“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” These were the iconic words of astronaut Neil Armstrong that would forever be burned into the texts of history. Imagine millions of people in their homes, work offices, and diners glued to their small television sets, waiting in suspense as the first man was about to walk on the moon. The amazement of this wondrous feat on July 21st, 1969 is not a modern phenomenon, but rather that this amazement has been around for centuries. Since the dawn of mankind we have looked to our night sky for answers and for the truth. Great scientists like Galileo and Copernicus relied on complicated formulas of the physical laws of the universe and instruments like the telescope to look past the clouds and into the stars. However it was only until recently with the events of the Space Race that we were able to observe what these scientists were talking about. As a result of the space race mankind gained a foothold in the place which we dub as “The final frontier!” This foothold allows us to learn more and to develop as a species, which subsequently aids us in our never ending battle of survival. This is why the act of exploring space is very beneficial to us in many ways like solving our growing energy crisis and feeding the growing demand for fresh water.

The claim of solving our energy crisis is not ill founded as we all know that our increasing demand on fossil fuels will eventually lead us to ruin because they run out. This fact greatly affects our nation in a fatal way, as America runs on these non-renewable resources. In addition these resources like oil are provided by the politically unstable Middle East which in the past has come to bite us. Specifically speaking of the 1973 and 1979 oil crisis where the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting (OPEC) put an embargo on the US as a direct response to US involvement of the Yom Kippur War. Space exploration can help make issues like these disappear by simply using the sun, but not in the way that we conventionally think about solar power.

The way we can harness the power of the sun to solve our problem is by having huge mirrors in geostationary orbit that would concentrate the light onto receptors on the ground. Now this all sounds very complicated and expensive, however it is completely within our capabilities. So the real question here is how much more efficient will this be compared to other power sources like nuclear and local solar panels. The space solar panels just like terrestrial solar panels are much safer for the environment and our atmosphere, but why would we use space over our own planet. Having these solar panels in space provides more constant conditions and also more solar radiation which improves power intake. For a comparison on Earth in clear weather a solar panel can average around 300 watts/sq. meter while a reflector in space about 5000 feet in diameter can collect 3000 megawatts. Using this theory of solving our energy crisis using space plus future technological advancement we can better solidify our energy source as a nation which subsequently protects us against events like the 1973 oil crisis.

So space has ways that it can solve our energy dependency, but space can also solve the problem of our water crisis. Let’s start with some numbers first, about 70% of the Earth is water but only 2.5% of that 70% is drinkable water which is pretty scary, but also only about 1% of that 2.5% is easily accessible. In total that means that only 0.007% of that water is available to supply over 7 billion people on this world plus all of its wildlife. The question is that how can space solve this crisis and what will we have to do to achieve it?

          Now just recently we have discovered that in minute quantities there is water in the rocks of Mars, but that doesn’t help us. The reason why is obvious because we don’t want small tea cups of water, but what we need is hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. Now we don’t have to look far to find theses massive quantities of water that we need but in fact these gallons can be found in our own cosmic backyard. One of the many sources of water in space is from comets which are just frozen balls of water and dust, meaning that there are gallons of frozen life giving liquid in space just whizzing by. The prospect of comet mining is pretty cool it’s just that it's not practical, but one of Jupiter’s moons has the gallons we are looking for and is more sensible. This ball of sensibility is the moon Europa which has miles and miles of frozen ice with liquid water underneath. The reason Europa has liquid oceans underneath those layers of ice is because it is heated locally in its core rather than by the sun, which means that there might be some exotic Europan fish! All joking aside Europa has so much water that it literally has ice volcanoes which spells great news for us back here on Earth. With these two ways that space can give us water we can definitely see that to solve this local problem we have to look up.

After seeing how space can help solve our own local problems we can infer that space is in fact beneficial to us therefore we should keep expanding our reach. We saw that space can dissolve our dependency on oil and how it can help the world by providing copious amounts of water. In total space really is a place full of limitless resources just waiting for us to go and grab them making space “The final frontier?”

Works Cited

"Clean Water Crisis, Water Crisis Facts, Water Crisis Resources - National Geographic." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, n.d. Web. 22 May 2015. .
"1973-74 Oil Crisis." - Timeline. The Regents of the University of California, n.d. Web. 22 May 2015. .
Schreiber, William. "Solving the Energy Problem." Solving the Energy Problem Vol. XIX No. 6 (May 2007): n. pag. MIT Faculty Newsletter. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Web. 22 May 2015. .
Schreiber, William. "Solving the Energy Problem." Solving the Energy Problem Vol. XIX No. 6 (May 2007): n. pag. Print.
"What's in the Heart of a Comet?" :: NASA Space Place. Ed. Kristen Erickson. NASA, n.d. Web. 22 May 2015. .