Why we should
explore space The science that matters
DAVID SHUKMAN
On the day that ESA’s Rosetta
spacecraft achieved the incredible
feat of entering into orbit around
a comet, a viewer emailed to
complain that the mission’s
billion-pound cost was simply not
worth it. “What good,” he asked,
“might any knowledge that it
might obtain do for mankind?”
Caught up in the excitement
at Europe’s space operations
centre in Darmstadt, Germany, I
was briefly lost for words. Surely,
I wondered, everyone would be
intrigued by clues suggesting
comets brought water and carbon
to the early Earth? And how
could anyone NOT want to
know, I thought, if comets – with
all their beauty and danger – also
delivered amino acids that might
have helped life get going?
In my report for BBC News
At Ten that night, I tried to
explain how these strange objects
might have had a literally vital
role in our planet’s story. And that
prompted another complaint.
“Never mind the ‘building
blocks of life’ nonsense,” a fellow
correspondent tweeted, “comets
are just fascinating in their
own right.”
Of course they’re fascinating- majestic and mysterious in
equal measure. But the value
of discovery has always been
divisive. Christopher Columbus
had trouble securing funds to
cross the Atlantic. The Apollo
Moon landings were cut short
when the American public
lost interest. And consider how
ridiculously little of the deep
ocean has been explored.
So although curiosity is a key
part of human nature, questions
about the point of it will always
come up whenever a bill is
attached. One could argue that
comets may contain precious
minerals that might someday be
worth exploiting – or that we
need to know their structure incase we ever have to deflect or
destroy one.
I have a different answer.
Previous generations, staring at
comets lighting up the night
sky, have only been able to feel
wonder or terror. Ours is the first
to have a chance of understanding
these remnants of the birth of the
Solar System and what they mean
for us. And the price? By a very
rough calculation, each European
taxpayer will have chipped in
about a fiver.DAVID SHUKMAN is the BBC’s
Science Editor. @davidshukmanbbc