Following Up on Exploration

On this date in 1492, Columbus left Spain, sailing west. By March, 1493, he was back in Spain, reporting on what he thought he'd found. In November, 1493, he was back in the Caribbean, this time commanding seventeen ships carrying one thousand men and enough European livestock to support a new colony. Columbus also carried the grand title of viceroy.

American Apollo astronauts first set boot on the Moon in 1969, and there is still no lasting human presence there.

Part of the difference is a difference in the law. Ferdinand and Isabella felt quite free to claim all lands discovered by their explorers, whereas, under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, no nation could claim any celestial body. Still, NASA had ambitious post-Apollo plans, including lunar bases and manned missions to Mars in the 1980s. The United States, so proud of its pioneer heritage, pulled back.

The difference in the two choices cannot be economic. At the time of Columbus' discovery, Ferdinand and Isabella were still assembling modern Spain by absorbing smaller kingdoms. They had just finally defeated the Moors, denying Islam a beachhead in emerging Christian Europe. They were persecuting Jews through the Spanish Inquisition. Their plates were full, yet they acted aggressively and built an empire. At the time of the Apollo lunar landings, the United States was the world's leading economic power, and the leader of the Free World. It was in a far stronger position to build upon Apollo than Spain had been to build upon Columbus.

Perhaps the difference was timing. Columbus' discovery was a kind of culmination of a process begun decades earlier by Portugal to systemically develop the ability to sail the ocean, reach new lands, and open new trade routes. Ferdinand and Isabella immediately grasped the potential in Columbus' discovery, and acted.

Apollo, though, was more of a brilliant improvisation, brilliantly carried out. Once the lunar landing had been achieved, America had no notion of what to do next. Only now are we beginning to sketch a future that brings space activities into the human economy. Only now, perhaps, are we developing the plans, philosophy, and technological base to become a truly spacefaring civilization.