar problem. The U.S. president's annual budget*** has $200 billion, which goes to health care, education, welfare, city building, highways, transportation, overseas aid, defense, environmental protection, science and technology, agriculture, and a host of other domestic and foreign projects. This year, 1.6% of the budget will be spent on exploring the universe, and this spending will go to the Apollo program, several other smaller projects covering astrophysics, deep space astronomy, space biology, planetary exploration engineering, earth resource engineering, and space engineering technology. To cover the expenses of these space programs, the average U.S. taxpayer earning $10,000 a year would have to pay about $30 to space, leaving the remaining $9,970 available for general living expenses, recreation, savings, other taxes and other spending.
Maybe you're asking, "Why not take $5 or $3 or $1 of the $30 taxpayers pay for space and give it to hungry children?" In order to answer that question, I need to start by briefly explaining how our country's economy works, and how other countries are in a similar situation. The government consists of several departments (e.g., the Departments of the Interior, Justice, Health and Public Welfare, Education, Transportation, Defense, etc.) and several agencies (the National Science Foundation, NASA, etc.) that set annual budgets based on their functions and implement them rigorously in order to respond to the oversight of the Council of State, as well as deal with pressure from the budgetary authorities and from the President regarding their economic performance. Pressure from the budgetary departments and the President for economic efficiency. When funds are finally appropriated by Congress, they are used strictly for projects in the budget-approved program.
Obviously, the programs included in NASA's budget are aerospace-related. Budget items that are not approved by Congress are not funded, and naturally are not taxed, unless some other department's budget covers the item, using it to spend money not allocated to the space program. As you can see from this short note, in order to aid starving children, or to add to the foreign aid programs that the US already has, a budget needs to first be proposed by the department in question, and then approved by Congress before it can be spent.
To ask if I agree with the government implementing a similar policy, my personal opinion is absolutely in favor. I don't mind at all paying a little bit more in taxes every year to help hungry children wherever they are.
I'm sure my friends would feel the same way. However, things aren't as easily accomplished by just taking the voyage to Mars off the table. Relatively speaking, I even think that the space program can be used to contribute to the alleviation and eventual solution to the problem of poverty and hunger on Earth. The key to solving the problem of hunger has two parts: the production of food and the distribution of food. Food production involves agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and other large-scale production activities that are efficient and productive in some parts of the world and grossly underproductive in others. The productivity of the land can be significantly improved through high-tech means such as irrigation management, fertilizer use, weather forecasting, yield assessment, programmed planting, farmland selection, crop habits and timing, crop surveys and harvest planning.
Artificial Earth satellites are undoubtedly the most powerful tool for improving these two critical issues. In orbit far from the ground, satellites are able to scan large areas of land in a very short period of time, and can simultaneously observe and calculate a number of indicators needed for crop growth, soil, drought, rain and snow, etc., and can broadcast this information to ground receiving stations for further processing. Satellite systems equipped with land resource sensors and corresponding agricultural programs have been shown to boost annual crop yields by billions of dollars, even in the simplest models.
How to distribute food to those who need it is a whole other problem, one that hinges not on the capacity of ships but on international cooperation. Rulers of small nations are troubled by the importation of large quantities of food from larger nations, fearing that along with the food will come the influence of foreign powers on their dominance. I'm afraid that the problem of hunger can't be solved efficiently until the barriers between nations are bridged. I don't think the space program will work miracles overnight, however, exploring the universe will help move the problem in a good direction.
Take the recent Apollo 13 accident as an example. When the cosmonauts were in the critical atmospheric re-entry phase, the Soviet Union shut down all broadcast communications within its borders in the same frequency bands used by the Apollo spacecraft in order to keep communications open. At the same time, ships were dispatched to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in preparation for the first search and rescue efforts. If a cosmonaut's life capsule landed near a Russian ship, Russian personnel would rescue them as if they were their own cosmonauts returning from space. Likewise, if a Russian spacecraft encountered a similar emergency, the United States would certainly not hesitate to provide assistance.
Improving food production through monitoring and analysis by satellite and improving the efficiency of food distribution through better international relations are just two aspects of improving the quality of human life through the space program. Below I would like to describe two other important roles: promoting science and technology and improving the scientific literacy of a generation.
The moon landing project required a high degree of precision and reliability never before seen in history. In the face of such demanding requirements, we need to find new materials and methods; develop better engineering systems; use more reliable manufacturing processes; make instruments last longer; and even explore entirely new laws of nature.
The same new technologies that were invented for the moon landings can also be used in engineering programs on the ground. Every year, roughly a thousand new technologies developed from the space program are used in everyday life to build better kitchen utensils and farm equipment, better sewing machines and radios, better ships and airplanes, more accurate weather forecasts and storm warnings, better communications facilities, better medical equipment, and even better everyday gadgets. Why, you may ask, was the life-support system for the astronauts' lunar module designed first, rather than the remote sign-monitoring device for heart patients built first. The answer is simple: when it comes to solving engineering problems, important technological breakthroughs don't come straight out of the box, but rather from challenging goals that inspire a strong spirit of innovation, imagination and determination to take action, and the ability to marshal all of your resources.
Space travel is indisputably a challenging enterprise. The voyage to Mars will not provide a direct food solution to the problem of starvation. However, it brings with it a wealth of new technologies and methods that can be used beyond the Mars program, which will yield many times the original cost.
In addition to new technologies, we need continued advances in the basic sciences if we are to make life better and better for humanity. These include physics and chemistry, biology and physiology, and especially medicine, to look after human health and to deal with problems such as hunger, disease, pollution of food and water, and environmental pollution.
We need more young people to devote themselves to science, and we need to give more help to talented scientists who devote themselves to research. Challenging research projects should be available at all times, and we should ensure that they are supported by adequate resources. I would like to reiterate that the space program is a catalyst for scientific and technological progress, providing excellent and practical opportunities for academic research, including the study of the Moon and other planets, physics and astronomy, biology and medical science, among other disciplines, which has led to a steady stream of exciting research topics in the scientific community, which has allowed mankind to get a glimpse of the universe in its unparalleled splendor, and which has led to a steady stream of new technologies and new methods.
Of all the activities controlled and funded by the U.S. government, the space program is undoubtedly the most visible and controversial, even though it accounts for only 1.6 percent of the total budget, less than three-thousandths of one percent of the gross national product. As a driver and catalyst of new technologies, the space program conducts much of the basic science research and is destined to be different from other activities. In a sense, with the space program's impact on society, its status is comparable to that of war activities 3-4 thousand years ago.
How many wars would have been avoided if instead of competing with bombers and long-range missiles, nations had competed with each other in the performance of lunar spacecraft! The clever victors would be filled with hope, and the losers would not have to suffer, no more seeds of hatred would be planted, no more wars of vengeance would be brought about.
While the space program we carry out studies things far away from the earth, and has extended man's vision to the moon, to the sun, to the planets, and up to that distant star, astronomers pay more attention to the earth than to all of the above beyond the heavens. The space program has brought more than just the improved quality of life provided by those new technologies; as the study of the universe deepens, the deeper our appreciation for the Earth, for life, and for humanity itself will grow. Space exploration makes Earth a better place.