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From the Executive Director

From Moscow and Vienna: Reflecting on the Significance of the Space Age

Click to enlarge > Louis D. Friedman Executive Director of The Planetary Society Credit: The Planetary Society

October 17 , 2007

The first part of October has been replete with Sputnik anniversary commemorations and reflections. I was fortunate to be invited to be part of several in Russia -- Sputnik's home. The recognition in Russia of what is certainly one of their greatest achievements, launching the Space Age, was disappointing. There was little government attention, and top level science and space agency participation was perfunctory. However, a number of science symposia were very good, and there was an excellent exhibit of Russian space science history at the Space Research Institute.

Russian Space Agency head, Anatoly Perminov, gave an encouraging speech, asserting that Russia was returning to an active program of space science and exploration, with 20 missions planned in the next decade -- including the Phobos Sample Return, a mission in which The Planetary Society is involved. Perminov did not announce a visionary theme or political initiative, and many of the other talks hearkened back to Cold War rationales for space.

As part of the commemoration, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin gave a well-received talk citing the great achievements of Russia in starting the Space Age. He also signed new agreements with Perminov to fly Russian instruments on the Mars Science Laboratory and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, extending an agreement initiated by Dan Goldin and Wes Huntress -- with the help of The Planetary Society -- in the late 1990s.

Click to enlarge > Model of Phobos Sample Return While at the Space Research Institute I took this picture of an engineering model of the Phobos sample return spacecraft. The return capsule is the brown-colored hemisphere on the top. The manipulator and sample collection tube are on the lower left. The sample collection system is a derivative of the one used on the Russian lunar sample return in 1970. That's right. Did you know the Russians are the only nation to have successfully returned a sample, robotically, from the surface of another world? They also conducted the first rover missions, with the Lunokhods in the 1970s. Credit: Louis Friedman

From Moscow, I went to Vienna to speak at the United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). This is a Committee of the UN Economic and Social Council, of which The Planetary Society is an NGO consulting member. (I was delighted to hear our session chairman, Peter Jankowitsch, former President of the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, refer to The Planetary Society as the most prestigious of the NGOs connected with space.)

The meeting, "Civil Society and Space," was mostly concerned with space applications and space security. However, I spoke on space exploration and the opportunity it presents for international cooperation and for providing very important practical benefits to humankind. I emphasized the Society's view that civil space cooperation is a positive contributor to peaceful development and space security.

A case in point is The Planetary Society's promotion of the International Lunar Decade (ILD). I explained the ILD at the meeting and showed the broad range of lunar activities now going on worldwide. Ray Williamson, Executive Director of the Secure World Foundation, who is working with us to advance of the International Lunar Decade, also spoke at the conference.

Space benefits pervade society, worldwide. From disaster management to communications to navigation and global monitoring, space applications influence not just our daily lives but also how we deal with national and global problems.

To many, space exploration is a divergent activity that does not address the cares of Earth. I don't see it that way. The two biggest benefits from 50 years of space exploration are (1) understanding Earth and its place in the Cosmos and (2) inspiring the people of Earth to accomplish great goals. The view of Earth as a striking "blue marble" taken by Apollo astronauts, the famous Voyager image showing our planet as a "pale blue dot" among the stars, and Shuttle images of an "Earth without borders" have transformed the way we humans view and understand our world. Weather and communication satellites have changed everyday life, and planetary missions at Venus, Mars, and Jupiter have taught us about climate change, effects of greenhouse gases, aerosols, and dust in the atmosphere. In all these ways, space exploration has shaped our world in the last 50 years.

Space exploration inspires education and great achievement, and has the remarkable ability to motivate both a general public and a younger generation. I know this first-hand, as I am one of Sputnik's children. I was a freshman when Sputnik launched, and within a few weeks I signed up for the first university space science course, taught by Verner Suomi at the University of Wisconsin. Within a few months, I obtained financial support for my studies from the new National Defense Education Act, pushed through by President Eisenhower to make sure America's youth would not fall behind their Soviet counterparts. Shortly thereafter I made up my mind that my future lay in space.

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