Responding to a column I wrote this week about the historic Apollo 11 moon mission, a Downers Grove resident pondered about the countless men and women who labored just so the government could divert part of their earnings to fulfill the nation’s collective sci-fi fantasies.
“While I’m happy to hear of your wonderful childhood memories, maybe remember something else: a whole lot of people had go to work 40-50 hours a week or more for weeks and weeks on end just so that they could then have enough money taken away from them so some curious scientists could satisfy their childhood fantasies and the U.S. could win some propaganda points against the Soviets,” according to an e-mail the Downers Grove resident sent yesterday.
“In reality, how many humans could eventually successfully colonize Mars? Under what planetary duress would we actually look at that as a viable method of survival? Who would get (or have to go) to go? Who would decide? Could we really marshal enough resources on Mars to then launch from it to some other Sol type system?
“While I’m in agreement that it is our nature to be inquisitive and explorers, should we putting billions of dollars into NASA when there won’t be enough money for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Are people just a bunch of children with credit cards? If it sounds wonderful and dreamy, just do it and worry about the credit card bill later!”
I share the e-mail writer’s concern that there are a host of other worthy projects our government could fund. And it’s true that we as a nation have estalished many lofty goals for space exploration, only to drastically alter or abandon them due to budget constraints.
If viewed from this perspective, the billions of dollars that NASA has soaked up since its creation could be made to look like money ill-spent.
Sure, going to the moon makes for awesome video and jolts our national pride. But what about all the Americans who went to bed hungry that night? What about the senior citizens who couldn’t afford the medication they needed to stay healthy? And what did we gain from all those moon missions aside from a bunch of rocks?
This approach to assessing the value of manned space missions has two problems.
First, every category of government spending could benefit from more money. No program will ever be fully funded for everyone’s satisfaction.
And the risk of exploring anything is that you won’t know what you’ll get until you get out there. So an initial investment in an endeavor of unknown benefits will always have a question mark over it.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dream big and plan large when the perks could be great. We made some extraordinary accomplishments in space, and we can build on these successes as time goes on.
We should have goals that are better defined for what we want to accomplish in space and how to do it. And these goals should be based on realistic expectations, not pie-in-the-sky fantasies.
Maintaining a space program is a big incentive for young people to consider careers in math, science and engineering. The United States is lacking in these areas, and eliminating NASA would hurt us in this respect even more.
The successes of our manned space program have shown what we’re capable of and point to what we can yet achieve. How can this be looked upon as a bad thing?
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