With a hat tip to reader JK:
In 1970, a Zambia-based nun named Sister Mary Jucunda wrote to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then-associate director of science at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in response to his ongoing research into a piloted mission to Mars. Specifically, she asked how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on such a project at a time when so many children were starving on Earth.
Stuhlinger soon sent the following letter of explanation to Sister Jucunda, along with a copy of “Earthrise,” the iconic photograph of Earth taken in 1968 by astronaut William Anders, from the Moon (also embedded in the transcript). His thoughtful reply was later published by NASA, and titled, “Why Explore Space?”
Read it here.
Two reasons that Dr. Stuhlinger left out:
1) Exploring, expanding, climbing, conquering is just what we do.
2) There’s a fortune to be made out there!
6 Comments
Yes, of course, Dr. Stuhlinger’s reply was thoughtful and persuasive. But if NASA would just divert a couple of measly $billions to California’s state and local governments, to reduce their $40B overall budget deficit, think of all the illegal aliens whose college tuition and fees could be assured, once they had taken all the necessary remedial reading, writing, and arithmetic courses they flunked in public secondary school.
Gotta remember NASA’s primary mission, too: Muslim outreach.
It all adds up!
He could’ve just sent her a jar of Tang and said, “See! this is the payoff baby.”
His letter justified space. I don’t see where it justified governmnent exploration of space. In fact, that is probably what prompted the letter from the nun in the first place–just change a government dictate in response to guilt. Exactly what has happened to most of our programs today. Only now we divert our very security to pouring dollars down rat-holes.
“Only now we divert our very security to pouring dollars down rat-holes.”
No kidding. Why just yesterday I read there’s a solicitation for proposals on an F-36 capable of getting through Taliban advanced air-defense systems.
The uproar over the necessary budget allocations was truly disheartening.
Why explore space? There’s just too little room to explore anything else . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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