Obama neglects the best stimulus of all: space exploration
In the past few months President Obama has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending to lift the United States out of the recession. Employing arguably the most talented engineers and scientists and involving the most cutting-edge research, spaceflight is one of the very best ways in which Obama can both inspire students and engineers and encourage a domestic economic recovery. Yet funding for space exploration has been conspicuous in its absence, and Obama has displayed a frightening lack of concern for America’s future in space by failing to appoint a new NASA administrator—a position that has been open since January 20—while finding the time to publicly select a presidential dog.
Acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese will be forced to decide in a matter of days whether to retire the current line of space shuttles and usher in new era of spacecraft under the Constellation program. If this decision is either delayed or reversed by indecision on the part of the Obama administration, it could cost NASA and the taxpayers billions of dollars and waste months or years in the spaceflight schedule.
But first, let’s look at it the other way: why wouldn’t we want to explore space? One could be forgiven for thinking that they all criticisms of space exploration derive from a single form letter, because they invariably follow the same tired argument: that money spent on NASA should be spent ‘here on Earth’ instead; until we are finished ‘fixing problems on Earth,’ the position holds, it’s unconscionable to spend money on space exploration.
It is worth remembering that money spent on NASA is not tied to a giant rocket and crashed into the Moon. Money is money, and it’s only useful here on Earth. NASA’s budget pays scientists, engineers, welders, sheet metal workers, accountants, technicians, pilots, truck drivers, electricians, and thousands of other workers whose efforts together make a space mission possible. The actual value of the metal and other hardware that makes up a spacecraft is minimal; the cost goes to pay the people who put in time to build it. This money creates jobs for skilled technical workers who otherwise would either be unemployed.
And while it may seem appealing to “fix the problems on earth” first, applying that philosophy would be nothing less than a death sentence for innovation and creativity of all kinds. Why indict space research and not the film industry? The billions spent annually on film tickets could just as well be going to support the global poor or find a cure for cancer.
Unfortunately, hunger, war, poverty, and disease have been with us from the beginning of time, and will be with us for a very long time to come. During the Apollo project, the United States a war, natural disasters, and massive economic deficits; today we also have a war, natural disasters, and the obvious recession. This sort of reasoning helped to scrap further Apollo missions in the early 1970s, but warfare did not end and disease was not stamped out because we stopped flying to the Moon.
Instead, we failed to inspire a generation of new engineers and scientists, stopped developing the leading edge of technology, devastated the aerospace industry, lost international prestige and threw away some tremendously valuable science. The truth is that there is little or no connection between space exploration and ‘the problems on Earth.’ There will always be problems of one sort or another; to wait until they are all ‘solved’ merely means that we are content not to advance, not to thrive, not to explore, but to remain stagnant and inwardly focused.
From a science and engineering standpoint the benefits of stimulus via spaceflight are obvious. Aerospace engineering is an area in which America arguably has the greatest technological advantages in the world—it’s one of the few in which we maintain a trade surplus. It employs some of the most talented and brightest engineers; if they do not work on space projects, they will either be laid off or they will work on military projects. The contributions to scientific research are incontrovertible, and they have also yielded a few items of significant importance on Earth, like the discovery of global warming, smoke detectors, and bar codes.
Most importantly, space contains at a broader level a nearly infinite number of worlds to explore and settle. In the near term, the scientific benefits from establishing a base on the Moon, for example, would revolutionize our understanding of space and the way the Earth and Moon formed. In the longer term, Mars has the potential to both sustain self-sufficient colonies and to yield secrets to the origin of life itself—and, one day, it may even be possible to convert its atmosphere into breathable air. As we expand our space capabilities, more and more worlds will open to us, both in terms of the potential for new knowledge and the possibility of a new place to live. Given that NASA’s budget is less than one percent of the federal budget, this is an incredible return on a very small investment.
America doesn’t need to explore space in order to ensure that humankind will receive all these benefits, because if we don’t, China and India will. Both nations have announced in their respective national news agencies plan to land men on the Moon in the next decade or so. But is it not desirable for the United States to take the lead in the only endeavor that truly transcends Earthly issues and allows us to literally reach for the stars?
Man now concede that we made a mistake 35 years ago when we consciously decided not to pursue flights to Mars to follow up the Apollo program. The deliberate destruction of key space technology to save some money has set us back fifty or sixty years in spaceflight. But now that imperative to explore space beyond Earth orbit now coincides with the need for economic stimulus, President Obama should seize this historic moment to leave a legacy of innovation and ensure a bright spacefaring future.