What the space missions are teaching me

This past week, amid distressing news on wars, blockades, and a personal setback, I paused and reflected in awe over images from NASA’s Artemis II space mission. Over ten days, four astronauts travelled around the moon and back, taking humans further away from Earth than ever before.

Space missions don’t hold the same political import today that they enjoyed in the 1960s during the Cold War space race. The economics are often too prohibitive. Each launch of the rocket and capsule in Artemis missions costs over $4 billion. Why should the public support such expensive endeavours at a time of economic volatility?

There are several reasons. The main reason, best articulated, is that each space mission develops technology that improves the quality of life on Earth. Everything from memory foam to water filters, scratch-resistant lenses and cordless tools has arisen from NASA inventions.

The other reason, less discussed, is that each time humans fly far into space, it puts life on Earth into perspective. Looking at images of Earth from space is both a terrifying and a humbling experience. The universe is vast, lonely, and intimidating. We are small, tiny and effectively powerless – huddled up together in a pretty fragile environment on this planet.

Cosmic chaos could potentially end things at any time. Amidst large celestial bodies constantly flying at speeds beyond our comprehension, Earth has taken a few hits itself in the past. Some of those strikes have wiped out entire species and sometimes rendered earth – or at least parts of it – uninhabitable.

Yet, thankfully, by the gracious laws of physics – which are mysteriously designed as they are – almost all particles in outer space follow predictable patterns. Planets and moons move in fixed orbits at fixed speeds via fixed forces, making missions such as Artemis possible.

As Albert Einstein once put it: “Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human being, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to an invisible tune, intoned in the distance by a mysterious player.”

Effectively, whether billionaires or paupers, bosses or employees, the laws of physics suggest that none of us is truly a master of our own destiny. Taken in the context of the cosmos, all of us are a tiny fraction of the totality of reality – a tiny part of something trillions of times bigger than all of us combined. As Einstein explains, “We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.”

In the same spirit, for some reason, all of us have been chosen to live on the oddest cosmic object yet discovered. The reason life has not yet been found outside of Earth is that Earth is bizarre. It has tolerable temperatures, a beautiful atmosphere, and a blue sky that is – quite mindbogglingly – no more than an optical illusion which allows for brightness through the scattering of light. The reliable patterns of water, wind, and wave currents further facilitate organic life.

Why was Earth chosen to sustain life? Was this random or by divine design? What if life on Earth ended? Will it take root on a different planet?

Regardless of the answers to these questions, one truth feels inescapable: Whatever misery or triumph each of us might currently be facing, all of it is utterly temporary and insignificant in the context of both the vastness of outer space and the long time horizons across which it exists.

But what then is the point of this sermon? The vastness of the universe surely does not negate our feelings about ourselves.

It certainly does not, but one can’t help but feel that it is almost churlish and immature for any human being to pretend that they are the dominant lords of the universe – or that they alone can determine the course of history.

The truth about outer space is that if the Earth as we know it disappeared tomorrow, the universe would continue as if nothing had happened. All of us live on an extremely tiny and irrelevant planet, in a solar system that is only one among billions like itself, in a galaxy that is one among trillions like itself. And on this tiny planet, creatures live by being dependent on each other – or they wouldn’t live at all.

The writer is a student of all things global and, self-confessedly, master of none, notwithstanding his Columbia Master’s, a stint with the UN and with monarchs in the Middle East.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.