In the place I live (North Alabama) and where I work (Huntsville), the opinions I am about to express will likely not be greeted with excessive warmth and good will. This is the home of NASA and Space Camp, it is the literal birthplace of America’s awe-inspiring leap into the Space Age, a technical feat perhaps parallelled only by the Manhattan Project in the audacity of its reach and the grandeur of its accomplishment. Here were born the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, and here still is done much of the science and engineering that subtends the Shuttle and the Space Station that forms the core of America’s presence in space.
Space is big here.
So naturally, the recent decision by the Obama administration to cancel the Constellation project, and with it, the U.S. government’s commitment to single-handedly finance a return to the moon, this decision was not greeted with warmth and good will. In fact, you might say it was greeted with downright anger bordering on outrage. How dare the government stop funding this noble enterprise? How dare the government walk away from this glorious quest, to not fight for the right, without question or pause… uh, wait, that’s Don Quixote, not NASA administrators.
Perhaps the most ironic element in the cacophonous chorus of complaints is that the main choirmasters are Alabama’s senators Shelby and Sessions and Congressman Parker Griffith. All are staunch Rebublicans (well, Griffith only recently defected to the GOP, but definitely a Republican). And therefore they have all been forever insistently beating the drum that government is the problem, we need less government, private enterprise is our salvation. So what do they want when government walks away from a project, walks away in an effort to reduce spending?
They want government back, that’s what they want.
You may have come across the term “NIMBY”. NIMBY is a label applied to people who don’t want things like nuclear waste repositories situated nearby: “Not In MY Back Yard.” Well, these Republicans are DRIFMFY: “Don’t Remove It From My Front Yard.”
Most voices in the area are in heartfelt agreement. Since there are many jobs in the area dependent on NASA, this is not surprising. “Its the economy, stupid” pales compared to “it’s my job” as a force for motivation. The arguments on the matter range from statements like “why would they terminate the only program the government ever did well?” (conveniently forgetting Medicare and Medicaid) and “it is our destiny to maintain the lead in space” to a host of other soon-to-be-abandoned goals: finding energy (in space), fighting terrorism (in space?), providing a challenge that will inspire our youth, etc.
With all due respect, I can immediately eliminate “we’re number one! And we need to stay number one!” as a legitimate reason to keep Constellation. Pride of place is, imho, neither compelling, nor noble as a reason to act. If you can find energy sources in space (an arguable proposition at best), I would say that such a goal is inherently tied to fighting terrorism (although, I’m not sure what anti-terrorist efforts would be served by going back to the moon). In any case, as a nation, I think it’s pretty obvious that we face terrorist threats primarily because of a historical/geological accident that put most of the earth’s petroleum beneath nations whose religious underpinnings put us at such odds. If the energy was not in that peculiar location, I doubt seriously we would have chosen the foreign policy decisions for the past 100 years that made us the terrorist target that we are today.
Inspiring youth? For my money, if you’re looking for a way to inspire people, try this: the overwhelming challenge facing humanity, the goal that has the greatest potential of uniting the fire of youth to the technological advances for which we our nation is rightfully credited, is the challenge presented by Global Warming. Our primary directive should be to get our internal, planet-wide house in order.
There are only so many resources with which to tackle the problems that face us, and choosing where to spend those resources is a very hard choice. But when I consider the goal of disarming the threat posed by drastic climate change, I don’t see how any goal could be more inspiring nor more rewarding. And yes: if we were to invoke the same urgency and focus with which Americans spectacularly succeeded in the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project, there is no doubt that that same ingenuity and dedication and drive could solve this problem. A problem perhaps orders of magnitude larger than those presented by the bomb or the moon. And ultimately, orders of magnitude more critical to solve.
The thing about space is, it’s not going anywhere. It will always be there, and it absolutely should be explored (though I would tend to avoid the word “conquered”). And we must not lose sight of the fact that it is only the Constellation program that is being cut. NASA still exists, and there are many worlds still to be explored. And would it really inspire anybody to merely go back to some place we’ve already been? And maybe Shelby and company, if they were to obey their first principles (I use the term loosely), might agree that private enterprise is not such a bad way to go to space.
But regardless of how we tackle space, in the long run, as in any concerted campaign, we must first protect our supply lines and ensure we have a stable base from which to operate. That means protecting our environment. And that means, I believe, doing everything within our power to avert the disasters that our children and grandchildren will almost certainly face by our inaction.
Everyone will have an opinion on this issue, many will be compelled to view the issue as choice: to scale space or to save the earth? To the extent that it is a choice, I will paraphrase Joshua.
“As for me and my house, we will serve the Earth.”
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