The Space Program: Society the Winner
...as a substitute for war. In a war, the nation uses all its resources on one central goal, to fight the enemy, and many technical and scientific breakthroughs result. The needs of the space program, a large nationally funded program with national goals, like a war but having demanding technological requirements, also generate breakthroughs in all areas of the sciences (Boyle 98-99). These breakthroughs, whether through war or a nationally funded project, such as the space program, affect the body of knowledge for all the sciences which create gains in social progress. Another indirect social gain the space program has been accomplishing is fulfilling the need which all societies share, the need to compete. Charles Boyle believes that even if Russia and the United States did not cooperate in space, society would benefit from the competition in space. Competition in the space programs of two or more countries can be used as an alternative to destructive war (6). Not only competition, but securing a high level of self-esteem is a quality which societies desire. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, which was the first successful man-made satellite to obit Earth. The American people were stunned by the Soviet’s advanced technology in the field of space and rockets. The space program became America’s vehicle to increase its self-esteem. In 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) w created, and for several years it played “catch-up” with the Soviet space program. The Bay-of-Pigs invasion in April 1961 once again shook the American people’s self-esteem. They realized that the Soviets had become a very powerful nation. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy set a goal for the American people. The goal was very simply stated. He challenged that before the end of the decade, America would send a man to the moon and return him safely back to Earth (Dallaire 71-72). By accomplishing this goal in 1969, NASA, with the Apollo program fulfilled the American people’s desire for a high level of self-esteem as a nation. NASA has tried to make its technical achievements accessible for all society so as to create more spin-off effects. One organization designed to communicate this technical information is the Society and Aerospace Technology committee (SAT). SAT was created in 1978, according to Bobby G. Batten, the committee’s directive is to identify national and local problems that the application of aerospace know-how could solve or ease. SAT was to act both as a catalyst and medium to advance applications which could be potentially important (74). The SAT committee has since aided society in implementing space technology into many areas including the medical field to name just one. Medical advances were one of the first technological spin-offs from the space program. Because President Kennedy has specified putting a man on the moon, and not just a machine, many physicians had to be brought into the space program to assure that the astronaut’s health was taken into consideration throughout the whole project. For each problem the doctors encountered, NASA technicians helped find a solution. During the trip to the moon the astronaut’s vital signs were to be monitored by physicians on earth. This was accomplished by NASA’s small computers, which transmitted the information they monitored back to the physician on earth. This technology, developed for the astronauts on the Apollo moon missions, was then transferred to society in forms such as the cardiac diagnostic assist computer, the emergency ambulance cardiac care system, and the many other computerized medical devices routinely seen today in hospitals and intensive care units (NASA Factbook 466-467). The rechargeable cardiac pacemaker is another medical device which is a product of NASA spin-off technology. NASA, working with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, helped develop a smaller pacemaker unit than was previously available. With the aid of another Apollo mission technology, nickel-cadmium batteries, the unit can be recharged while in place on the patient. In fact, the patient can recharge the pacemaker at home with no outside help. The rechargeable battery feature aids in the prevention of discomfort and costs, as well as, reducing the surgical risks to the patient (NASA Factbook, 465). Currently, NASA’s medical future is taking on a different role. Instead of offering technology, they are offering transportation. With the shuttle program and orbital space station, the prospects of manufacturing items in space are coming closer to reality. According to Henry Eason, the Johnson & Johnson Company, working with NASA and the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company have developed a process to create drugs which will aid sufferers of such diseases as: diabetes, cancer, hemophilia, and emphysema. This process, called Electrophoresis, extracts materials by electrically stimulating biological matter until molecules separate. The process has been successful on earth, but experiments done in zero gravity of the space shuttle, proved the process of electrophoresis could produce seven hundred times more usable material with five times grater purity due to the weightlessness of space (48). The weightless environment of space made available to society by the space program appears to be the space program’s next offering toward social progress. The space program’s satellite technology has brought about a direct effect on social progress. NASA has been putting satellites in orbit around the Earth since 1958. Satellites have been supplying society with such things as communications and navigation, better weather prediction, less expensive ways to locate oil and gas deposits, and satellite astronomy. These are just a few ways in which satellites directly enrich the quality of life. William Sims Bainbridge of the University of Washington cites satellites as the most socially beneficial aspect of today’s space program (60). Without satellites orbiting earth, society could not enjoy the broad types of communications and information available on Earth today. Communication and navigation satellites are the most widely used satellites by today’s society. Ellie Hollander says that over two-thirds of the long-distance and international telephone communications are made through the use of satellites (30). The satellite overcame problems in spanning oceans and continents with submarine cables and land lines for long distance transmission of radio, telephone, computer information and television signals. Most of today’s television programming is transmitted through satellite organizations such as the International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium (INTELSAT). According to Larry Martinez, INTELSAT now has over 170 member countries which operate more than three hundred ground-station antennas, sometimes referred to as satellite dishes (4). The space program, by installing and maintaining these communications satellites, has directly caused social progress by creating many more options in the way people can communicate and how information is transferred. Navigation before NASA satellites had been cumbersome and inaccurate at best. In the distant past, mariners used the coastlines to determine their location. As trade routes became longer they learned to use the North Star to calculate their latitude. However, this technique did not allow them to know their longitude position nor did it work in the Southern hemisphere. Later, mariners learned to calculate both latitude and longitude using time, astrological charts and a sextant. A sextant is an instrument used to measure height, in degrees above the horizon. This method required an exact time which was provided by a chronometer, an accurate time piece. This enabled mariners to accurately determine their position on the globe. The Global Positioning System (GPS) now used for navigational purposes, requires a minimum of twenty-four satellites to provide navigation information to anyone with an inexpensive GPS receiver. The GPS Satellites are owned by the United States Air Force but are maintained by NASA astronauts. “GPS satellite launches began in 1978, and a second-generation set of satellites ("Block II") was launched beginning in 1989. Today's GPS constellation consists of at least 24 Block II satellites. The system became fully operational in 1995” (Lopez 2) Not only are communications and navigation satellites aiding society, but also satellites which peer down at Earth with cameras have directly caused social progress. Weather satellites have not only made life easier, with more reliable daily weather forecasts, but the satellites have saved lives and money. By tracking storms such as hurricanes, advance warning allows time for evacuation of the areas which the storm with hit the hardest, thus saving thousands of lives. According to Dallaire, weather satellites yield a savings of at least $2.5 billion each year. He cites the cause of such a large savings to be with the ability for industries such as: airline, construction, agr...