G. Ryan Faith is a Washington-based space policy analyst and writer who has worked for the House Science Committee, the Space Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was the defense and security editor at VICE Media from 2013-2016. He is currently writing a dissertation on American public attitudes toward space prior to World War II.
Strategists and planners at NASA are mulling over questions of tempo for future human expeditions to the moon. Should Artemis involve a yearly campaign of smaller missions or consolidate expeditions, launching more ambitious (and, therefore, sporadic) efforts less often?
Exploration, at its core, is about making the unknown a little more familiar and comfortable. Whether a destination becomes more meaningful as a scientific site, historical landmark, or economic opportunity, exploration involves integrating a distant place into our larger human world. The first human voyage into space, Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 Vostok flight, captured the world’s headlines and imagination. Over the course of less than two hours, Gagarin proved that the immense, terrifying void above our Earthly home had become a place that we humans, the merely mortal, could now dare to tread. Sixty-two years later, SpaceX and NASA can bring together four astronauts from all over the world and fly them to the immense International Space Station, and the feat attracts little attention beyond the press release. Low Earth orbit is now less exotic and more familiar. After more than half a century of work, humans have made it a place for people to visit and work.
As clearly shown by the collapse of interest in human lunar exploration after the dazzling Apollo 11 mission, the public sometimes loses interest in increasingly ordinary expeditions to ever-more-familiar destinations. That lesson was highlighted again by the Space Shuttle program’s clear demonstration that without purpose, routine renders ongoing missions…
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