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NASA, politics and nasa, politics and science

Our Future in Space

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Depends on Growing NASA Anew

Space shuttle Endeavor as seen from the International Space Station. Courtesy NASA.

This image of the space shuttle is one of the most evocative and beautiful I’ve ever seen taken on orbit. It says volumes about our ability to regularly visit space and establish a threshold beyond the confines of our home planet.

What does this image say to you?  If you are one of the people who is concerned that the new direction NASA is headed is one that will bring an end to our exploration of space, this image may have an entirely different meaning than to someone who sees it as the end of an old era and the beginning of a new one. Regardless of your viewpoint, it’s a gorgeous and thought-provoking view of our presence in space.

For what it’s worth, I think that NASA needs to be redirected and guided into a more sustainable and less “grab some rocks and bring ’em home” kind of manned spaceflight future.  It’s been an ongoing struggle to define a human presence in space, especially given the challenges such a presence puts in our faces.  Robotic missions, such as the Mars landers, the orbiters, the Voyager and Cassini and Galileo and MESSENGER and Magellan planetary probes are relative “easy” to do, compared to putting humans in space.  NASA has had incredibly wonderful experiences with the robotic missions, and the images we get from HST, Spitzer, COBE, and so many other missions have revealed the wonders of the universe to us.  We will continue to do these missions and explorations — they are returning wonderful science to us every day.  The human missions and crewed explorations of the Moon and Mars and beyond?  I say, let NASA get its new sustainable future goals in place, and let these people do their jobs.  If politicians can keep their whining to a minimum (particularly those who are pandering to voters before thinking through the implications of what a sustainable NASA future can be), we might have a chance of getting a better and more robust crewed space program for our future.  If you’re a voter with a whining politician, let ’em know that they should become better informed before shooting off at the mouth.  Urge them to support NASA’s future — even if it does mean a few short-term cuts and re-arrangements. And, while you’re at it, urge your congresscritter or senator to push for better science and technology education funding.  If they don’t, they are relegating U.S. kids to second-class citizenship when it comes to science education and technology development.

NASA, politics, politics and nasa, politics and science

NASA’s Direction

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The Wailing Begins

So,  NASA’s budget as revealed today is boosting basic research, “de-boosting” the Ares and Constellation programs, and putting the agency on a sensible path of sustained growth. How can this be a bad thing?  Well, if you’re a proponent of “get people into space no matter what”,  and “get NASA funding in my district whether it makes scientific sense or  not”, it’s a golden opportunity to yell about how our future in space is lost, NASA is dead, Obama’s un-American, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

I’d like to invite you to do something that some commentators have NOT YET done:  read the text of the NASA administrator’s remarks here to get the FULL story. Then you can see for yourself what all the shouting’s about.

Look, I’m all for getting humans into space, too. Hell, I want to go to space.  I expected to be living on the Moon in my retirement. So, I want to see that. But, I also know that the way we were going about it — based on George Bush’s grandiose visions, was not the way to go. I’m sure that the NASA folk employed by the Ares and Constellation programs have done fine work with what they had to do, but those missions are not where we should be going.

NASA needs a commitment to sustained R&D, reasonable steps forward to the Moon and beyond, and to retain its leadership status as the place that inspires people to dream big,w hether it’s about going to Mars, having a career in math and science, or making a contribution to something bigger than themselves. As I said in my posting yesterday, this country has a HUGE crisis in math and science education, something that other countries like China and India are beating us about the head and shoulders with. NASA has always been a huge engine of growth, leveraging its puny part of the federal government budget (less than 1 percent!) into marvelous technological progress and leverage to get more math and science education into our schools.

So, let’s stop the hand-wringing and pissing and moaning about the loss of Ares and Constellation and look at the big picture.  President Obama and NASA administrator Charles Bolden have done so. Instead of knee-jerk reactions, partisan pot-shots, and stupid headlines (“NASA Moon Mission Killed on Columbia Anniversary” (the tasteless hysterical and over-reacting headline from KBTX in College Station, TX — how could you??); pointless posturing commentary from Texas Republican Pete Olson (who, after all, has a narrow base to satisfy) who apparently can’t (or won’t) see the bigger picture, we need to look at this as a whole and see how it benefits ALL of American society — not just the parts of the country where there happen to be NASA bases.

You know, there might be a better way — and it’s possible that President Obama and his advisors HAVE actually looked into this carefully and are trying to get NASA and our science and technology establishment on a path to growth independent of pork barrel spending and campaign promises to narrow swatch of the voting public.  NASA’s promise is for ALL Americans and I wish that pundits and politicians would see that.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Dr. Bolden’s commentary this morning:

We both agreed that as NASA moves forward into this still-young century,
we need a renewed commitment to invention and development, to the creative
and entrepreneurial spirit that is at the core of our country’s character and that
these things would be good for NASA, great for the American workforce, and
essential for our nation’s future prosperity.