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\n Photo by NASA via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n Photo by NASA via Getty Images<\/p>\n
As we speak, four astronauts are very, very far from home, and everyone seems delighted. Back here on Earth, we delight in their\u00a0IT issues<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0plumbing troubles<\/a>, and respectfully thirst after middle-aged scientists\u00a0performing sky-showers<\/a>. The BBC\u2019s science correspondent had\u00a0a very-nearly-indecent reaction to the launch itself<\/a>, erupting into an outburst of pure joy that likely breached impartiality rules. We can only hope the broadcaster see the error of their ways, and invite some wreckage from the 1984 Challenger Disaster on for balance in coming days.<\/p>\n The reason for all this clamour is that Nasa\u2019s Artemis II is the first manned moon mission since 1972, although careful observers will note that these space-farers will not actually be touching down on the lunar surface. What precisely Artemis II is doing up there is hard for lay people to parse, and I\u2019ll admit that\u00a0some of the explainers don\u2019t quite get the heartbeat racing<\/a>, but the tentpole claim is that this is the first step to placing a permanent base on the moon, and a mission which has already taken humans further away from Earth than ever before, 252,757 miles away, to be precise. (This, apparently, constitutes \u201cdeep space\u201d which, considering how big space actually is, feels a little like saying Tower Bridge is on the outskirts of London, but I digress.)<\/p>\n To see it all ramping up again, therefore, should be a matter of excitement, not least when there seems so little else to cheer about in earthly matters. It might also raise the question of why this kind of thing has become so rare. If I\u2019m to believe the reading of events which has embedded in my own cultural memory \u2013 that offered by\u00a0the episode of The Simpsons in which Homer goes to space<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 Nasa more or less realised that people had got bored of space travel and shuttered their programmes accordingly. As such, the whole phenomenon been preserved in aspic, the Space Race consigned to an eternal hinterland of yesterday\u2019s shining tomorrows. It certainly seems like a more civilised yesterday: the buzz cuts, crackly comms, and shiny white interiors; the vaulted language of mankind\u2019s progress and adventure; the pleasingly grandiose patina afforded by the programme\u2019s hifalutin\u2019 allusions to Greek mythology.<\/p>\n Even discounting the surface-level sheen of its more propagandistic presentations, the progress of man\u2019s ascent into space is still a jaw-dropping endeavour to consider.\u00a0In 1958, the longest commercial flight on Earth was Honolulu to Los Angeles (6 hours, 21 minutes). Eleven years later, a man would land on the moon.\u00a0Between July 1969 and December 1972, 12 humans stood on our nearest cosmic neighbour. And then, well, none have done it since. It\u2019s a strange fact, rarely dwelt on, that every single moonwalk was done not just five decades ago, but within a single 41-month period. To put that into context, it\u2019s currently just over 41 months since Liz Truss lost her brave battle against a lettuce. In all of human history, less than 800 people have ever been in space, (and, yes, despite internet scepticism,\u00a0one of them\u00a0is\u00a0Katy Perry<\/a>).<\/p>\n Subscribe to the New Statesman today and save 75% <\/p>\n The mission comes into public view, and public excitement, just as the Trump administration is proposing\u00a0a 23 per cent cut to Nasa\u2019s budget<\/a>, while the agency is still reeling from cuts swung its way during the reign of Elon Musk\u2019s DOGE, at one point estimated to involve cutting 20 per cent of all employees and rescinding $420 million in funding. And to some critics, many of whose opinions I respect on many other topics, funding space travel is not worth doing anyway; an overspend on adventurism which, in light of the poverty and misery throughout our home planet, reaches for the grotesque.<\/p>\n On this, I strongly disagree. I\u2019ve always considered the purported choice, between advancing to the stars and solving problems back on earth, a false one. Obviously, if the only two options were solving world hunger and funding, say, the International Space Station, the choice would be clear. But such a binary is nonsensical, given that there are scores of other things I\u2019d rather sacrifice before targeting the planet\u2019s vanguard of scientific inquiry. I suspect the reason this dichotomy comes up so often is that the numbers involved in space exploration are, inarguably, massive (I am resisting every urge in my body to use the word \u201castronomical\u201d here). Artemis\u2019s purported budget of $93 billion may seem hard to justify for a programme whose output appears, in layman\u2019s terms, to be a few rocket launches and some admittedly charming zero gravity footage of bulky astronauts surrounded by floating pens.<\/p>\n But this elides the truth that massively subsidised space programmes provide a titanic boost to science, technology, and economies back home. It\u2019s widely reported that Nasa\u2019s Apollo-era programmes returned around $7 to the US economy for every $1 spent. Developments made at the bleeding edge of the space race were obviously a boon to high-tech industries we will never fathom, but they\u2019re also visible in all our homes. If you\u2019ve ever used a portable computer, a camera phone, or a memory foam mattress, you have Nasa to thank. Ditto modern advancements in water purification, landmine removal, and artificial limbs, not to mention the invention of ear thermometers and CAT scans. If I were to rank all the things I\u2019d prefer the American government spent billions on subsidising, these would not find themselves particularly close to the bottom of the pile. To place this in bleak contrast, Trump\u2019s war with Iran is reportedly costing\u00a0$1.3 million per minute<\/a>.<\/p>\n Moreover, such arguments mean engaging with this question in purely vulgar terms, to deploy a miser\u2019s algebra in assessing points on a balance sheet, and the returns on investment they imply. At the risk of losing my reputation as a dead-eyed cynic whose heart has been calloused by the evils of the world, I do hold within myself an optimism about space travel that supersedes matters of cost and capital. I think there is value \u2013 moral, philosophical, intellectual value \u2013 in exploring the one universe in which we find ourselves, and to so as deeply as we can. To gaze at distant stars from Earth, and gaze back home from as close to those stars as we can get.<\/p>\n Looking at the images beamed back from Artemis II,\u00a0flying by the Moon from 4,000 miles above<\/a>, or\u00a0capturing the whole Earth in its single, gimlet eye<\/a>\u00a0I won\u2019t burden you with a lecture about the whole world becoming-as-one in sight of the pale blue dot we all inhabit. My optimism, sadly, stops some way short of truly believing Carl Sagan\u2019s moving words about interplanetary travel ushering in a brave new world of cosmic peace. I just think the urge to go into space, and the co-operation, dedication and joyful exploration it takes to achieve that feat, is still worth the effort no matter how short we fall. Shoot for the stars, as the saying goes, and you may still reach the moon.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net\/2021\/09\/TNS_master_logo.svg\"){kind=logo}
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