In 1970 [also the year China successfully launched its first artificial Earth satellite], Zambian Nun Mary Zhukanda wrote to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger of NASA. In the letter, she questioned the deputy director of science and technology at the Marshall Space Flight Center at the time.
Soon, Dr. Stuhlinger wrote the following reply, along with a photograph titled "The Earth Rises." NASA then published the doctor's elaborate reply under the title "Why Explore the Universe".
The earth rises
Dear Sister Marie Jukanda,
I receive many letters every day, but your letter undoubtedly touched me the most, because these heartfelt words came from a heart of inquiry and compassion. I would like to answer your question to the best of my ability. But before I do that, I want to pay tribute to you, as well as to the many colleagues around you, who I sincerely admire for the fearless devotion of your lives to the noblest cause of humanity — helping those in need.
You asked in your letter that there are countless children in this world who are suffering from famine, how can I bear to spend so much money on this trip to Mars? I know you don't want to get a reply like the one below." "It's fair to say that I was aware of the children's famine before I learned that a trip to Mars was technically feasible.
However, many of my friends around me believe that whether it is a trip to the moon and Mars, or a trip to the major planets in the future, outer space exploration is a cause that we should start now. In addition, I personally believe that in the long run, the development of the Mars program will also be of great benefit to solving the serious problems we are facing on Earth, and it is more practical than the funding programs that are endlessly discussed and have little success.
Before I elaborate on how the space program is helping to solve problems on Earth, I want to briefly tell a roughly true story to support my point.
About four hundred years ago lived in a small German town a count, a kind man who always donated most of his money to the poor in the town. In that hungry and cold medieval era, common plagues were rampant and homes were destroyed, so the count's selfless trip was admired by everyone.
One day he met a strange man in his home, in addition to a workbench, a small laboratory. Men work hard during the day to stay in their labs for a few hours a night. He polished the glass into small lenses, then put the lenses into the tube, and then used the thing to observe subtle things. Magnified by this high magnification, the Count saw miniature creatures which he had never seen before, and he was fascinated by them. He then invited the man to move into his castle with his laboratory, and the man became a member of the Count's family and devoted himself, as a special employee, to the research and improvement of his optical equipment.
However, the townspeople were furious when they learned of this, believing that the Count had wasted all his money on tricks that could only scare people, and they shouted, "We are still suffering from this plague, but he spends his money on the man's undesirable hobbies!" In the face of all the doubts, the count remained firm, and he replied: "I will still try to help you, but at the same time I will continue to support the man and his work, because I know what this will bring us one day." ”
Indeed, the man's work, and the similar efforts of others, have brought us a treasure—a microscope. As we all know, compared with other inventions, the birth of the microscope can be said to have greatly promoted the development of medicine. Without microscopes, microscopic medical research could not be carried out, and it is likely that there would be no plague and other infectious diseases on the earth today.
The count, in terms of alleviating the sins of mankind, even if he had donated everything he could to those around him who were tormented by the plague, was far less than allocating only a sum of money to fund the man's research.
microscope
In fact, this is similar in many ways to the situation we are facing today. Our President of the United States has submitted an annual budget of $200 billion, which will be invested in health care, education, welfare, urban renewal, road construction, transportation, foreign aid, defense armaments, ecological maintenance, scientific research, agricultural development, and the construction of a large number of domestic and foreign facilities.
About 1.6 percent of this year's national budget will be allocated to space exploration to support the Apollo program and other smaller projects such as space physics, space astronomy, space biology, planetary engineering, earth resources engineering, and space engineering. For U.S. taxpayers with an average annual income of $10,000, each of them contributes $30 a year to the space program, and the remaining $9,970 will be used to support themselves, or for entertainment, or to bank, as well as to pay other taxes and expenses.
You might ask, "Then why not take $5 out of that $30, $3, or even $1 out of that $30 to help the hungry kids?" "In this regard, I would like to briefly introduce the economic operation mode of our country, which is actually very similar to many countries. Our government is made up of cabinet departments (Home Office, Justice, Ministry of Health, Education and Welfare, Ministry of Transport, Department of Defense, etc.) and agencies (National Science Foundation, Space Agency, etc.) that submit annual budgets based on assigned tasks, which are strictly checked by congressional committees, and the Budget Bureau and the President put a heavy pressure on economic efficiency. When the money is finally approved from Congress, the money can only be used for the projects approved in the details of the budget.
Naturally, THE SPACE AGENCY's budget can only contain projects directly related to aviation, and if this budget is rejected, the funds it seeks will not be used for other purposes. Unless additional budgets are approved in other departmental budgets to obtain the money originally used for space research, things are actually very simple, and the money will not be collected directly from taxpayers. With the above explanation, I believe you should be able to understand that the financing of hungry children can only be implemented by the relevant responsible departments to include it in the budget and approved by Congress. In fact, our country is already working on this noble cause in other ways, in the form of foreign aid.
Reading this, you may ask, if the U.S. government really goes to fund hungry children, do I personally approve of it? I can tell you that I am absolutely 100% in favor. I wouldn't mind if the government had raised our taxes to finance hungry children everywhere, and I'm sure my friends around me would have thought the same, but we can't do just by shelving our trip to Mars. On the contrary, I believe that our efforts in the space program will help alleviate, or even eventually, solve the serious problems of poverty and hunger. There are two root causes of hunger: unequal food production and unequal food distribution.
Cropping, pastoralism, fisheries and other large-scale operations are high in some areas, but very low in many areas. But in fact, for example, if there is a vast piece of land, if we can take a series of effective measures, such as watershed management, fertilizer application, meteorological early warning, soil assessment, plantation planning, location optimization, local conditions, time conditions, and estimated production regulations, in fact, this land can be fully utilized, and grain production will increase by leaps and bounds accordingly.
To achieve the improvement of all the above measures, artificial earth satellites are undoubtedly the best tool. Satellites fly at high altitudes and can take large-scale photographs of the ground in a short period of time. It can also make its own observations and measurements of a series of indicator elements related to crop status, soil condition, degree of drought, precipitation, snow and ice cover, etc., and return the relevant information in radio form to the ground receiving station for other purposes. In a global agricultural improvement project, it is estimated that a single earth resource satellite system on a general scale could generate billions of dollars worth of annual crop income.
Food distribution to those in need is a very different issue. This problem has little to do with the volume of food transported, but crucially with international cooperation. Just think, if a small country imports grain from a big country for a long time, the head of that small country should be restless, not why, but only because with the import, not only grain, but also the influence of other countries' forces on the mainland. At this point, I am really afraid that if we want to effectively solve the problem of hunger, we must wait until the day when the national boundaries are no longer clear, and I do not think that the development of the space industry will make this miracle happen in an instant. I am convinced, however, that of all the efforts made in that direction, space planning must be the most promising and weighty.
I want to talk to you again about Apollo 13, the one that nearly led to tragedy on the moon. I remember that our astronauts were about to re-enter the atmosphere, and at this critical juncture, the Soviet authorities, in order to avoid any possibility of signal interference, interrupted all their radio transmissions in the same frequency band as those used in the Apollo program, and sent ships to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, in case of emergency, they could help in time.
I think that if the astronaut module had landed near a Russian ship, they would have done their best to help our people, as if they were their own compatriots who had just returned from space. We are the same, if Russian astronauts are in a similar situation, we will define and help them without hesitation.
The space program has a profound impact on human life on Earth, measurements and assessments from Earth's satellites help to increase food production, and the international relations they promote are conducive to the improvement of food distribution. But arguably, the impact goes far beyond these two points. What I would like to say below are two other examples, namely, stimulating technological development and brewing scientific knowledge.
The high requirements for technical standards and reliability in the manufacture of components of the Luyue aircraft are unprecedented in the entire history of engineering development. In order to meet this stringent technical requirement, we continue to develop the entire scientific system, at the same time, we are looking for new materials and new methods, innovating the technical system, improving the manufacturing process, extending the life of the instrument, and even discovering new laws of nature.
These new knowledge at the technical level can also be used for non-aerospace science and technology. Every year, about a thousand technological inventions that began with space programs are used in non-space fields, which brings us better kitchenware, farm tools, tableware, sewing machines, radios, and other everyday tools; more reliable ships and planes; more accurate weather forecasts and storm warnings; more unimpeded communication systems; and more advanced medical instruments.
Reading this, you may ask, why do we have to develop a life support system for lunar astronauts before we create a remote reading sensing system for heart patients? The answer is simple, because in solving technical difficulties, some major progress is usually achieved not by starting a direct study, but by setting a very challenging goal. This goal, which gives people a strong impetus to carry out innovative research, stimulates people's imaginations and encourages them to do their best, and this goal is like a catalyst for the development of science, setting off a chain reaction to the development of science.
There is no doubt that the space industry is playing this catalyst role. It is true that the trip to Mars will not directly feed the hungry, but it will bring us many new technologies, new skills, and the value of each unit of this space program is several times the cost of its implementation.
To improve the human condition, we need not only new technologies, but also new knowledge in the field of basic science, such as physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, and especially medical knowledge, to deal with a series of problems that threaten human survival, such as hunger, disease, food and drinking water pollution, and environmental pollution.
We need more young people to devote themselves to science, and we need to give more support to talented and ambitious scientists, whose research will bring us fruitful results. In addition, our research subjects need to be challenging, and external support is even more indispensable.
I would like to reiterate that the space program provides us with many good opportunities to really carry out large-scale research in the fields of satellites, planets, physics, astronomy, biology and medicine; the space program makes the dynamics of scientific research, the excitement of exploring nature, and the support of matter promote each other and maximize their benefits.
Although the space program accounts for only 1.6 per cent of the total national budget and three-thousandths of the gross national product, it is undoubtedly the most concerned and probably the most controversial of all the projects funded by the United States Government. However, in terms of promoting the development of new technologies and research in the field of basic science, other projects cannot match it. Sadly, for the next three or four thousand years, space programs may continue to be entangled with these other projects.
If the competition between countries is not to compare how many bombers and rockets there are, but to compare how many spaceships there are, then how much suffering should be avoided! Only this kind of competition will bring us good hope and brilliant victory. In this competition, there is no fate of the conquered, and there is no old vendetta and new war.
The space program seems to lead us out of the earth, to the sun and moon, and finally to the major planets and stars, but I believe that even if we are scientists engaged in space research, our earth is more worthy of attention and study than any other star. We will use new scientific and technological knowledge to improve the quality of human life, we will know and respect the earth, life, and ourselves, and in this way, our planet will become better.
The photograph sent with the letter shows the earth taken by Apollo 8 as it orbited the moon on Christmas Day 1968. To this day, the space program has achieved many extraordinary achievements, but perhaps none is more important than this photograph, which not only broadens our horizons, but also lets us know that our earth is so beautiful and precious, like an island, surrounded by an endless, dead void, and the only thing we can live on is the fragile shell of this planet.
Without this picture, so many people wouldn't realize that the planet is really so limited and how serious the consequences of ecological imbalances would be. Since the publication of this picture, calls for vigilance against serious problems such as pollution, hunger, poverty, urban habitat, food production, water management and overpopulation have also risen and intensified. This era, a young space age, has allowed us to witness the beauty of the earth, and it is no accident that we have begun to think of solving all kinds of difficulties for it.
Fortunately, this space age not only gives us a mirror to learn from, but also gives us new technology, great challenges, motivation to struggle and even an optimistic attitude, allowing us to deal with difficulties with confidence. I think that what we feel about the space program fully confirms the words of Albert Schweitzer."
earth