This
story was updated at 11:54 a.m. EDT.
Space
exploration has created whole new fields of science, and revolutionized our
understanding of the Solar System and the universe. But before the Space Age
had even begun, German-born space visionary Krafft Ehricke had given us the
"real reasons" for exploring space.
He wrote in
1957: "The idea of traveling to other celestial bodies reflects to the
highest degree the independence and agility of the human mind. It lends
ultimate dignity to man's technical and scientific endeavors. Above all, it
touches on the philosophy of his
very existence." This quote from Krafft Ehricke appears in the foreword to
his biography "Krafft Ehricke's Extraterrestial Imperative" (Apogee Books,
2009).
Krafft
Ehricke had no doubt that mankind would develop the technical
tools to explore space from his experience with the successes of the German
rocket program during World War II. In the U.S., he designed and led the
development of the world's first liquid hydrogen upper stage, the Centaur,
still in use today. He designed space stations, nuclear-powered spacecraft,
cities in space and manmade, self-sufficient new planets to orbit the sun. In
the 1960s, Krafft Ehricke explained how space could be used for therapeutic
purposes, as well as for fun.
In the early
1970s, he developed the concept
of the extraterrestrial imperative to make clear that for mankind to
continue to grow, we have no choice but space exploration. The "closed world"
of the Earth is finite and eventually, resources will run out, he concluded.
But developing and exploiting extraterrestrial resources would remove any
"limits to growth," a pessimistic concept that became popular in the 1970s.
There are no "natural" limits, Ehricke insisted, only those that mankind places
on himself.
Never a
"pie in the sky" dreamer, over the last decade of his life, Krafft Ehricke
developed an exquisitely detailed study of the industrial
development of the moon, which he described as Earth's "seventh continent,"
in order to illustrate how the extraterrestrial imperative could in fact be
realized. This multi-generational project is a comprehensive guide to moving human
civilization in to space.
At the
present moment, when financial crises threaten to lower our sights, Krafft
Ehricke would argue, as he did during the 1970s take-down of the infrastructure
that the Apollo program had created, that it is precisely investment in the
future that will return the nation to a path of prosperity. Trying to
"conserve" our way out of a crisis, he observed, will only accelerate the
downward spiral of economic decline.
As the
book's author, I had the good fortune to work with Krafft Ehricke for the last
few years of his life, as well as the chance to draw on a selection of his
articles, speeches and interviews to help bring his ideas to life in his own
words.
Marsha
Freeman is an author living in Virginia. This account of "Krafft Ehricke's
Extraterrestrial Imperative," available here,
was written for SPACE.com.
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