By Dr. Peter Bishop
Associate Professor and Chair, Studies of the Future
University of Houston-Clear Lake
281/433-4160
bishop@cl.uh.edu

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report
Shall we continue to explore?

In 1405, Admiral Zheng He of the Chinese navy set sail with the largest armada ever assembled. The fleet consisted of 62 ships, some of which were 400 feet long. Compare that with Columbus’ three little crafts, the largest of which was a mere 85 feet long. (Cf image at http://www.chinapage.com/chengh2v.gif.) Over the next 28 years, Admiral He made seven voyages to the “western seas,” visiting Southeast Asia, India, and the east coast of Africa. Some of this crew even made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and all this decades before Vasco de Gama rounded Cape Horn in one ship! But 28 years later, this magnificent fleet lay in ruins. What happened?

It was not that Admiral He had not fulfilled his mission. He brought back priceless treasures, expressions of friendship from societies eager to trade with the Chinese, and new knowledge of engineering and medicine. So why did the Chinese destroy his ships? Quite simply, they judged that everything he had discovered and brought back was inferior to their own culture and technology. So why spend the money and risk the lives to explore when all they would find had no benefit or utility for Chinese society?

They were right about the first point. Chinese society at that time was far superior to the peoples the Admiral had discovered. In fact, it was superior to all societies on the planet at that time, including those in Europe. The Chinese had technologies that Europe and the rest of the world would have to invent or import later: paper making, printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, decimal mathematics, paper money, umbrellas, wheelbarrows and multi-stage rockets. They had built an administrative structure that governed 100 million people, more than 25% of the world's population at that time. They developed a high culture of art and literature upon the Confucian values of personal responsibility and hard work. In their minds, they had achieved perfection. What were they to learn or gain from interacting with other societies?

As we know from history, however, they were wrong about exploration, its purposes and benefits. They measured the value of exploration against tangible, near-term outcomes. If you can't see the return, why engage in the enterprise? The Europeans, on the other hand, explored largely for its own sake. They were a restless and curious lot. Of course, they were looking for returns--trade routes, gold, whatever. But when they did not find them, they did not give up exploring.

We know now that Europe, driven by that curiosity and the desire for something better, developed while China stagnated. And when they finally met, the Europeans, who came to them, had drawn even in technology, art and culture. And driving ever forward, they would come to lead and dominate the world while China has been catching up ever since.

So we are faced with the same question now, in light of the Columbia accident and the report of the Investigation Board--are we to continue to explore or have we had enough? The answer is pretty obvious. No one that I have heard is advocating that we abandon the space program the way the Chinese abandoned their naval program. The question now is how shall we proceed.

NASA has suffered three devastating tragedies in its illustrious history--the Apollo fire, the Challenger and now the Columbia. The Board's report puts its finger on the root cause of them all--oversold expectations, underfunded programs, a rush to completion, and a can-do spirit that says, "Failure is not an option." That spirit launched Americans into space, landed them on the Moon, and brought the Apollo 13 astronauts home safely. That same spirit, however, cuts corners, works around problems, compromises design in order to meet the schedule and achieve the goal. Gene Kranz said it way back in 1967, "No one stood up and said, 'Dammit, stop!'"

If we are to continue to explore, then we must do it right. We owe it to the 17 who have lost their lives in U.S. spacecraft that there not be a fourth tragedy for the same reason. Rather than returning to flight armed only with good intentions, we must design a system that 20 years later is still as dedicated to safety as it was the day after the Columbia broke apart in the atmosphere. That will be difficult, and it will be expensive. But who knows what we will find as we continue to explore?