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  NASA Baiting

  I am way past the point of exhaustion in reading commentaries by navel gazers who clearly know nothing at all about the achievements of the US space program ranting on-and-on about the alleged waste of money/time/etc on manned space flight -- and in this case the drive to send men and women to explore the Moon, Mars and beyond.  Any environmentalist worth his salt should know that there is no question that our reaching out into space has given us vastly better tools and capabilities  -- a whole flotilla of earth orbiting satellites performing functions we could only dream about 40 years ago -- to assess our planet's environment problems and which one day will help us solve them.  The International Space Station gives us a permanent human presence in Earth orbit that will eventually serve strengthen these capabilities.  But, this is only the beginning.  Space exploration has given us a previously unattainable vantage point allowing us to see and understand our planet.  Every step we take forward in space tells us more about Earth and our universe.  

  If the Moon was created by a planetary collision with between the early Earth (version 1.0) and another Mars sized planet (something we learned from our earlier visits to the Moon) exploration of the Moon may produce evidence of the earliest life forms from the newly formed Earth 2.0 as well as clear evidence of the history of our own planet that was long ago eroded away here on Earth.  Instruments placed on the Moon may give us unobstructed and previously unattainable views of the universe allowing us to gain deeper insights into our origins.  We already have learned that space is filled with vast clouds of organic compounds -- making it clear that the fundamental ingredients for life and perhaps even life itself did not originate on Earth.  The search for life on other planets -- beginning with our exploration of Mars - could revolutionize our understanding of biology opening doors we cannot imagine at this point.  Similar discoveries could await us in explorations of the frozen moons of Jupiter and Saturn.  

  Additionally, and in my view most importantly, increasing human capabilities in space gives us our only realistic chance to develop a capability to deflect asteroids and comets on a collision course with Earth that will certainly threaten the very existence of the human race along with most of the existing species now alive on Earth.  The risk that we will face the crisis of an imminent collision is not some remote possibility out of science fiction - it is an absolute certainty.  We cannot survive as a species if we do not expand our capabilities in space to permit us to explore and learn all we can about the universe we live in -- and that cannot simply be done by robots.  

  The arguments raised against human exploration of the Moon and Mars could -- and have -- been used against virtually every step forward humans have attempted to make over thousands of years of our history.  You can be certain that the same arguments were made about aviation (waste of money - "if God had meant Man to fly...", no practical application), exploring Antarctica (nobody lives there - why go?), or the North Pole (too cold to be used - nothing there, nothing to learn), voyages of exploration across the vast and unexplored oceans (too expensive, too dangerous, nothing worth discovering), or even that boondoggle mission planned for the HMS Beagle.  What a waste!  

  The author's pathetic - and completely unsupported -- conclusion that our space exploration efforts will cost a "from one to a few trillion dollars" tells us everything we need to know about the inadequacy of his analysis on this subject.  NASA's exploration program is designed to be funded within the parameters of the money we are currently spending on NASA - approximately 17 billion dollars per year (adjusted for inflation) for the entire space program - manned and robotic.  Programs like the Space Shuttle will be shut down after 2010 so that money can be shifted to fund development of the new Ares boosters and Orion manned spacecraft we so badly need.  There may be cost overruns - there certainly are on every other government program - but the system is designed to "go as you pay" specifically to avoid the budget busting costs the author so eagerly anticipates.  

  Sadly, there will always be people who insist that we stay home, don't look up, don't try to move beyond our limitations, beyond the status quo.  Our country was made possible by people who ignored the people who made those pleas to turn inward and who, instead, chose to pursue the challenge to explore our nation and our world.  If one day we start to follow their advice, I fear it will mark the beginning of the end of our country and possibly that of the human race.  
  On Moon base project sucks up potential climate research dollars posted 2 years, 1 month ago 10 Responses