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GWYNNE DYER: New U.S. space telescope is great, but what about the flip side of humanity?

New Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could help find life somewhere out there, but that doesn't excuse what's happening on Earth

On Aug. 30, a Falcon Heavy rocket delivered the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope onto a direct transit trajectory to its permanent home at the Lagrange Two Point (L2), 1.5 million kilometres from Earth. In 100 days, it will reach its station, power up, and start observing the universe.

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Astronomers will use it to try to understand the nature of dark matter, which makes up most of the mass in the universe (but some say may not even exist).

It is expected to find up to 100,000 new exoplanets circling other stars, and may be able to spot ones even smaller than Mars. Current methods can only see much bigger ones.

It will test a new technology called a coronagraph that may, one day, be able to detect life on some of those planets by analyzing the light reflected from them. It would be nice to have a better answer to scientist Enrico Fermi’s famous question “Where is everybody?”

The flip side of the coin

The Nancy Roman telescope reflects well on the human race and particularly on the United States, which has devoted a great deal of money over several generations to seeking scientific answers to such questions.

However, it cannot be denied that there is another side to the coin.

We are........

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