Alexander Kumar, a physician and researcher at Concordia Station, writes from Antarctica, where he conducts scientific experiments for the European Space Agency?s human spaceflight program.
It was Lao-Tzu who said, ?For the wise man looks into space and he knows there is no limited dimensions.?
In the past century, we have had several world wars, seen man take his first juvenile steps on the Moon and bore witness to the discovery and trail of devastation left by H.I.V./AIDS the world over.
Many argue and question why humans should venture out to other planets, and perhaps in the process create new problems, when we have so many problems on our own planet. Among other things, there is a potential for forward and backward contamination of Mars and Earth.
I have spent the majority of my time exploring the world we now share, trying to identify its shape and boundaries in hopes of better understanding the way it works and its problems ? and how I can best make a constructive and directed contribution. At 29, I am still learning, intrigued and curious to help find solutions to the world?s problems. Furthermore I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had such unique opportunities to experience and see many beautiful areas and meet interesting people of the world, from the Amazon to the Arctic.
Antarctica has been my latest journey of discovery. I ventured down here to investigate the possibility of one day sending humans to Mars. Months ago, as the curtains of darkness were drawn, the world took on a different perspective ? distant, as if looking back at it from another planet. I pondered if we can go to Mars, when we will go to Mars and perhaps more importantly, if we should go to Mars.
What I have found through this difficult, challenging and unique experience, as I emerge from the snow-hole, has been as romantically depressing as it is inspiring ? a Shakespearean tragedy mixed in with beauty and experience, with an umbrella of humor poking out.
This is a land so far removed from mankind that there has never been an aboriginal or indigenous population. We are only visiting specks, blown by the winds of time, living against a blank white canvas ? an area of the world God had either forgotten to paint or perhaps left intentionally blank to remind us of our insignificance. As this is the seventh continent, if this God took rest on the seventh day, perhaps it was just a question of running out of time.
While living here, I have been repeatedly asked by people from all over the world why the human race would invest its precious and finite resources (money) into space exploration? People have presented valid arguments both ways: those against, about depriving the bottom billion of our planet by diverting much-needed funding; and those in favor, for furthering mankind?s now-desperate need for discoveries and new life-saving technology through exploration in space.
One reader caught my attention, having e-mailed me about malaria as the basis to his argument ? a disease I had seen ravage equatorial communities from Africa to the Amazon. Their point was perfectly clear: according to the World Health Organization, despite increased prevention and control measures that have led to a reduction in malaria mortality rates since 2000 by more than 25 percent globally, half the world?s population remains at risk of malaria and an estimated 500,000 to more than 1 million people die from it each and every year.
But there is much more to it than that. W.H.O. reminds us that each year another 2 million die because of H.I.V./AIDS, another 1.5 million because of diarrhea-related illnesses and another million from tuberculosis ? all largely preventable and treatable diseases. Five leading causes of death in children under 5 are pneumonia, preterm birth complications, diarrhea, birth asphyxia and malaria. Maybe numbers speak louder than words ? or even the names of those less fortunate?
Such health inequality reminds me of the reasons I went into medicine and developed an interest in science and research. And fortunately, I now have first-hand experience after living on both sides of this debate.
Looking at the world?s problems closely while pursuing a degree in International (Public) Health in 2006, I felt an air of excitement and focused energy toward the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, adopted at the turn of this century as a vision for a better future. Currently 193 United Nations member states are working together to achieve these goals by 2015, in a promise to ?free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations.?
As our human population is expected to surpass eight billion by 2025, the world and its many inhabitants will face further challenges. And already it is clear that our planet has started to stretch, strain and buckle and unzip at its seams, with a gathering body of scientific evidence being unlocked from within the ice cores drilled beneath the chair I sat on while writing from Antarctica, alongside images of the marked retreat of the glaciers, now deserted by ice shelves the size of countries. In the next century we can expect food shortages to worsen, clean and ample water to become a commodity for the privileged, and our oceans to become acidified and over fished.
For Mission Earth, the count down is on? 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Only time will tell what technological advances will be made in space that can be adapted to save humanity and cure the world?s problems. The world lives in hope that this search will lead to a new renewable and clean energy supply that can meet our excessive demand ? and in turn prevent the realization of Thomas Malthus? predicted cataclysmal, apocalyptic end.
A manned mission to Mars, leading to exploration and eventually habitation, could provide unforeseen benefits for mankind, from new technology to invention and innovation as evidenced by the benefits from the Apollo 11 and later lunar missions. A multi-trillion dollar investment could also certainly trigger economic growth.
Malaria remains a political issue ? quite different from a Mars mission ? but requiring the same long term planning, dedication to resolution and financial and human investment. Simple donation is not the way to reach Mars or the way to cure malaria, where all the mosquito nets in the universe will not prevent or eradicate it. An old phrase told to me by my father, who was born in India says, ?It would be better to teach a person how to go fishing rather than offering him some fish.?
Eventually, developed countries, by integrating promising new discoveries from space-flight research, may be in a better position to help invest and fight the world?s problems. And so could it not be true that problems like malaria, although in no way linked to Mars missions, could one day stand to benefit from such exploration ? and the seeds of inventions which accompany these endeavors grow and blossom beyond the wildest imaginations for the benefit of mankind?
And there is another question to ponder: Perhaps we will one day have no other option than to leave this planet. Should we start looking farther afield now, for a bigger home, in a better and safer area, with lower crime rates, in our race for space?
Again, in the words of Lao-Tzu, ?The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.? And after all, just one small step for man may well be that ?giant leap for mankind.?
I think back to the words of the great British poet Sir Alfred Tennyson, which are engraved into a large, lonely wooden cross overlooking a path, in memory of explorers who sought the South Pole 100 years ago, which represented the uttermost end of the known world: ?To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield?.
To me, the greatest tragedy for mankind may lie in choosing not to strive or seek today?s scientific bounty of discovery, whether in space, on Mars or in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/malaria-or-mars/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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