Continue Private Funding of Space Exploration Programs
Did you know that 50 light years away there is a white dwarf star made entirely of
diamonds that measures over 2,400 miles across and is composed of 10 quintillion carats.
According to an Australian National University study, there is an uncountable number of stars in
our known universe, approximately 70 sextillion stars, with an even more unimaginable number
of stars from what we can’t see. There has been such a push to end privatized funding for space
programs in the past five years. The continuation of Space funding is necessary because it
enhances modern life and leads to technological innovations, it educates and inspires the future
workforce, and it is the only real ‘final frontier’.
There are so many benefits of space exploration, not only does it enhance modern life,
but it also leads to technological innovation that will further elongate life on Earth. Because of
the information we have learned so far in space and how to get there, scientists have created
items that benefit us here on earth. For example, most modern water-filtration systems have been
perfected because of the high demand for them in modern space ships. Ultra-small electronic
circuits have been created to enhance computers that will allow for countless medical advances,
such as bone density measurements and heart pumps (spacecoalition 2014). Satellites alone have
been so useful in mapping and surveying the Earth. The view from the orbit around Earth has
offered scientists and geologists the insight to new sources of energy and minerals scattered
around the globe. Along with surveying the Earth, satellites have provided for the use of Global
Positioning Systems (GPS). This allows for both an increase in communication and navigation
for the average consumer (Bainbridge 2009). The Lewis Research Center is to thanks for the
availability of scratch-resistant lenses for both consumer and business use. They use a technique
to create diamond-hard coatings that offer resistance to most scratches caused by normal wear
and tear. Thanks to a coalition forum of 14 different space agencies, a global search-and-rescue
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system called “The Global Exploration Roadmap” has been created to monitor power generation
and consumption, health and medicine, engineering, and transportation on a global level. One of
the largest innovations that is being perfected to push interstellar travel is the solar sail. Using the
photons generated by solar radiation, scientists and engineers at the University of Strathclyde,
U.K. have been working on the solar sail. This device is a 20 meter wide, paper thin satellite that
is projected into space using only solar photons (Clery 2005). The Planetary Society has also
been engineering and creating a solar sail that will potentially be used for interstellar travel.
Headed by Bill Nye, the LightSail is the first crowd-funded project that will send two small
spacecraft into Earth’s orbit carrying 32 square meter reflective sails (Nye 2015). Set to launch
and deploy in 2016, if successful, this will pave the way for future engineering in regards to
space travel.
