Humanity needs to reach for the stars

With all the news reports getting people in our community a bit aggravated and frustrated, I felt I needed to take time and reflect on something a bit more optimistic.

It involves one of my childhood dreams that continues to lift me toward the stars. It seemed to take root when I was just three years old as Neil Armstrong became the first human being to stand on the surface of the Moon.

My parents regularly reminded me of that day. They told me I sat in front of our television in the living room of our home and listened as Walter Cronkite narrated what happened as Neal Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface.

To this day, I still don’t remember that one historical event that sought to help change humanity forever. Even if I did remember that moment in time, I was still too young to really appreciate or even fathom what mankind had accomplished.

The one historical moment I still remember happened July 15, 1975. I distinctly remember watching the television as a Saturn V rocket carrying three U.S. astronauts launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. As soon as it left the launchpad, I darted outside of my family’s home in northeastern Ohio to see if I could spot it flying overhead.

From my childhood perspective, I was convinced it was going to be easy. After all, it was going straight up. The fact the launch site was 1,021 miles to the south of our home, and the rocket soared eastward over the Atlantic Ocean versus toward the north was something I forgot to take into account.

At the same time, this launch happened around the moment in my life where my dreams of going into space took flight. I remember reading through my father’s world almanac, which included a map of the then-known Solar System and each of its planets. By the time I was eight, I had committed to memory the names of all these planets – in the correct order – and the number of moons circling all but two of those worlds.

But my dreams of becoming a “star voyager” – the literal translation of the word “astronaut” – began falling apart by the time I was in the third grade and I needed to start wearing glasses to see things far away. It got more complicated a few years later once I started having problems with my inner ears as I struggled to overcome vertigo, which got worse when I went on carnival rides that spun me around in circles and left me extremely dizzy afterward.

Today, however, I still find ways to pursue my dreams the best I can. For example, I continue to look at the stars when the skies are clear and take great joy looking through my telescope to scan across the cosmos and the wonders it contains.

It’s something I’ve shared with many children and their parents during my time as an astronomy instructor with the city parks and recreation department. I also shared what I knew with others during my time as an astronomy instructor at the Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park observatory a couple of years ago.

Then there are other ways I try to rekindle my childhood dreams, even if it’s just for a little bit. Having the honor of listening to Dr. Steve Swanson address students in the Mountain Home School District several years ago was one of them.

To say that I felt like a kid in the proverbial candy store to meet an actual astronaut is an understatement. I was absolutely captivated by everything he told the students.

But what caught my attention was that every student in the audience was equally mesmerized by his presentation. Their questions were well thought out and very meaningful. I lost count of how many students stopped to meet with him afterward to chat and take a picture.

The one thing that really stood out among all the information he presented that day dealt with one subject: Returning to the Moon and continuing on to Mars. Oddly enough, we could return to the Moon today if we really wanted to go. The technology to make the trip has existed since the late 1960s.

The problem? Funding.

Simply put, no bucks, no Buck Rogers. I’m sorry, but I want to see Buck Rogers.

Yes, I understand that space travel is inherently dangerous and, more to the point, expensive. But that’s not the point.

Simply put, humanity needs to head to the stars. The reason? Because our world’s ability to support life will end someday. When that happens, everything humanity has done will have been for nothing unless we find ways to explore new worlds and continue to preserve everything humanity helped create.

The first step involves having humans once again step on the moon – something we haven’t done in more than a half century.

It’s now been two years since Artemis I soared toward the moon to mark the first step in humanity’s quest to return there. That unmanned mission provided us with the proof we need to continue moving forward.

Currently, we’re looking at taking that next step in September 2025 as Artemis II heads toward the moon. A team of four astronauts will celebrate the first manned mission to the moon since 1972, although their mission focuses on testing the technology needed for humanity to once again land on the lunar surface.

Depending on how things go, NASA currently expects that moment to happen no earlier than September 2026. It’ll mark the first time we’ve stepped on the moon since Apollo 17 made that trek 52 years ago.

But unlike the previous Apollo missions, we plan to spend a lot more time exploring the moon. During that 30-day mission, two astronauts will spend about a week near the moon’s south pole to conduct various tests before they return to lunar orbit and join the others for the journey back to Earth.

Going back to the Moon represents just the beginning of what I hope is a renaissance -- a rebirth -- of space exploration. It represents the next step in what represents humanity’s next great challenge as we prepare to send humans to land on Mars.

That journey just to get there will take up to nine months to complete before these explorers undertake a perilous landing on that world. But why go to Mars? Simply put, it’s the only world other than Earth that could adequately support human life once we develop the technology to make that happen.

As a nation, it’s imperative that we take the initiative and set course to return to space. It’s only a matter of time before humanity finally unravels the great mysteries of whether faster-than-light travel is not only possible but actually feasible. That discovery will allow humanity to not only travel to the worlds in our Solar System but to other stars as well.

We simply need to keep focused on looking to the stars and never stop imagining what’s out there.

— Brian S. Orban