Bring Human Virtues to Space Exploration

By LII HAIBO

Space exploration turns out to be an international discourse this month with three relevant events happening in the past 30 days. At the beginning of the month, the Cassini spacecraft, after journeying more than 3.5 billion km in nearly seven years, finally closed in on the ringed Saturn and began probing the sixth planet, its rings and its mysterious moons. Later on, NASA announced that it would launch a spacecraft to Mercury in early August for a study of the heavy-metal planet’s surface to determine its composition and to see if there is ice on it.

July 20 marks the 35th anniversary of mankind’s first landing on the moon. When people commemorate the milestone space adventure, known as “one giant step for mankind,” they find that now more nations have economic and technological capability to launch spaceships or satellites, compared with the 1960s, when only the two superpowers boasted that ability and expanded their competition to the extraterrestrial realm.

Mankind’s space industry took shape during the 1950s-60s and was stamped, politically and ideologically, with the brand of that time. One of my childhood songs was called Soviet Union’s Satellite Flies High in the Sky, which was composed by Chinese musicians after the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in October 1957. We were told that this was a great victory the Soviets made for all socialist countries, including China. So the Chinese should be very proud of the launch and celebrate this political victory by singing the song.

Later I learned that Washington took the matter very seriously, especially after Moscow successfully sent Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961. To beat the Russians in the race to the moon, Washington set a timetable to fulfill its ambitious lunar mission—an American astronaut must be put on the moon by 1970, before the Soviet Union could do the same. The timetable turned out to be accurate and the American astronauts made history in July 1969.

Yes, competition speeds up all kinds of development, including space probing. The question is: Do we still need this U.S.-Soviet pattern of competition today? The motivation of that kind of competition is always acting before others, as well as seeking second-to-none pride and pleasure. While the U.S.-Soviet race did swiftly produce results, it distorted the noble purpose of exploring the secrets of the universe. In addition, it jostled the space scientists to proceed faster than they would do if they were acting only as scientists doing what they believed was right.

Universe probing is a highly risky business. We must give priority to human safety. Instead of advocating “winning is everything,” we should stress that “life is everything.” Actually, the ultimate purpose of space adventures is for human life as well as for other lives on Earth. “Earth is the cradle of mankind, but man cannot stay in the cradle forever,” said Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky a century ago. When that day on which humans have to leave their cradle finally comes, they should carry with them other lives, those living creatures in the so-called first, second and third environments—land, sea and atmosphere, to emigrate to outer space, the fourth environment.

Like other adventures, space exploration cannot avoid sacrifices. But risking the lives of the astronauts for seeking national status, for pride, vainglory and tawdry competitiveness should be discouraged. What we need is to purge and purify the great enterprise of exploring the universe. We should abandon the Cold War concept in astronautical undertakings, dumping such ideas as landing men on a planet by some arbitrary date. We should put our minds on the use of new technologies, already spectacularly promising, to increase our knowledge of the solar system and universe. Then we can proceed with scientific deliberation and human dignity.

Exploring outer space is a human activity, thus inevitably bearing human merits and demerits. We all know that war is a part of human history. It’s been a long-cherished hope and belief that our descendents will eventually live in a world that is free from wars and bloodshed. Let us start our odyssey for perpetual peace from space ventures, bringing human virtues to the universe. Let us make our fourth environment a sphere free from human evils. Why not try?

So, plans like star wars should be relinquished and space military races ceased. It is encouraging to note that more international space cooperative experiments and ventures are being carried out on the ground and in space. To some extent astronautical activities are becoming more global and less national. After all, this is one of the noblest causes for all human races. The real space triumph must be a fruit of human peace and international cooperation. Any conflict will get people of the world nowhere.

We still need competition. Who are our rivals? They include nature, the environment and time. For example, humans need to find new energy sources in the universe, which is an urgent job. We ought to fulfill the work before those conventional resources on the Earth run out. Our planet is not a safe one, and space safety research needs a big push and relevant inputs are imperative. In other words, when we take into account our survival and future development, we can’t help but accelerate the steps of space exploration.

We still need dignity, pride and status. They are the dignity, pride and status of humans as a whole. I always imagine the scenario in which Earth people meet ETs somewhere in space, sometime in the future. I don’t expect that the space guests will laugh at or look down on earthlings for their bellicose tendencies or uncivilized behavior. Unlike many sci-fi writers who describe the extraterrestrial high-intelligent species as hawkish beings, I believe that any high-intelligent races are peace-loving creatures. Maybe the ETs we have been looking for are just around us or out there. They are not ready to contact us unless we all become truly civilized and hospitable.

E-mail: Hblii@263.net