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HUMANKIND LOST a universally respected hero last week when Neil Armstrong died. He was the living embodiment of and a link to one of the great achievements in our history, one of the first and most notable of the people to venture into the new ocean of space.
Someone remarked to me when considering writing about Armstrong that he might be last week’s news. I respectfully disagreed: Neil Armstrong is a man whose name, as well as the accomplishments he represents, will live long in the memory alongside the famous explorers, scientists and engineers of history. Very few of us can fill in the socio-political background to the life and times of Galileo, Columbus, Magellan or Newton; but we know their names and their achievements. So it will be for Armstrong in a hundred years.
We like to relate great tales in human terms, and though Armstrong was only one of many involved in the space program in the 1960s and 70s, and the first of 12 men to walk on the moon, he is the embodiment and the face of the great achievement.
The enormity of that achievement seems pedestrian by today’s standards. It’s the curse of great feats that they become commonplace: Charles Lindbergh was a hero of his time for crossing the Atlantic, while today we can take short breaks from Europe to North America without trouble. Today we have a permanent manned presence on the International Space Station and most people can hardly name one astronaut where, before, they were household heroes.
But the space program in the 1960s was a feat of epic proportions, inventing technologies and solving problems heretofore never considered in a short period of time. Even aside from the engineering, it was a massive undertaking in management – with a contemporary joke being that when the stack of paperwork reached orbital altitude, your rocket was ready to launch. (The first draft of an Apollo flight plan weighed about 12 tons when printed and distributed to all the relevant people involved).
The entire endeavour of landing on the moon, in today’s money, is estimated to have cost around $200 billion. Putting the Curiosity Rover onto Mars has cost 1 per cent of that (it costs a lot of money to keep real live people breathing and safe in space). But despite the arguably better bang we get for our bucks today, space exploration has seen its budget squeezed. And around the world we’ve seen the budgets for cutting edge science come under fire in the teeth of a financial crisis. The setting and achieving of audacious goals in science and exploration just doesn’t seem to take the same precedence these days.
Our own country won’t stump up the petty amount of cash required to become even a part member of CERN, the body exploring the origins of our universe and some of the most cutting edge physics research. This locks Irish scientists out of the programme and sees Ireland become the only western European country not to be participating in this fundamental and exciting research.
There is an old debate, at home and abroad, about the usefulness of investment into space, experimental research and other science when there are so many problems at home and here on earth. When Apollo 11 lifted off on its mission there was a sizeable protest among onlookers, pointing to the crushing social and economic problems for many in the United States at that time when the program was eating up 4.4 per cent of the entire US federal budget.
There is a facetious counter argument that for the price of a couple of bank bailouts we could have our very own magnificent space program. The point being that humankind spends plenty of money on dumb things, so why not spend it on really smart and interesting ones?
A more relevant argument is that the dividends from investing into science and exploration are rarely immediately apparent, but often become highly consequential in the long run. Who really knows how our understanding of the beginning of the universe will pan out. Will it aid us to solve world hunger, cure cancer, fly faster or just invent a longer-lasting lightbulb?
For all the cost of Apollo, how much was it worth to see pictures of the whole earth for the first time; and to hear the thoughts and experiences of the men who were there afterwards?
It feels today as if humankind lacks direction in science and exploration. We are doing a generally very unhuman thing in that we look at the mountain that is space and we’re not all that interested in climbing it for the simple reason that it’s there. We could do worse than decide to go to Mars for a look ourselves before the next decade is halfway finished, even if only to remind ourselves that there is more than just banks and markets and politicians in the universe.
We are genuinely interested, in seems, in the accomplishments of our scientists and explorers. Perhaps it would be an idea to set ourselves an audacious goal and find the next Neil Armstrong in the first person to walk on Mars or similar.
I would love it if, in my lifetime, we could all look up as a single human race and say “Wow” the way that we did in July 1969. And I’ll miss Neil Armstrong, because the world feels a little smaller without the first man to set foot on another heavenly body being among us.
Aaron McKenna is a businessman and a columnist for TheJournal.ie. You can find out more about him at aaronmckenna.com or follow him on Twitter @aaronmckenna.
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The usual political response – equivocate. Must be seen to be doing something but nothing too much. When it comes to state bodies and the public service an ‘outcomeless’ response is the one preferred by the establishment. Think PPARS hand washing. Only 200 million down the drain. But woe betide a private sector entity that transgresses.
There are two Irelands. One where if you have a job at all then you don’t know whether you’ll still have it next month, and another where you can funnel public money into paying for luxurious trips around the world for you and your mates, and the worst “punishment” you will get is a generous early retirement package.
I thought Rabbitte was on the money with his remarks with the exception of this one. Surely an external investigation shouldn’t stop RTE taking their own disciplinary action? Though, I’d imagine if somebody was fired or resigned from RTE before or during the external review they would probably wouldn’t be disposed or obliged to cooperate with the enquiry.
One of the questions RTE can or should reveal immediately if the settlement is being paid for by insurance or effectively by the licence payer.
It will be interesting if Reynolds pushes for identification of the person who started this story and he should do.
Has the journal started censoring comments?
That would be a “no” Sheelagh Not started, continuing. I wish they would only do it for really vile comments.
Agreed with most of your earlier comment Sheelagh, can’t understand why it was taken down tbh.
The Journal owns and runs the site, we don’t pay to comment, so they can edit what they like as far as I am concerned.
Read the comments policy folks!
Never mind RTE.Heads should roll in the government. Big fat lying incompetent ones. Which is practically all of the useless articles that so many had hopes and belief in last February.
I feel another protracted whitewash coming on……
Report has to be completes within 2 months. It’s good that it has been time defined.
Heads should have rolled down the steps of the Four Courts. What was wrong with the courts findings?
There were none! The case was settled so there was no case and therefore no ‘findings’. The various apologies on-air and in print were the result of the negotiated settlement which was between the two parties.
Thanks Brian!
The old adage of the law ‘Justice being seen to be done’ gets another kick in the goolies while the erstwhile bewigged council do a bit of horsetrading on the lawn and the court approves the settlement.
Does that work when your up for your TV licence as well?
The only way heads are going to roll in this country, is if we start chopping a few of them off.
The only question rabbid should ask is who’s responsible and where are the letters of resignation.
Spend more public money on an enquiry? No this has cost enough already in legal fees and a settlement there’s no need for any more tax payer money to be wasted on this.
The really kick in the bollo is the Irish tax payer paying a settlement to a priest. ( I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it but that this could happen is my problem)
This has nothing to do with the tax payer. It has everything to do with the licence payer. Plus it doesn’t matter if the subject of the programme was a priest or a person of any other walk of life. The same standards apply no matter what the alleged crime is.
So far as I understand the enquiry comes out of the BAI budget. However, the necessity to do this and the court case settlement means that the BAI budget and the licence payers money (if the settlement is not covered by insurance) is being unnecessarily spent.
The BAI is funded by a levy on broadcasters – not sure what if any of their operating budget comes from the tax payer.
Yes hanly they have. You must agree with the original articial or your comment might be removed. It’s called free speech or lack of in this case
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