If a person only tangentially involved with space can answer, then I will. ;-) I'm a software engineer, and I've done work with satellite command-and-control subsystems, although mostly I work with airplane computers.
1. How has space exploration affected your life?
In terms of immediate, personal ways, our society reaps the benefit of space exploration constantly in terms of weather forecasting, imagery for real estate decisions, extremely accurate maps, GPS navigation, and massive telecommunications. I can watch live coverage of things happening on the other side of the planet! In terms of less direct benefits, space exploration constantly inspires me, and sheds light on the amazing mysteries of our Universe and our place in it. It also forms the foundation of our future -- someday, we will need to move off of this planet, and if we don't start exploring now, we'll never be ready. Lastly, there is also the unique perspective that it offers. To look at the "pale blue dot" photographed by Voyager 1 at a distance of over four billion miles really does drive home how tiny and fragile our world is -- and how meaningless a lot of our struggles for dominance really are. Black or white -- it hardly matters. It is more important that we learn to band together for the sake of our species.
2. What made you choose the topic of space in your career or area of expertise?
I didn't really choose it; it sort of happened. My main interest was in software development, particularly information management, and that led, via a winding road, to my current position.
3. What interests you about space and or space exploration?
The awesome scale of it; the astonishing beauty that we couldn't see by any other means; the chance for us as a species to reach out into the heavens.
4. How important do you find space exploration?
Very important. I think it is critical to our future. Short-term, we need to exploit near-Earth space for our communication and navigational needs. Long-term, we need to know more about the Universe and how it works in order for us to keep growing as a species, and very long-term, we need places to go when we fill up this planet.
5. Do you believe that space exploration is worth all of the time and money that is spent on it?
Absolutely. NASA's budget for 2009 is about a tenth of what AIG got in the bailout, yet the bailout is just to keep the industry afloat through a crisis, while the returns from NASA's work in the coming year will keep paying out for decades -- but like all scientific research, the payoff is hard to quantify and generally doesn't come immediately.
6. If you were given the opportunity to fly in space would you? Why or why not?
No. I'm a wuss. ;-) But if I weren't a wuss (or perhaps were sedated during liftoff and reentry), I certainly would. Being in orbit would be an amazingly profound experience. All those who go up do come back changed.
7. Where did you obtain all of your knowledge about space and space flight?
Books, magazines, the Internet, and documentaries. The thing that first got me hooked on space was a Nova documentary about the Voyager program in the early 80s. Mind you, I do not require any significant expertise in my day-to-day life. If I did, I would have also gotten relevant university degrees.
8. What are some of the negative aspects of space discovery?
It's expensive. Not as expensive as a lot of other things, but it is still expensive, and this limits its usefulness. We cannot launch as much as we'd like to. There just aren't the resources. Manned spaceflight thus remains the purview of the extremely wealthy and scientific research; the common man can't get up there. Unmanned spaceflight is vastly more cost-effective, but still remains limited by launch costs. Another, more direct, negative is space junk. Each launch contributes, whether successful or not, and this affects all the other spacecraft in orbit. There was a highly publicized collision recently, and to date, we still do not have a practical means of predicting and avoiding collisions, much less a means of cleaning up the mess. That's a serious problem that is only going to get worse.
9. Was there any information that affected you while learning about this topic? If so, what was it and how did it affect you?
Practically all of it! I can't put into words how joyous it feels to look at some of these thing. One example was when I went to look at the first pictures of Dione returned by Cassini. Dione is one of the larger moons of Saturn, and one big mystery about it was these strange wispy features on its trailing hemisphere. (Like our Moon, Dione always keeps one face towards Saturn.) What could have deposited this white stuff across the equally-mysterious dark planes of Dione's trailing hemisphere? The wisps were known since the Voyagers encountered Saturn. Rhea has them too, albeit less obviously. The first pictures came back, and I looked at the raw data on Cassini's public website. My jaw dropped. What had been a significant controversy since Voyager was plainly obvious in Cassini's higher-resolution pictures. They're canyons. Long, narrow, jagged, and very shiny canyons. Breathtakingly beautiful, and such a clear "eureka" image. It was a very good day. I can only imagine how fantastically wonderful that must have felt for the actual mission team.
10. Based on the past where do you see the future headed?
I see us reaching out into the heavens and eventually colonizing it. Earth is our cradle, but one is not meant to stay in a cradle forever. If humanity has a purpose, I like to think that it's our potential to take life from Earth and seed it across the cosmos.
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