Future Thoughts

The past couple of entries are focused on NASA and its budget woes. I hate to see it happen to an agency that still does more with its money before breakfast than most other agencies combined do all day long. That’s not to say that NASA doesn’t have its problems, but when you look at what the agency does with the money it gets, it’s pretty much been a blueprint for our future in science and technology.

But, this is as much about NASA today as it is about the sciences, and how we approach them in our time. Back when I was a kid, we were about to land people on the Moon. There was  huge push for more science in the schools. Lots of planetarium facilities got built because people saw a value in teaching about space travel and astronomy.  And, there’s absolutely everything right about that. Science helps us understand our world, our cosmos from the physical point of view.  And, NASA has been a big part of that.

Today, several decades later, the dreams of space travel and exploration are still there, but as I pointed out a few entries ago, they’re held slightly differently by different generations. The up-and-coming folks want to “experience” and “know” science, not just dwell on the glories of the past.  More power to ’em. It’s a way of knowing that you can’t discount, particularly in the face of so many on this planet who would rather push twaddle about creationist fantasies or alien abductions, or ill-thought-out rants against science and technology that show more ignorance and intolerance than they do rational thought.

This is why I still think NASA is one of our best avenues to the future for technological advance and exploration. So, yeah, it does hurt to see it pinched to the bone; forced to cut one program to pay for another, when the waste from other programs our taxpayer dollars fund could easily keep NASA from having to make do with its relatively small budget (compared to others I pointed out yesterday).

I’m the kid who built an Apollo capsule for her junior high science project (my folks helped). I’m the one who expected to be living on the Moon in my dotage. And, I’m the one who logs in every day to see the latest pictures from Mars, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and other fantastic places in the cosmos. NASA (and its sibling programs in Europe and Asia) brings us those things; it also brings us ways of knowing that are unmatched in human history.  So, yeah, I’d like to see NASA get more money. Every dollar spent at NASA gets paid to someone who pays their house payment, feeds their kids, pays taxes, and brings us priceless knowledge.