“Discovery and its crew of seven glided safely back to Earth yesterday, ending a riveting, at times agonising, 14-day test of space shuttle safety that was shadowed by the ghosts of Columbia,” The Malta Independent reported on 10 August.
Man has always been intrigued by what lies in space, especially if there are other forms of life apart from our own planet. But the use of space goes beyond that. Over the years man has started to use space in a bid to make life more comfortable.
Way back in the early 17th century, Italian Galileo Galilei constructed a telescope with which he discovered the moons of the planet Jupiter. Since then, interest in space rapidly evolved to what we know it today.
The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, at the height of the Cold War, increased the tempo. On 12 April 1961, Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth, doing so on a spacecraft named Vostok I. The voyage lasted 108 minutes, with Gagarin leaving the craft and landing by parachute.
Eight years later, on 20 July 1969, American Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon. He was the commander of the Apollo 11 mission and his famous words “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, remain anchored in our memory.
Then, in the 1980s, came the era of the shuttle as man tried to further his understanding of space and all that it could hold. It has not all been success, with the shuttle Challenger exploding 73 seconds into its flight on 28 January 1986 and, more recently, on 1 February 2003, the shuttle Columbia breaking up 15 minutes before completing its 28th journey into space. It took the United States another two and a half years before launching another mission, the one just completed by Discovery.
Today, man’s “intervention” in space has made our lives more comfortable. The world of telecommunications relies on satellites that make contact between one place and another easier and more efficient. This is what makes the world “the global village” we hear about so much these days. Man also continues to explore distant planets in the search of other life forms.
But the question that always comes up every time a major mission takes place, such as the one by Discovery in the past weeks, is whether mankind should continue “exploring” space. Billions of dollars are spent in the process when, some say, they could be spent better. In several parts of the world, people are still starving to death or, at best, are living in extremely poor conditions. What many of us living in developed countries take for granted – water in our taps and easily accessible medicine – is unheard of in under-developed areas.
Should mankind continue to spend so much money on space missions when others are still suffering so much?
Those in favour of space exploration will say that it is necessary for the continuous development of mankind. Those against say that it only helps to make the rich richer and poor poorer.
It is unlikely that space exploration will be abandoned. It was not discarded after the Challenger and Columbia tragedies, and it will not be now after Discovery’s successful mission.
NASA spaceflight chief Bill Readdy said that the Discovery mission was “going to be a new beginning for the space shuttle programme”.
The success of Discovery has renewed confidence in space exploration that was shattered by the Columbia disaster. Problems still remain, but man’s urge to find out more will not stop him from taking risks.