Space to Grow

Science and politics have both benefited from humanitys journey into space. And we really might just be getting started

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Editor's note: The following is the introduction to the February 2015 issue of Scientific American Classics: Conquering Space.

I was eight years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. As Apollo 11 touched down on that gray, cratered surface, I was already dreaming of following those astronauts into space. The moon missions made meand millions of others around the worldfeel as though we could do anything, go anywhere.

Twenty-five years after that first moon landing, I was flying onboard the space shuttle Columbia on a 15-day mission during which we conducted some 80 experiments in microgravity.

Space travel was unlike anything I could have imagined when I was a boy. It remained fantastic even after two more shuttle flights, a Soyuz flight and six months on the International Space Station (ISS).

I remember taking a space walk on the ISS. There I was, wrench in hand, tightening bolts on a new module. It was such a mundane task. But when I looked in one direction, there was Earth floating in vivid blues and greens. In the other direction, I could see the blackest black conceivable, punctured by unwavering pinpoints of starshine. It was intense and surreal.

You might have heard about a transformation that can occur when someone first sees Earth from spacehow it becomes harder to think about my country or my people and harder not to think about our planet.

I can tell you, that transformation is real.

I came home with a different sense of our world. And I would wager that every single one of the 500-plus men and women who have traveled into space came home transformed as well. It is one of the reasons why I continue to believe that we need to keep sending humans into space as well as robots. The results are tangible: I have seen firsthand how projects such as the ISS can foster cooperation among countries and cultures that otherwise might find it easier to be enemies.

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Space to Grow