Why It Doesn’t Make Sense to Focus on Earth Before Space
Thoughts on space travel, our place in the universe, and a cosmic perspective.
From a distance, Earth is nothing but a “pale blue dot” as Carl Sagan once said. The space that Earth takes up is negligible compared to that of the entire universe. But to us our planet is everything. Our perspective is fixed on this small speck of dust in the cosmic scene. Everything life needs to evolve can be found on this planet. Our outlook was constrained to the ground by evolutionary processes that did not require us to consider the beyond.
But now we have an opportunity to expand our perspectives.
We are separated from the vast majority of the universe by 100 kilometers of air. For the most part, we live in two dimensions on the ground. But every once in a while, we look up. Fairly recently, we realized that Earth is not special. There could be an infinite number of Earths out there. We now know that Earth was formed from dead stars. Life evolved from chemical constituents wrought at the center of massive stars. We are forged of cosmic ingredients. We are one with the cosmos by simply existing. We are one with something so much bigger than just our homeworld.
The rest of the universe is a vast majority we may only strive to glimpse through space travel.
To us, our pale blue speck of dust is inconceivably big. We feel small on Earth before monuments that barely pierce the sky. The vastness of the universe can only be described using huge numbers that we cannot comprehend. Perhaps the only way to truly understand astronomical quantities is to experience them. Perhaps we will have a newfound respect for our world if we view it from above. Perhaps we will gain a new perspective that makes our problems seem minuscule while exposing the beauty and opportunity that lies beyond our current reach. To do this, we must go further and expand consciousness beyond Earth to see how much bigger it is than our small lives. It is the most direct way to remedy our perspective, a perspective that has led to human arrogance resulting in the idea that we are the center of the universe. The universe is not here for us, we are merely a fortunate consequence of billions of years of cosmic processes, if a single event had occurred differently then we would not be here. Every life is unique and extraordinarily unlikely when viewed from a cosmic perspective.
We cannot focus on space without focusing on Earth. Obviously, we must start from the ground. We cannot progress without advancing our technology. The technology that is necessary for space exploration can apply to a vast number of fields besides aerospace. The economic benefit was clear after the Apollo program when every dollar spent resulted in a return of investment of at least 7 dollars to the GDP in the United States. The US space program helped develop technologies ranging from GPS, advanced vacuum seals, and engines to memory foam and WD-40. So I can only imagine how further moon and Mars missions will benefit life on Earth. Expanding our presence in the universe may enrich the homeworld more than any other goal we are now pursuing.
The question is not either Earth or space, that is to ask whether we should pay attention to the entire beach or one atom within a grain of sand upon the ground, we should not so often separate the part from the whole when they are so intertwined. Witnessing more of the whole will allow us to see the Earth as a part of the universe, not as all we have access to. Earth is a planet in space, we are far from being separate from the universe that conceived us.
The phrase “multi-planetary species” implies that Earth will remain the center of humanity without trapping our species on one planet. Progressing on this planet or beyond it are facets of the same thing: moving forward within the universe. But it is difficult to see it all as a unified whole if we do not venture into the cosmos.
We are now moving towards an extremely exciting time in history. What was once science fiction is now beginning to become reality. More and more everyday people will be able to go past Earth if we continue on this path paved by SpaceX, NASA, and countless other companies and organizations.
SpaceX is constructing the most powerful rocket ever conceived, the first Mars rocket ever built with more than twice the thrust of the mighty Saturn V. Starship will carry humans back to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond. It will lift huge amounts of payload to any destination in the solar system and make life multi-planetary.
Becoming a spacefaring species will open our minds to an unimaginable extent. We will learn countless invaluable lessons about ourselves and the universe we live in.
Eventually, space travel will become inexpensive and routine. And the rest of the universe that we call space will no longer be so far removed from the everyday experiences of the common man. Thinking back on the history of powered flight starting with the Wright Brothers, I realize that we have always doubted our capability. Some people once believed that human flight would remain impossible. After a lot of work, airplanes were invented but remained rare, at a certain point it was as rare as spaceflight is now. But today, airplanes are commonplace and taken for granted. Spaceflight is on a similar trajectory. Given enough time it will become as common as stepping on a plane and crossing the country.
As the Wright brothers invented air travel and Goddard revolutionized rocketry, someone was always there to call their efforts hopeless. Something is only impossible if it violates the laws of physics. The present is never good enough, we must not call those who reach for the future unrealistic, for without those people we would be stuck in stagnation.
I look forward to a time when anyone who desires can leave our atmosphere, to see Earth from above or as the “pale blue dot” it is. Then we will understand more of the universe and ourselves than we ever have. Then humanity, Earth, and space will not feel so all-consuming, if we are constantly traveling across worlds then Earth will be just another stop on a cosmic highway. We must focus our efforts on achieving what people consider impossible to reach. A sustained effort must be put into space exploration which will only require a small fraction of our resources. And given enough time, it will be common to feel one with the cosmos, to realize that we are part of something far bigger than any one planet.
