If you follow me on twitter, you might notice that I often discuss about space exploration. Yes, I'm not actually talking about the two Greek gods; I am talking about the space missions with corresponding names. You should have heard about Apollo, one of the most successful and world-changing exploration on the history of mankind. But, if you haven't heard about Artemis, doesn't mean you have been living under a rock. It is basically a "new" mission to the moon, targeting to land  and build a lunar station on 2024.

There are a lot of controversies among this program, but it makes this topic always interesting to debate on : budgets, contractors, private companies vs administration, the list goes on forever. However, these are just the technicalities of getting to space and what to do there. It follows the same desire of the humanity: explore new places and expand the frontiers...or is it? If there is something history taught us: we are still individualistic species after all, the desire that we have inside our genes is not enough to follow this nature.

Why Do We Need To Explore The Space?


We always wanted to fly, reach the stars. The idea of flying higher and higher predated in the early humanity. Paintings in caves, hieroglyphs, sketches, all of them show the constant desire to leave our habitat : the ground. It finally came to alive in the early 1900, when the Wright brothers fly with a motorised aircraft for the first time, and since then the development of our aeroplanes began. However, every single aircraft operates with the same principle: generate lift to overcome the gravitational pull. We fly faster, more efficient, and cheaper. However, there is one thing we cannot do: fly higher.

To reach the space, and eventually to the moon and beyond, one thing we must do: fly higher, leave the atmosphere, which only means one thing : no air. Without air, there is no lift to generate. Without lift, there is no use of aircraft. So we need a new solution: rockets. A rocket is basically a controlled explosion. Put gases inside a high pressure, combine it with fuel, boom. Direct the explosion, you move. It is just like you are blowing air into balloon, then let it go. Rockets work in the same way. So now you know rockets and airplanes work in two completely different ways, and that's why they have two different histories.

However, aircrafts develop faster than rockets for an apparent reason: benefits. Aircraft is not the first vehicle of transportation that enable us to reach far places : ships were already doing that. Aircraft improves it: make logistic and human transportation faster and cheaper, and boost the economy development, which everyone likes. Who doesn't want cheaper goods?

Rockets, in the other hand, are new. They were purposely built first as weapon, to attack places during war deadly and accurately. Even until now, rockets manufacturers are still considered as weapons factory, which only allow no foreigners to work in, only citizens from the respective country. Who invests on NASA the most, especially during cold war? You guessed it, the military. The military asks NASA to built stuffs to monitor and spy other countries, in exchange for resources, and NASA is allowed to do anything they want with the devices, for example: science experiment.

Science development is NEVER considered as the top priority in our society, which guide us to the Apollo mission. We know Apollo as the first mission to successfully land human on moon, specifically Apollo 11. What is the motivation behind this mission? Politics, of course. It was during the cold war, and USA needed to show its superiority to the world. One thing they lost to USSR at that time : the space race. First satellite? Sputnik. First human on space? Yuri Gagarin. Uni Soviets win everything....until the USA finally decided that they feared if USSR suddenly dropped a bomb on them from the outer space.


It's all politics-driven. Our researches, especially in term of space exploration, are based on the politic interest of the governing body. When Uni Soviet did almost everything, one thing left: land on the moon. NASA's budget reached the peak of 4.41% at 1966, and it is more than enough to build the most powerful rocket ever built so far (as now, 2020). The whole process took less than a decade: from the drawing board to Mare Tranquillitatis. 

It's A Win-Win Situation


However, for the astronauts, scientists, and engineers who were involved to the program, it's not about winning the space race; it's a fulfilled dream. Apollo was a great success, but what's next? Mars? Interplanetary transport system? Unfortunately, when you won the race, you have no desire to push it further anymore. Apollo 17, in 1972, was the last mission, before it got cut by the government from the original 20 missions. Since then, we never did something bigger than the moon.

Yes they built the space shuttle, which undoubtedly a beast, one of the best vehicle human ever built. Together with Russia, European Union, Canada, and Japan we built a space station. It is basically the biggest and only-flying laboratory we have. As scientists and engineers who want to pursue new things and create excitement in the community, we need to make us of everything we got. Even with the budget of less than 0.5% from the national spend.

You may ask, "what do we get from space exploration other than moon rocks?" Great question. Here is a little detour. When Faraday first found a way to create electric current from magnetic field, everyone asked him, "what can you do with it?" He answered, "I do not know, but someday your government will tax you for this." The biggest discoveries in human history is not a problem-solution situation. That's now how it works. Faraday did not know what problem he solved by creating electricity, but now, without electricity we could not survive.

Now let's go back to the story. When the command module of the Apollo was being built - basically the small capsule for the astronauts to live in - it was so cramped that the engineers need to find a way to fit panels in there. So they asked : is there a way to make a "television" that small enough, so it could change dynamically, without fitting every single panel for every telemetry. You wonder how cramped would it looks like? Imagine a Boeing 747 cockpit, but three times more switches.


And the found the solution! They basically created a small screen that could be fitted without taking too much space.



Now, this very same principle works in our smartphone. If you ask the people at that time if they want a television in their pockets, no one would want it. Just why, it does not make any sense why you wanted it. But now we have a television in our pockets. This is how great discoveries made : aiming high, solve a complex problem that need a highly specialised skill and resources, then adapt it to the mass. The very same thing also happen to our highway. If you noticed, some areas have grooves perpendicular to our moving direction.


These grooves improve traction and make cars slow more easily, especially in wet condition. You wonder where this innovation came from? The engineers in NASA did it. They need to design a runway for the space shuttle, since the space shuttle is unlike an aircraft, land on a really steep angle and high speed, so they need to design such a runway to make it stop faster. So the best civil engineers came up with this pattern. However, if you ask the best civil engineers in the world to design an asphalt pattern to slow car down on highways, would they do it?

We Are Going Back, And Further


What does it have to do with Artemis? If you haven't heard, NASA announced a new mission to the moon, named Artemis, in 2024. We aim to land there, build a station there, and preparing our journey to mars. It is not the only different thing: now we have private companies joining. SpaceX and Blue Origin will try to achieve this goal together, something that has never been done before.

It was quite unbelievable that we will finally go back there after almost 50 years. If you said to Gene Cernan, the last man on the moon, that it will be more than 50 years until we go back, he would not have been believed it. But this is the reality, science comes second. Only now, with more support from the congress and private companies, this mission will be possible again.

However, not everybody is happy with the decision. "We have more urgent problems in the world : hunger, poverty, climate change, and why we spend billions of dollars to go to a place where no life is possible?" I would not deny it, these problems are real and the dangers are imminent. Even so, let's back to the point about how we solve problems. We always push science and technology to our limit, then bring the result back to our daily problems. Yes, there is nothing urgent about building a moon base, but the advancements we will get along the way, these will help us, these will contribute to our efforts to solve those problems.

Secondly, if you judge NASA by the amount of money that they burn, it is nothing. Really, nothing. NASA's annual budget as now is around 18 billion dollars. A lot? Compare that to their military budget, which is 600 billion dollars. There is a really good video about what NASA could do with a military budget, go watch it here. Even Olympic's cost is 15 billion dollars. If that is not shocking to you, ISRO's (India's Space Organisation) budget to land a probe on mars was 74 million dollars. What is more costly than that? Filming "The Martian". Yes, making a movie about Mars on earth is more expensive than landing a robot on the actual planet. What an irony.

Launch Complex 39-A


Okay, I think it is enough to rant and share the facts and my opinions on space exploration, something that quite different than I usually discuss in this blog. One last thing, there is another a reason why I am posting this right now. Remember I mentioned about ISS? Do you know how the astronauts get there? Since 2011 (the end of space shuttle), the only way to get there is by riding a bull - the Soyuz. That old rustic strong Russian built capsule take every single astronauts - including the American.

That is about to change. On 27th May 2020 (note the date!), two American astronauts will launch to the ISS onboard a Dragon module on top of the Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX - the first time astronauts will be launched by a private company. Another interesting fact, they will launch from the very same spot - LC-39A - which also the launch pad for the Apollo missions. Please, be a part of the beginning of this new era. Watch the history turns it page.

Finally, space exploration will be interesting again, after a vacuum era.