Beyond Earth (ATWG) - Chapter 18 - Children's Visions of our Future in Space by Lonnie Jones Schorer
From The Space Library
Chapter 18
Children's Visions of Our Future in Space
By Lonnie Jones Schorer
"My vision for space travel is that NASA and other space flight companies will make commercial launches to outer space and it will become as common as airplane flight. People will go on flights for business, pictures, reports, interviews, and just for fun. If all this happens, NASA will get more money, and we will be able to add to the space station or explore deeper into space. We will learn more about our Universe. It all benefits from this project. That is my vision for space travel."
Graham Haydon, age 10, Pennsylvania
I. Children's Visions
The purity and strength of thought expressed by children is born of dreams and wonder. Unfettered by political goals, economic constraints and technical feasibility, children's visions are often idealistic projections of our own. Free to travel to the outer reaches of imagination, to life in parallel galaxies and to worlds beyond our Universe, children's visions project unconditional hope and optimism for the future. They are not concerned about what has never been done before or about what others say can't be done. Each time we become bogged down by bureaucratic obstacles, were we to retain a child's sense of wonder, we might more easily return to the basics to focus on the essence of our ideas. To do something complicated, we have to go back and remember how to do something simple. By working with children, we may be able to travel to the future with a more insightful understanding of humankind's future presence in space.
An essential part of opening new frontiers is getting people interested and involved in the incremental steps of the planning process. Although there is historic precedent, we can't just round people up and ship them off to new worlds. A period of education, preparation and planning, as well as the desire to go, is an essential prerequisite. But a harsh evaluation, expressed by students ages 5-18, is that they do not feel they have a part in the planning process for the opening of the space frontier. They assume that exploring and accessing space is the exclusive prerogative of an elite few. To lay the groundwork and make the space frontier a tangible reality for future generations of space travelers, those who may be tomorrow's space pioneers should already be involved in contributing their visions so that they will understand and believe in pursuing the goals. If they become aware that there will be opportunities and that not everyone involved will be a rocket scientist, when the time comes to establish space communities, a broad spectrum of the populace, representing all trades and professions, will already be educated and prepared to participate.
In a Kids to Space effort to involve children in our decisions for tomorrow, between January and June 2005, six thousand students (ages 5-18) in schools throughout the US, responded to the question: "What is your vision for America's, or the world's, future in space?" Parts II, III and IV of this chapter summarize many of the children's responses, and Part V is the author's overview.
II. Visions of Going to Space
Younger children's imaginative and futuristic visions of space are more inspired by Star Trek, Star Wars, Space Jam, the Jetsons, Phil of the Future, Daul's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Scholastic's Magic School Bus, Battlestar Galactica, and a wide selection of other-worldly video games than by the daring accomplishments of the Gemini and Apollo missions that took place long before they were born. Space, for elementary school students, is an innovative, sci-fi, warp speed fantasy, filled with aliens, galactic wars, laser beams and interstellar, intergalactic travel via teleportation and faster-than-speed-of-light starships.
Those who are five, six and seven, wonder if stars are sharp when you touch them, and they want to know if there will be in-flight movies and snacks. They pretend to be Buzz Lightyear, Luke Skywalker and Jedi knights. For them, space is bright light and lots of colors, with lines painted to connect the constellationsso we will not get lost. It's an interesting place with new things, mostly to read about and draw. They are not ready to think about leaving family members or being far from home.
When they reach the age of ten and eleven years old, their imaginations tumble with fearless feats of daring. They want to rocket to space with a bunch of kids to take a walk, float in weightlessness, do triple flips and play hide and seek on the Moon. They imagine being on spaceships surrounded by threatening aliens and then making a successful escape to Mars. They envision exploring solar cities and other worlds in hovercraft or with personal jetpacks. They wonder what there will be to do when they get there and whether their pets can come along.
At ages twelve and thirteen, they envision extreme sports such as skateboarding in lunar craters and rocket racing around cities in distant solar systems. Anxious to know that their familiar foods and "amenities' will all be there, they envision malls and food courts, soccer fields, roller coasters, and hotdog stands. They would live in rocket-propelled houses. They want to know who else is going, how long it will take to get there, where they will stay when they get to space and how long they will be gone. They want to help with experiments and suggest that scientists should live in space so that they can be closer to their work.
As they mature, many of their visions become more socially oriented. At ages fourteen and fifteen, students are starting to think about the less privileged and the homeless and they wonder whether the US should be spending money on space efforts instead of addressing society's needs. Others of the same age recognize that overcrowding, pollution, global warming and depletion of resources on Earth may be urgent reasons to accelerate the exploration of space and that, although humans will still live primarily on Earth, it's just a matter of time before people will start to move off of Earth and onto other planets. They know that those born in space will someday exercise the option of spending their entire lives off-Earth. As they begin to outline the needs of the first family neighborhoods in space, these students envision that within thirty years, people will refer to hometowns on the Moon.
Most technically-oriented high school students are interested in the survival aspects of life in space, such as how to breathe, and protection from cosmic radiation. Those who would themselves choose to be space pioneers give practical suggestions for active settlements on the Moon, with cameras on planets and TV transmissions from the Moon so that the rest of us can get used to the idea and see what's going on. They see these first communities as necessary prerequisites to exploring greater portions of the Universe. This age group is also quite occupied with what they will wear, not only in terms of safety, but also in terms of appearance. How will they look to others?
Starting to focus on their interests and plans for future studies and pursuits, some sixteen to eighteen year old students hope for fuller utilization of facilities such as the International Space Station and would like to have space preserved as a purely scientific frontier, with laboratories funded by private companies for the purpose of scientific research and development of resources. Some feel that the only people permitted to travel to space should be those who are trained to pursue and enhance scientific knowledge.
Many older students hope that the opportunity to learn about spacewhile in spacewill one day become part of their own school's standard curriculum. Eager to participate in discovering the secrets of space, these students question the possibility of life in space. They seek ways to understand intangible concepts and are trying to grasp their own role and place in the Universe.
III. Money Making Visions
Some high school students believe that space will be a purely commercial endeavor - a weekend, spring-break destination, a major business enterprise, a space Las Vegas of the future, and the world's #1 tourist attraction. With casinos, basketball courts, golf courses, rock climbing walls, gravity parks, swimming facilities, hotels vacation resorts, restaurants, amusement parks, rovers, hovercraft, rocket cars and robots, it will be another great place to visit. They predict that space will be a Mecca for the entertainment and extreme sports worlds, as well as a corporate convention center for major businesses. One student expressed the idea thatas long as survival and commerce in space don't spark another reality TV show, she's all for it!
Figure 18.1 Pam Cameron, age 17, Arkansas, Kids to Space
As a regular tourist attraction, in spite of the initial high cost and probable discomfort of space travel in their lifetimes, the optimistic majority of high school students foresees that people will, nevertheless, pay for the experience just to find out for themselves what it's actually like to see the planet Earth, an orbital sunrise or the first footprint on the Moon. They will want to go for the memories and they fully expect to be influenced by the space experience for the rest of their lives.
Expressing impatience for the time when business initiatives provide backing to the commercial space effort, giving people the opportunity to travel on interplanetary cruiselines or to vacation at all inclusive orbiting hotel resorts, many high school students predict that as the space effort becomes more technical, access to space will become more affordable. As the airline industry switches to fuel efficient space planes and provides faster, safer ways to get to space and back, space travel will become safer and more efficient and, eventually, as commonplace as airline flights. They foresee space companies operating out of spaceports and privatized space launches taking people to space as often as they choose. These students hope that an average person will be able to visit space and experience being off Earth at least once in a lifetime.
As middle school and high school students imagine trips on space tour buses, with stop-offs at colonies along the asteroid belt, sightseeing tours of a huge space museum on the Moon, visits to bubble-domed colonies on Mars, time at intermediary planet-viewing stations, field trips with science classes to take part in space research projects in space station laboratories, and semesters abroad attending colleges and universities in space, some mention the endless possibilities for the advertising business. They also look forward to a high-tech products boom, and would-be space travelers admit to very high expectations as they project completion of complex transportation systems and infrastructures for space in the near future. The following comment is representative. "Within the year 2048, the US should have at least established a moonbase. A spacecraft that could be reused should be achieved, and normal transport of ordinary citizens should be happening or about to begin. A craft able to go to Mars should be developed, and a Mars landing should be achieved by 2052. By 2070, a lunar colony with permanent citizens should be established, and by 2090 normal life on the Moon would be a normal happening. Beyond the year 2090, space is the limit with a permanent colony on Mars and beyond."
Taylor Blunt, age 16, Virginia
IV. Problems With Going
Figure 18.2 Makenzie Aafedt, age 14, North Dakota, Kids to Space
On the other side, however, insufficient resources, lack of cooperation and an America not ready for commercial spaceflight and exploration of the cosmosare some of the reasons that middle and high school students list for not going to space. Some don't think we currently have the technology to harvest space resources, and they judge our space efforts premature by at least two hundred years. They believe that if people were to visit space nowwe could cause problems and damage to ourselves as well as to the Moon and the planets.
Those few students who neither support nor believe in our future in space don't think it will ever happen. Problems will occur. It simply won't work. It seems expensive and not likely for the debt we have. Or, they say, it's a great thought butnot likely for regular people. The end of the world will come before we ever live in space. Those who say "no' to our future in space are joined by others who have no vision for our future in space. Statements by some thirteen to fifteen year old students convey a general indifference (probably not reserved for space) such as,I don't really have a vision because it doesn't matter to me; it is not important to our everyday lives; I don't think about this subject very much; this is probably the first time I have thought of it, so I don't know; we were put on Earth for a reason, and I think that's where we should stay; what's there to envision, anyway? We know almost all there is to know about space.,
Other students express thatalthough it is great to be learning more about space as an interesting hobby or project, it's unethical to concentrate on what's happening outside this world when there is so much that still needs to be fixed inside this world. With space money chalked up as being a frivolous waste of time expenditure, they suggest we abandon or delay space programs and use the money for such things as helping the unemployed, the elderly and cancer research. They want to solve problems on our own planet and pursue goals that will make a difference on Earth before we go running off to explore the stars or move to Mars.
A pessimistic minority of high school students sees interest in space exploration waning, predicting that space will be empty because no one will want to go there. In the "been there, done that" mentality, someone has already landed on the Moon. These students feel that space has become a political issue, and they count on under-funding to lead to the failure of space programs. They do not hear a call to explore. In this pessimistic minority, it is interesting to note that some of the more articulate students find themselves caught in a mental conundrum. While they clearly communicate the problems with going, they also allow for the possibility that evacuation to space could follow a natural disaster or if destruction of Earth's ecosystem forces us to look for a back-up planet. They foresee that when we deplete Earth's resourceswe will have to pack into space colonies, and they also foresee that in the future, as medicines become more advanced and people live longer, overpopulation on Earth may drive people to live in space. They forecast that people will eventually destroy Earth with chemicals, wars, or drugs, and will have to make a civilization on the Moon and, when that is destroyed, start all over again on Earth. They are not able to reconcile their beliefs about not allocating money for space with the idea of having technology and destinations already in place in order to move off Earth. For now, they just want to leave space alone, with no human intervention or change.
Students of every ageapproach the topic of space with fear—fear of the unknown, fear of heights, fear induced by media memory, fear of claustrophobia, fear of motion sickness, fear of leaving home, fear of being lonely, fear of dying, fear of taking over space and turning it into an orbital junkyard, fear that we'll just make it another tourist resort and ruin it. . . Their outlook for humankind in space is grim and they only think of space as dark, black, scary, big, cold, and without end—a huge infinity jar that goes on forever. They know about the Challenger and they witnessed the Columbia tragedy on TV and they associate space travel with being blown to smithereens on the way, "like that teacher.'Their vision is that many people will be killed, and space operations will be cancelled. Afraid of the life-threatening risks, they are not against space exploration, but would send robots rather than people.
And there is another group, primarily high school boys, that predicts territorial warfare in space will be an inevitable consequence of nations pursuing their own interests, programs and "greed-based schemes.' They envision every space-going nation having its own space station and space colony, with remote-controlled satellite destroyers in place to prevent orbital warfare. Some predict that in 2161 the world will go into a war that will completely eliminate the human race. Trying to monitor and prevent space warfare will be a deterrent to progress, an effort that will consume tremendous resources and time, so perhaps we shouldn't go at all. In hopes of getting there and co-existing peacefully, students want to know that there will be no missiles allowed in space; others express concern that America, dedicating funds to policing the world, will fall behind and leave space development to the Chinese.
Figure 18.3 Christopher Pfluger, age 17, Virginia, Kids to Space.
V. Author's Overview
Because some elementary students are as informed about space and as able to express their visions as some high school students, it's difficult to categorize their visions by age group. In fact, students of all ages may be represented in each of the following paragraphs..
Most of the nearly 6,000 students who responded to the Kids to Space survey revealed that they view space exploration as a risky but inevitable adventure into the unknown for all humankind. With so much out there still to discover, students seek assurance that space will be not be the final frontier, but will be a limitlessly expanding frontier, as we take all we think we know, test it and continue to make new discoveries to add to our existing knowledge of the Universe. The idea of a final frontier implies to many that we are approaching the end of our journey of discoverybut they feel we are at the beginning of the journey, and that one day new galaxies will be the next frontiers. One day we will even reach another universe and be amazed by what we find. As we travel to the future, they want space knowledge to be easily accessible and continually utilized, for the benefit of all on Earth.
Many older students feel that our successful future in space will provide us with a better life and enhanced comfort here on Earth. In looking for ways to become more knowledgeable about space, they hope to learn as much as they can about Earth's past, present and future. They feel we could be a better, more advanced species by taking our studies to a higher level, and their hopes for eventual expansion and peaceful colonization of the entire Universe are often coupled with ideological demands for smoke-free, alcohol-free, drug-free, multi-national environments, devoid of national boundaries, political controversies and Earth's problems. They envision places where people from all over the world can work and live together in harmony, exploring space peacefully; places where geologists mine valuable minerals from different planets; scientists cooperate to find new cures for diseases; translators mingle purposefully; and all efforts are for beneficial purposes and the betterment of humankind. Their mantra is peace in space, with affordable space travel for all. According to their visions, people will stop fighting each other to go and explore the solar system.
Many students who feel strongly about our presence in space feel it is a mandate for us, as space explorers, to use probes to keep looking for possible life forms on other planets and beyond our solar system. They want to participate in more complete exploration of planets and moons to find destinations which may be inhabitable. They want to make unknown regions of space known to all mankind and compare the upcoming adventure to Columbus' voyages in search of new worlds. They believe in the vision that, for some of us, space will soon be a home where, in individual homes and facilities in cities just as on Earth, we will lead daily lives and have daily routines. And, although they would not want us to get carried away putting things in space, they foresee bringing soil, trees and other vegetation to the Moon in order to create some semblance of a familiar surrounding.
With America as a catalyst for technological expansion, high school students are in favor of utilizing our potential and our resources to expand perceived limits and to go for it! Irrepressible ingenuity, coupled with more advanced space technology, is a key ingredient in their expectations for the future. Students of all ages think of space as being cool and "sciencey' as they foresee weird looking architecture inside oxygenated bubbles, domed craters with interconnecting airlock doors, greenhouses with gardens attached to houses that look like igloos, floating cylindrical space condos with lots of windows, self-propelled computerized houses, high tech shielded environments, oxygen tubes connecting Earth to planets and the Moon, gigantic residential space stations - miles in length and orbiting not far from Earth, space elevators, artificial planets, induced gravities, robotic assistants, magnetized shoes and scores of new inventions, tools and ways of helping to sustain human life. As futurists, many foresee fleets of bigger rockets that can hold more fuel, can go farther and can carry 100 people at a time; people buying and operating their own shuttles to engage in private exploration of space; mini computerized rocket cars; people flying with artificial wings. As the level of technology and knowledge increases, they see spaceships that become obsolete in favor of travel at enormous speeds to planets and to the Moon via time tunnels, or by using some sort of jump node device. They foresee us tripping into new dimensions and patiently project that if our technology continues to increase at the current rate, in millions of years we will find an alternate universe. Although this future will be very high tech, students predict that as space becomes part of our normal, known world, what initially seems like high tech stuff willeventuallyalways seem just normal.
"I believe that the future of America's space activity is bright. With continued innovations by the Government and civilians alike, I think the frontiers of space are a lot closer to us than we think. To make these dreams come true I think scientists need to study faster and more efficient propulsion systems, and they need to experiment with creating atmospheres on inhospitable planets."
Chad Harker, age 17, Utah
Whatever the divergent ideas and visions for humankind's future in space, most students express a protective interest in Mother Earth. In terms of viewing Earth from space or in evaluating the effects of space travel on our environment, they are both curious and concerned about our own planet.
With respect to the future, many students eagerly anticipate things we cannot yet imagine, saying that in the past the idea of airplane flight wasn't even an idea—so in the future, anything is possible. They are ready for quantum leaps in technology and feel that as space efforts continue and we become more advanced, we will figure a lot more things out and will know a lot more than we do now. Expressing the belief that space travel will encourage young people to make great accomplishments and to do great things, the majority seems mentally ready for the adventure and the quest. Equating our future in space to the pioneers' westward expansion in the 1800s, the most adventuresome students express eagerness to experience new surroundings and new ways of life.
Most students anticipate that space travel will all be an amazingly exciting "far out!' experience. They want to be able to go as children, and then they want to go again, taking their own children to the Moon for vacation. They hope that many more people can travel to space but at the same time, they don't want the experience to become so common that it's taken for granted. They think America in space will be very different than Earthbound America is now. As technology and space research improve and as we advance with further studies of the Universe, they believe that people involved with space will be very successful and will do a lot for us. Most of all, with the belief that there is no limit to what we can do together, students would like to be informed, integrated, contributing participants on our journey to the future.
Figure 18.4 Kids in Space. Compliments of MacDonald Douglas Space Systems
- For further insight into what students are currently thinking about space, including statistics on how many of those surveyed would personally choose to go, please refer to Kids to Space: A Space Traveler's Guide by Lonnie Jones Schorer, CG Publishing, Apogee Press, March 2006.
Extracted from the book Beyond Earth - The Future of Humans in Space edited by Bob Krone ©2006 Apogee Books ISBN 978-1-894959-41-4
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