AS we noted in yesterday’s editorial, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did not present many new initiatives in his penultimate State of the Nation Address delivered to Congress on Monday afternoon, but the ones he did offer were quite intriguing. His call to remove the system loss charge from consumer electric bills received the loudest applause of the show, but perhaps the most unexpected and optimistic revelation came much later in the speech, when Marcos announced that the Philippines will soon enter the space launch business.
“A sounding rocket launch test is slated for next year. Yes, we are going to launch a rocket into space,” Marcos said, to surprised applause. “This we will do in partnership with a South Korean aerospace company.” The area chosen for the location of a launch facility is the Cagayan Economic Zone, which Marcos described as “both geographically and economically primed to serve as our gateway to space and host the country’s first spaceport.”
Understandably, this idea does not sit well with some critics, who question whether the country ought to be applying resources and attention to something like spaceflight when there are so many more immediate economic and social concerns that need to be addressed. Those concerns are valid, and in fact, that skeptical perspective has existed for as long as mankind has been pursuing spaceflight. The American Apollo program that landed men on the moon, as one notable example, despite its technological and scientific importance and how it is portrayed by the historical record, never had the majority support of the American public in opinion surveys throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.
Nevertheless, time proved the value of the effort. The world-leading United States tech industry today would not be what it is without the US space program in the post-World War II period, and what evolved there spilled over to the entire world, including the Philippines. At its peak, the Apollo program represented massive industrial development for the US, supporting thousands of companies and creating up to 500,000 jobs. Very few other industries provide as much economic and social added value than the space industry, and while other legitimate policy pursuits such as food and energy security, education, health care and poverty reduction absolutely must not be sacrificed to the goal of reaching to the stars, it has already been decisively demonstrated — in the US, in Russia, in China, in Europe, in India and in Japan — that it does not have to be a choice.
And as things are developing, the effort to establish the Philippines as a spaceflight center will require almost no government investment whatsoever. The proposed launch site is to be located in the Cagayan Economic Zone, which already has the basic infrastructure required. Its location not too far north of the Equator is ideal for orbital rocket launches, and it has the additional advantage of facing thousands of kilometers of the empty Pacific Ocean, virtually eliminating safety risks or disruptions to commercial air corridors.
And, as the president said, the endeavor is going to be launched in partnership with a private aerospace company from South Korea, which is the significant part of all this that critics of the idea are overlooking. In the past 15 years, the space industry has shifted away from the old Cold War model of national programs to being driven by private enterprise, and the industry is growing by leaps and bounds. All the Philippines needs to do is to make its already ideal geographic location available, and make the investment and business setup processes as trouble-free as possible, and the world space industry will beat a path to our door. Public investment on the part of the country will be minimal, but the potential technology transfer, job creation and boost to public revenues will be substantial.
One aspect of the Philippines’ quiet pursuit to become a spacefaring nation that has been very encouraging is the sensible, gradual approach the country has taken, with the effort now under the guidance of the Philippine Space Agency. We have developed our own small satellites, and developing our own launch capabilities is a natural next step. The planned launch of a modest test rocket may not be impressive, but it illustrates that the country is on the right track.
Might we someday see our own Filipino astronotas venturing to Earth orbit or beyond? Perhaps, but we are still a long way from that. But every step in the journey has benefits, and we are happy to see that we will soon take another one.
