“HISTORY OF THE FUTURE IN SPACE” by
Fabio Sau
Friday, November 05, 2004
There is a river flowing throughout human history, the mainspring of imagination, ingeniousness, independent thinking, and creativity. It is the ability to look into the future. Walt Disney loved to say “we are only a dream away from a beautiful tomorrow!”
It is the most beautiful part of human life to start from romance to build into reality. Look at what the dreamers and doers of Human Space Travel, Exploration, and Colonization, what its pioneers and crusaders, did! A continuous overlapping between fantasy and reality permeates their lives. [1] These outstanding personalities were passionate prophets of an innovative message: human beings, self-conscious creatures, as the most exciting part of Nature, are able to conceive the most beautiful dreams and terrifying nightmares. Now they are heading to spread life and cultural values throughout the Cosmos. This is a Renaissance message, a rejection of intellectual sterility and resignation. Intellectual freedom and human dignity are exalted: man is placed at the center of the universe, measure of all things and wonders.
In the nineteenth century, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said "The Earth is the cradle of mankind - one cannot remain in the cradle forever" This is the Krafft Ehricke “human imperative” of Space colonization. Jules Verne passed away in 1905: he anticipated nature with remarkable accuracy. “De la terre à la lune”, written in 1865, was a seminal work, A source of inspiration for most of the original rocket pioneers. He proudly considered himself a poet, in the actual sense of "maker”. Poets are not necessarily dreamers, but prophets. From his work, not an impression of unreality arises. On the contrary, the likelihood of what he wrote for us is baffling and marvelous at the same time. Verne – in his thrilling scientific romance - understood what the origin of human creative imagination is all about. [2]
Human Space Travel is not only science, mathematics, engineering, and management: it is indeed imagination and romance that become reality. The lesson learned is that amazing dreams can become real! A poor and lonely Russian teacher - fascinated from Verne - was the first to figure out all the basic equations for rocketry as recent as in 1903! Although Tsiolkovsky never built any rockets, he did work out many of the fundamental principles of astronautics and designed suitable rockets. A grumpy American Professor, Robert Goddard, was actually the first to build real modern rockets and to patent his creations. His interest in rocketry started in 1898 when, as a 16 year old, he read "War of the Worlds" written by the English science fiction novelist Herbert George Wells.
Hermann Oberth, another enthusiastic and avid Verne’s reader, must be credited for his restless effort and lifetime work for convincing the entire World of the value, feasibility, and importance of Space travel. In 1929, he published another astounding and historic book, The international bestseller, “Die Rakete Zu Den Planetenraumen”. His goal was a humble one: “To make available for life every place where life is possible. To make inhabitable all worlds as yet uninhabitable, and all life purposeful.” [3]
Six years
earlier, “Frau im Mond” - Fritz Lang director - was a movie that showed a
prophetic vision of Space travel. A maniple of brave adventurers travels aboard
the ship Friede, searching for gold nothing less than on the Moon. Friede was a
futuristic multi-stage, liquid-fuel rocket designed by Oberth as movie
consultant. For the first time, the audience watched a rocket-launching
sequence: the familiar "countdown to zero”. The interest generated by this
movie was tremendous, especially in
Oberth was also
Wernher Von Braun’s teacher. Von Braun was the charismatic leader of a talented
team of scientists, visionaries, and engineers that worked at Peenemünde during
World War II developing the Vengeance rockets, the first capable to reach
Space. [4]
Once the war has ended, the Von Braun team decided to be captured by the
Americans, a key event for outcome of the Space Race. [5]
Von Braun was crucial and the credibility of his work paramount in the effort
to convince the U.S. Government to pursue a landing of men on the Moon. His
Saturn V rocket smoothly guided the
Human Spaceflight is worth to study not only because of the new realms opened to the human intellect and imagination: it is indeed an everlasting reminder on how our most beautiful dreams can become a reality. This is the most precious gift to our descendants.
The other side
of this shining coin is that, historically, the large public has never been a
steadfast supporter of Spaceflight, whereas National Governments and especially
the Military have been the real promoters, sponsors, and developers of such
difficult large scale technological programs. They have a different agenda
compared to what the Fathers of Human Spaceflight did believe: the use of
technology and science for human ends, an opportunity to measure our best
skills, explore, accepting unthinkable challenges, ultimately leaving a better
World, with better people and stunning achievements, to our children.
Unfortunately the dual-use nature of any human technological and scientific
knowledge will be always part of our spectrum of options. Imagine to have had a
machinegun when the Barbarian hordes started invading, destabilizing, and
destroying the
Gene Roddenberry, futurist and creator of a modern legend, Star Trek, save us from these pessimistic scenarios. [8] Watching Star Trek and its sequels we understand there is a future worth living for. Space is portrayed not just as a new battlefield, but as a unique venue for learning new ideas, meeting new intelligent creatures, and ways of thinking. In these engaging Deep Space tales, among starships and encounters with aliens, the focus is - once again - on how we can learn more about ourselves as humans. Star Trek keeps the myth, beauty, and fables of Human Spaceflight alive in today’s cynical and apathetic society: a source of real and passionate inspiration for everybody.
[1] Crouch, Tom D. Aiming for the stars: the dreamers and doers
of the space age Washington, D.C. 1999 Smithsonian Institute Press
[2] Ley,
Willy Rockets Missiles and Men in Space
[3] Freeman,
Marsha How we got to the Moon The story
of the German Space Pioneers 1993.
[4] Stuhlinger, Ernst, Frederick I. Ordway Wernher Von Braun Crusader for Space: A Biographical Memoir June 1996. Krieger Publishing Company
[5] Von Braun, Werner Journey, Man on the Moon October 18, 1952. Collier's, Vol. 130, No. l6
[6] Von
Braun, Werner The Mars Project 1991
reprinted.
[7] Walters,
Helen B. Wernher Von Braun: Rocket
Engineer
[8] Official Star Trek Website www.startrek.com