What's the Right Stuff for the Future of Space?

Popular Science
The first man-made object in orbit didn’t look like much. An aluminum sphere about 2 ft. across, it was filled with pressurized nitrogen and carried two small transmitters that beamed wavering radio signals to the planet below. On day 22, the batteries ran out and the satellite fell silent. A few weeks later, the craft most likely vaporized as it plunged back to Earth.

To Americans at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik 1 on Oct. 4, 1957, came as a shock—and a spur. The competition that would inevitably be known as the space race was on. Small orbs carrying transmitters were soon followed by larger ones carrying men. And, within a mere dozen years, human beings left footprints in the dust of the moon.

But then, after a handful of lunar missions, we lowered our sights. For the past 35 years, manned spaceflight has been limited to low Earth orbit. “Part of the problem is that, in the big picture, Apollo was premature,” Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin says. “It was a spurt of progress artificially stimulated by the race to beat the Russians.”

Today, with the Cold War long over and cooperation with Russia an everyday event in space, we are making bold plans again: private space missions, a lunar base and, ultimately, the long haul to Mars. And with those big ambitions come big questions: What is the proper balance between manned and unmanned exploration? Is long-term spaceflight too risky for humans? Is it worth the cost?