The Farthest Shore – Preface by Dr. Ernst Messerschmid
From The Space Library
Preface
Dr. Ernst Messerschmid - Professor, University of Stuttgart, and former German Astronaut
When I applied in the early 1980s to become an astronaut on behalf of Germany for one of the first Spacelab missions on the U.S. Space Shuttle, I certainly knew that it was a “long shot”. Yet the pull of scientific interest and the desire for a bit of adventure were too strong an incentive not to give it a try. Even the remotest possibility that I might be picked to see the Earth from above, without the filtering and blurring effects of the atmosphere, spurred me into action. To my own surprise I was chosen and flew on the first German Spacelab D1 mission in 1985. Worldwide, thousands of people apply to become astronauts. I suspect that millions would actually try if the odds were somewhat better. And, a billion people around the globe follow with interest human space flight events on television. Young people flock to public appearances by astronauts in order to hear of their experiences in outer space. Indeed, in The Farthest Shore you will read of very real plans to bring thousands of people into space as “citizen astronauts” within a few decades.
Are there intangible reasons that drive such a tremendous interest in space? Virtually all of us, we Homo sapiens, look out from the Earth, into space, and wonder from where we come? To explore seems to be the human condition - our signature - almost a part of our DNA. We humans seem to have the inevitable urge restlessly to move on, to explore and to exploit. Natural selection seems to provide humans with a gut imperative that plays out physically and culturally. Our constant goal remains the expansion of human horizons.
Human history has favored both spatial and cultural expansion. Fresh prospects yield new perspectives. Life springing from the sea to the land was similarly favored. We now stand on a beach, our small world, timidly dipping a toe into the sea, which is the Universe. We stare into this ocean of night and imagine that we are the new Columbus generation.
Two thousand years ago Greek philosophers wrote science fiction stories on air and space travel. The French writer Jules Verne foresaw in remarkable detail what happened a century later in the Apollo program. More than hundred years ago, Otto Lilienthal and the Wright brothers changed the world with their daring ingenuity that gave us the first aircraft. No one then could have predicted the explosive growth of aeronautics and how it would come to dominate global transportation in the twentieth century. Today, no one can predict where space travel, and the uses of outer space, will take us tomorrow.
With air travel commonplace and with technology progressing at stunning speed, space travel by the middle of the twentieth century seemed just around the corner -and indeed it was. Worldwide interest in space was ignited when the Soviet Union opened the Space Age with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. The U.S. responded to the challenge with what became the Apollo program to the Moon. This clearly defined program, mandated by President Kennedy, was a logical sequence of missions focused on a clear destination, and carried out with a national willpower and political commitment never seen before or since.
The Russian lunar program, although hidden behind a curtain of secrecy, was no less ambitious. More than anything else, the race to the Moon was a demonstration to the world of the almost unlimited potential of scientists and engineers when given a challenge and supported by their coun-try’s leaders. And, having set foot on another planetary body, humanity’s potential for exploring, utilizing, and even colonizing the solar system seemed unlimited. But the wave of progress broke after Apollo, and the world’s human spaceflight programs have since stayed frustratingly close to the shore. Little of the promise of those early decades has been realized. In the view of many, human spaceflight has been mired in Earth orbit, and the public has grown apathetic.
Strong sentiments have recently emerged that there must be a clear destination and purpose for human spaceflight. We propose a global guide to space built on human needs, scientific knowledge, technological challenge, and the sense of discovery and progress that only space exploration can provide. Others recognize that space applications can provide vital knowledge to deal with life and death issues such as global warming, worldwide drought, and holes in the ozone layer that could lead to genetic mutations that may ultimately endanger life on Earth. A well-conceived international program of human space exploration, space science and space applications can advance discovery, understanding, and cooperation. It can lift our sights, and fuel our dreams.
Thus, it is time to develop a logical, systematic, and evolutionary architecture for human expansion into the solar system, with an approach leading ultimately to the human exploration of Mars and a permanent human presence in the solar system. Likewise, it is time for international cooperation to use space to unlock new scientific knowledge and to use space technology to improve the human condition. Within this framework, we need to identify clear scientific objectives, solve complex problems, enhance our technological prowess, and set sail to new destinations, as human explorers to the farthest shore. If we have learnt one thing from human history it is that each successive destination, each new frontier, and each new set of capabilities, is a stepping-stone to the future.
The International Academy Astronautics has identified several imperatives that have drawn humankind into space, and that now provide the impetus for human exploration of the solar system. In contrast to the era of the Space Race and the Cold War, no single imperative is sufficient today to motivate the investments and national willpower required for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Rather, these factors, in some combination, must inspire us to take action.
To Explore: This human imperative embodies the characteristic drive to expand beyond set boundaries and to explore the unknown:
- To expand the frontiers of human experience
- To fulfill the human need to advance and learn
- To inspire, educate, and engage our youth and the public. To Understand: This scientific imperative drives the desire to understand our natural world and the Universe around us. The public continues to view space as an exciting new frontier for exploration, and has demonstrated that it will support space exploration in terms that are deeply rooted in our consciousness:
- To seek knowledge and understanding of what surrounds us in space
- To find answers to fundamental questions of our origins and destiny
- To advance and sustain human experience and technological progress. To Unify and To Prosper: This political imperative reflects the desire of nations to compete for technological superiority; but now, hopefully, it can represent a unifying context within which interested nations can work together:
- To strive for worldwide cooperation and to enhance the “global commons” we call Earth
- To achieve mutual security through challenging enterprise
- To seek wise utilization of the resources of the Earth and, in time, the Cosmos.
As we move forward in space, and as we seek “The Farthest Shore”, fundamental questions will also guide our way.
Where do we come from?
- Can we find out how the Universe of stars and planets began and evolved?
- Can we determine the origin and evolution of Earth and its biosphere? What will happen to us in the future?
- Can we understand the nature of the space environment and cosmic hazards to Earth?
- Can we pursue the potential for permanent human presence in space? Are we alone?
- Can we determine if there is, or ever has been, other intelligent life in the solar system?
- Can we search for life-bearing planets around other stars?
Frontiers breed liberty. They make possible a freedom of movement and ideas. Room to breathe and think anew is not sufficient to ensure progress, but it is essential. The pages that follow in The Farthest Shore will not reveal all the answers to these fundamental questions, nor show us the magic combination of “imperatives” that will lead us to new heights in space exploration in the twenty first century. But the rich interdisciplinary blend of knowledge about each and every aspect of space can, and will, offer us new insights about new ways forward. Enjoy!
1"The next steps in exploring deep space" as proposed by International Academy of Astronautics in September 2004
The Farthest Shore - Chapter One - A 21st Century Guide to Space
