Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Let´s set footprints in Earth
By MICHELLE FERRIER
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
My initial reaction was one of excitement. President Bush had announced plans to send manned missions to the moon, then perhaps to Mars. Having worked at NASA and been infected throughout my life with dreams of being an astronaut, my thoughts ran toward the first manned missions and our quests to the stars.
I grew up in the era of Apollo missions, the TV shows Lost in Space and Star Trek and Star Wars movies. I spent summers as an intern at Goddard Space Flight Center working on technologies for the space shuttle. One of the first trips I made on moving to Florida was to take my kids to see a shuttle launch at Kennedy Space Center.
But, my reaction to Bush´s plans lasted about 30 seconds.
As much as I wanted to rejoice in the new knowledge our country would gain from research and the new technologies that might become spinoff products, I just kept thinking, “Not now.”
I´m still dizzy from our continuing presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and the billions of rebuilding dollars yet to be spent.
I look at the engorged budget deficit and think about how the continuing war on terrorism will become a big budget drain, just like the ongoing war on drugs.
I shudder at the stock market backlash from corporate greed and mutual fund misdoings that have reduced retirement plans of ordinary folks to so much trash paper.
Billions of dollars will need to be appropriated for this new space effort. Cheap estimates by the Bush administration place the necessary funds at close to $12 billion over more than five years. Estimates from when Bush senior proposed manned missions were closer to $400 billion - in 1989 dollars.
Do we have the financial fortitude to continue this type of space effort over the long run without future cutbacks that threaten the safety of manned missions? Once the glamour of starting such an effort wanes, I suspect funding will as well - just as NASA´s budget eroded during the space shuttle and space station era.
This is money that is best spent right here on our own people.
We have seniors who continue to have their retirements erode as higher medical costs and living expenses gnaw at fixed incomes.
We have children nationwide that go to school in overcrowded classrooms with overworked teachers and yet are expected to perform to world-class standards.
We have states and towns struggling to put in place terrorism countermeasures for its citizenry.
In the wake of the Columbia shuttle disaster, both NASA and the president are grasping for some type of vision that can take them into the future. Bush would have us scuttle such successful space projects like the Hubble telescope and robotic missions like the Mars Spirit for more dramatic goals like footprints on a planetary surface.
Without a more concrete goal of what we plan to do there, it´s like going into Iraq without an exit plan. Right now, we face too many challenges of our own making right here on Earth. Now is not the time to shoot for the moon or Mars.
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