Challenger debris discovery reminds us that space exploration can cost lives

Recently, a group of divers looking for the wreckage of World War II aircraft in the Atlantic Ocean came upon some of the debris of the space shuttle Challenger. The discovery reminded us of the disaster that happened before the eyes of the world on Jan. 28, 1986. It also reminded us that the cost of space exploration is measured in lives lost as well as money spent.

The day the Challenger perished, along with her crew, is burned into the history of space exploration. One of the most awful aspects of the disaster is that it took the life of Christa McAuliffe, the teacher sent to space to conduct educational lessons during the Challenger’s mission. Millions of school children, both at the Kennedy Space Center and in front of thousands of TV screens in classrooms across the country, witnessed the space shuttle become a flying funeral pyre.

The Challenger Commission, which included astronauts like Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, scientists such as Richard Feynman, and the incomparable Air Force pilot General Charles Yeager, uncovered the technical and management causes of the disaster. The larger lesson that Challenger taught us, as the 1962 Apollo fire did before and the Columbia disaster since, is that people will die pushing back the high frontier of space. One can encourage safety culture as much as possible, but people, even engineers and managers, are fallible — so the path to a space-based human civilization will inevitably be paved with human lives. 

The Artemis program has begun in earnest with the launch of the Artemis 1 mission on Wednesday. America is leading a coalition of nations and private companies to return astronauts to the surface of the moon as early as 2025. In so doing, we have to accept the likelihood that some of those explorers will not return to Earth alive.

Imagine, some time in the 2030s or 2040s, being confronted by the news that an moon mission has crashed on the lunar surface with the complete loss of the crew. People will likely greet the news with the same kind of shock and sorrow as they did previous space disasters that killed astronauts. Politicians will make solemn pronouncements. The media will weigh in with analysts and reaction. No doubt it will spark the formation of a special commission to delve into the root causes of the catastrophe. The causes, when found, will be corrected, and humankind’s exploration of the moon will continue.

However, somebody, an elected official, a media influencer, somebody will surely ask the inevitable questions. Is the exploration of the moon, Mars and beyond worth the cost in human lives? Don’t we have problems here on Earth that need out attention? Somebody had better have an answer to both questions.

The short answers are “yes” and “so what?”

The return to the moon will have enormous benefits in the realms of science, commerce and soft political power. No human endeavor, from the time the first hunter gatherers ventured in search of new lands, has been undertaken without lives being lost. Drawing back from the frontier of space and cowering on this tiny planet, could mean the eventual death of human civilization. Or, worse, it will mean ceding the benefits of space exploration to China.

As for the idea that we should turn back from exploring and deal with Earthly problems, the answer should be that civilization is rich enough and mighty enough to do both. Indeed, it can be argued that the solution to problems such as poverty, environmental degradation — and all the rest that besets the Earth — resides in earning wealth and power beyond our home planet.

When people die on the moon, we will mourn them. We will comfort their bereaved family and friends. We will hold funerals to mark their passing and celebrate their lives. And we will build monuments to remind future generations how they lived and how they died doing what they loved.

When human civilization has spread out to the moon, Mars and across the solar system, it will be partly as a result of people who will give their lives to make it happen. The names of the honored dead may even adorn communities of humans on other worlds that today await the coming of explorers, entrepreneurs, dreamers and pioneers. A multi-world civilization will be a fitting monument to those who gave their lives to make that dream a reality.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of space exploration studies “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.