On March 24, a few seconds after launch, the Falcon 1 rocket built by Space Exploration Technologies—SpaceX—flamed out and fell into the Pacific Ocean near Kwajalein Atoll, along with its $800,000 maiden payload. Financed by space entrepreneur Elon Musk, Falcon 1 was intended to demonstrate that private enterprise offers a more efficient and affordable path into space than big government can provide. Instead, viewers were left wondering if it isn't simply the riskiest.
The failure, however, offers a more useful and often overlooked object lesson: Space travel is dangerous. In this month's Discover, writer M. G. Lord explores the possibility that NASA's ambitious plan to send humans to Mars may be fatally flawed—literally. During a prolonged journey into deep space, the cumulative hazards inflicted on each astronaut—bone loss, ionizing radiation, brain damage—may be so great as to be insurmountable. There's no doubt that a man-made vehicle can reach Mars safely; we've already built several. The pressing question is whether nature's vehicle, the human body, has the right stuff for the job.
It's tempting to read this news as another example of a "vision" problem: Eyes fixed on a lofty goal, the government fails to acknowledge the real costs and sacrifices necessary to achieve it. Or maybe we've all grown a bit too starry-eyed. NASA's unmanned missions have been so successful in returning spectacular imagery of our neighboring planets that we're tempted to view the solar system as just another destination. So it bears reminding: Going to Mars is not like going to Cancún, only farther. NASA's human-flight engineers dot their language with words like "roulette" and "probability distribution." In their eyes, the loss of astronaut lives isn't a matter of "if" but of "how infrequently."
One virtue of privatized space travel is that it confines such risks. If Joe Smith's Rocket Shop succeeds in sending an astronaut into orbit, or to Mars, we can all revel in our ingenuity as a species; if it fails, well, that's rotten luck for Joe (and the astronaut). In contrast, every space shuttle failure requires a full congressional investigation, complete with a half-dozen finger-pointing subcommittees. That's democracy. It's also a recipe for skittish, slow, and bloated space projects, as engineers are pressed to eliminate risks that can never be fully averted. Load a rocket with an entire nation's hopes and dollars, and it's no wonder it can't get off the ground.
Three more cheers to Elon Musk, then, for staying his independent course. At last report, Musk was diving into the blueprints to figure out what happened to Falcon 1 and why. Just as soon as he's satisfied, he says, he'll head back out to the launchpad with a new rocket and give Earth orbit another shot. Ad astra per aspera.
