May 6, 197
Dear Sister Mary Jucunda:
Every day, I receive many similar letters, but this one touches me the most, because it comes from a compassionate and searching heart. I will try my best to answer your question.
First of all, please allow me to express my deep respect to you and your brave sisters, who have devoted themselves to the noblest cause of mankind: helping our compatriots in trouble.
In your letter, you asked me why I spent billions of dollars on a voyage to Mars when there are still children on the earth who are threatened with death because of hunger. I know you don't want the answer: "Oh, I didn't know there were children starving to death. Well, from now on, all space projects will be suspended until the children have eaten." In fact, I knew something about the problem of children's famine long before the technical level of human beings could imagine a trip to Mars. Moreover, like many of my friends, I think at this moment, we should start a great expedition to the moon, Mars and even other planets. In the long run, I even think that the project of exploring space is more helpful to solve the various crises that mankind is facing at present, compared with all kinds of aid plans that are either debated and quarreled year after year or delayed after compromise.
Before explaining in detail how our space program can help solve the crisis on the ground, I want to tell a true story briefly. It was 4 years ago that there was an earl in a small town in Germany. He is a kind-hearted man. He donated a large part of his income to the poor in the town. This is very admirable, because there were many poor people in the Middle Ages, and plagues that swept across the country often broke out at that time. One day, the count met a strange man. He had a workbench and a small laboratory at home. He worked hard during the day and devoted himself to research for several hours every night. He grinds small pieces of glass into lenses, and then puts the grinded lenses into the lens barrel to observe tiny objects. The count was fascinated by this unprecedented gadget that could magnify things. He invited the eccentric to live in his castle as the count's guest, and then he could devote all his time to studying these optical devices.
However, people in the town were very angry when they learned that the count had spent money on such a strange man and his useless things. "We are still suffering from the plague," they complained, "and he spends money on that idle man and his useless hobbies!" The count was unmoved when he heard this. "I will help everyone as much as possible," he said, "but I will continue to support this man and his work, and I am sure it will pay off one day."
Sure enough, his work (and the efforts of others at the same time) won rich rewards: microscope. The invention of microscope has brought unprecedented development to medicine, and the research and achievements thus carried out have eliminated plagues and other infectious diseases raging in most parts of the world.
The money spent by the Earl to support this research and invention has greatly reduced the human suffering, which is far more rewarding than simply using the money to relieve those who suffered from the plague.
We are facing similar problems at present. The President of the United States has an annual budget of $2 billion, which will be used for medical care, education, welfare, urban construction, highways, transportation, overseas aid, national defense, environmental protection, science and technology, agriculture and many other domestic and foreign projects. This year, 1.6% of the budget will be used to explore the universe, which will be used for the Apollo program, other small projects covering astrophysics, deep space astronomy, space biology, planetary exploration engineering, earth resources engineering and space engineering technology. In order to pay for these space projects, American taxpayers with an average annual income of $1, need to pay about $3 for space, and the remaining $9,97 can be used for general living expenses, leisure and entertainment, savings and other taxes.
Maybe you will ask, "Why not take $5 or $3 or $1 out of the $3 taxpayers paid for space to help hungry children?" In order to answer this question, I need to briefly explain how our country's economy works, and other countries are in a similar situation. The government consists of several departments (such as the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health and Public Welfare, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of National Defense, etc.) and several institutions (the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, etc.). These departments and institutions formulate corresponding annual budgets according to their own functions, and strictly implement them to cope with the supervision of the State Council, and at the same time, they have to cope with the pressure from the budget departments and the President for their economic benefits. When the funds are finally allocated by Congress, they will be strictly used for the planned projects approved by the budget.
Obviously, all the projects included in NASA's budget are related to aerospace. A budget project that has not been approved by Congress will not receive financial support, and naturally it will not be taxed, unless the budget of other departments covers the project, so as to spend the funds that have not been allocated to space projects. From this brief explanation, it can be seen that if we want to help hungry children or increase the amount of aid on the existing foreign aid projects in the United States, we need to first put forward the budget by the relevant departments and then approve it by Congress.
My personal opinion is that I absolutely agree with the government's implementation of similar policies. I don't mind paying a little more tax every year to help hungry children, no matter where they are.
I believe my friends will take the same attitude. However, things can't be easily achieved just by canceling the plan to sail to Mars. On the contrary, I even think that space projects can contribute to alleviating and eventually solving the problems of poverty and hunger on earth. There are two key parts to solve the hunger problem: food production and food distribution. Agriculture, animal husbandry, fishery and other large-scale production activities involved in food production are efficient and high-yield in some areas of the world, while the output is seriously insufficient in some areas. Through high-tech means, such as irrigation management, fertilizer use, weather forecast, yield evaluation, programmed planting, farmland optimization, crop habits and farming time selection, crop investigation and harvesting plan, the land production efficiency can be significantly improved.
Sputnik is undoubtedly the most powerful tool to improve these two key issues. In the orbit far from the ground, the satellite can scan a large area of land in a short time, and can simultaneously observe and calculate many indicators needed for crop growth, such as soil, drought, rain and snow, etc., and can broadcast these information to the ground receiving station for further processing. It has been proved that the satellite system equipped with land resource sensors and corresponding agricultural programs, even the simplest model, can bring billions of dollars to the annual output of crops.
How to distribute food to people in need is another brand-new problem. The key lies not in the capacity of ships, but in international cooperation. The rulers of small countries will be troubled by the import of a large amount of food from big countries. They are afraid that food will be accompanied by the influence of foreign forces on their dominance. I'm afraid the problem of hunger can't be solved efficiently until the barriers between countries are eliminated. I don't think the space program can work miracles overnight. However, exploring the universe will help push the problem in a good direction.
Take the recent Apollo 13 accident as an example. When the astronauts were in the critical re-entry period, in order to ensure smooth communication, the Soviet Union shut down all broadcasting communication in the same frequency band as that used by Apollo spacecraft. At the same time, ships were sent to the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean to prepare for the first search and rescue work. If the astronauts' rescue capsule lands near the Russian ship, Russian personnel will rescue them like domestic astronauts returning from space. Similarly, if the Russian spacecraft encounters a similar emergency, the United States will certainly provide assistance without hesitation.
Improving food production through satellite monitoring and analysis and improving the efficiency of food distribution through improving international relations are just two aspects of improving the quality of human life through space projects. Next, I want to introduce two other important functions: promoting the development of science and technology and improving the scientific literacy of a generation.
The moon landing project requires unprecedented precision and reliability. Faced with such strict requirements, we need to find new materials and new methods; Develop a better engineering system; Use a more reliable production process; Make the working life of the instrument longer; You even need to explore new natural laws.
These new technologies invented for landing on the moon can also be used in engineering projects on the ground. Every year, about 1 new technologies developed from space projects are used in daily life. These technologies create better kitchen utensils and farm equipment, better sewing machines and radios, better ships and planes, more accurate weather forecast and storm warning, better communication facilities, better medical equipment and even better daily gadgets. You may ask, why not design the life-support system of the astronauts' lunar module first, instead of creating remote physical sign monitoring equipment for heart patients first? The answer is simple: when solving engineering problems, important technological breakthroughs are often not directly obtained step by step, but come from challenging goals that can stimulate strong innovative spirit, ignite imagination and firm action, and integrate all resources.
Space travel is undoubtedly a challenging undertaking. The voyage to Mars can't directly provide food to solve the problem of famine. However, it brings a lot of new technologies and methods that can be used outside the Mars project, which will generate several times the original cost.
If we want people to live better and better, we need not only new technology, but also new progress in basic science. Including physics and chemistry, biology and physiology, especially medicine, to take care of human health and deal with hunger, disease, food and water pollution and environmental pollution.
We need more young people to devote themselves to scientific research, and we need to give more help to talented scientists who devote themselves to scientific research. There must be challenging research projects at any time, and at the same time, we must ensure adequate resource support for the projects. I would like to reiterate here that the space project is a catalyst for scientific and technological progress, which provides excellent and practical opportunities for academic research, including the study of the moon and other planets, physics and astronomy, biology and medical science. With it, exciting research topics are constantly emerging in the scientific community, and human beings can get a glimpse of the incomparable beauty of the universe. For it, new technologies and methods are constantly emerging.
Of all the activities controlled and funded by the US government, the space project is undoubtedly the most eye-catching and controversial, although it only accounts for 1.6% of the total budget, less than three thousandths of the gross national product. As the driver and catalyst of new technology, the space project has carried out many basic scientific researches, and its position is doomed to be different from other activities. In a sense, the impact of space projects on society is equivalent to the war activities 3-4 thousand years ago.
If countries no longer compete for bombers and long-range missiles, they will compete for the performance of lunar spacecraft instead, how many wars will be avoided! Smart winners will be full of hope, and losers will not have to suffer, sow the seeds of hatred and bring revenge wars.
Although what we have studied in the space project is far away from the earth, which has extended human vision to the moon, the sun, the stars and the distant stars, astronomers pay more attention to the earth than all the above-mentioned things from outer space. Space projects not only bring about the improvement of the quality of life provided by those new technologies, but with the deepening of the study of the universe, we will be more grateful to the earth, life and human beings themselves. Space exploration makes the earth better.
This photo, which is sent with the letter, is a picture of the earth taken by apollo 8 in orbit around the moon on Christmas Day in 1968. Of all the results that the space project can bring, this photo is perhaps the most valuable one. It broadens people's horizons, makes us intuitively feel that the earth is such a beautiful and precious island in the vast universe, and at the same time makes us realize that the earth is our only home, and leaving the earth is a desolate and cold outer space. No matter how limited people's understanding of the earth is before this, how inadequate their understanding of the serious consequences of destroying the ecological balance is. After the publication of this photo, there are more and more calls for people to face up to these serious problems, such as environmental pollution, hunger, poverty, excessive urbanization, food problems, water resources problems and population problems. People's sudden concern for their own problems can't be said to have nothing to do with these initial space exploration projects currently under way and the brand-new perspective it brings to human beings' own homes.
Space exploration not only provides a mirror for human beings to examine themselves, but also brings us brand-new technologies, brand-new challenges and enterprising spirit, as well as an optimistic and confident attitude when facing severe practical problems. I believe that what human beings have learned from the universe fully confirms Albert Schweitzer's famous saying: "I look at the future with anxiety, but I am still full of good hopes."
My sincere respect to you and your children!
Yours sincerely,
Ernst Stallinger
Associate Director of Science.