We could fund NASA 39 times with the $700 billion handed over no questions asked to bail out Wall Street financiers who, at best, can plead merely stupid for the flaming economic crash they inflicted on us while enriching themselves. We could double the space agency’s annual budget for what rich and incompetent auto executives seek to extort from taxpayers.
Our world treasure of science and technology costs a minute fraction of our federal budget. It seeks only a 1.8 percent increase, and actually has asked for less in funding than the president has proposed.
NASA scientists must achieve the unprecedented and impossible on every mission.
They bring more than prestige to America. Their work increases exponentially the sphere of human understanding. Just consider one goal in the 2009 budget document: “Discover the origin, structure, evolution, and destiny of the universe, and search for Earthlike planets.”
That kind of makes the goals the rest of us set at work seem, uh, mundane? The harsh reality is much of what NASA does is almost impossible for the rest of us to comprehend. We take for granted the astonishing record of success against all odds and obsess on the rare failures that must, by the very nature of the missions, be immense.
We forget that NASA requires time horizons well beyond the coarse resolution of democratic processes. And this collaboration of geniuses must be able to set priorities scientifically instead of through the bruising power push and pull of politics.
Why we begrudge the pittance we dole out to those whose heritage includes our Apollo moon flights — perhaps the greatest achievement not just of our nation, but our species — while thoughtlessly squandering trillions on imbeciles, liars and thieves is an anomaly beyond reason.
Remember, we cut Apollo funding four years before the historic first moon landing, and canceled the last three missions even though we already had purchased most of the equipment.
Those who oppose our great venture into space should know one absolute truth: We already are in space. Our entire planet is in space. Always has been. Our only choice is between knowledge and ignorance.
Early in his first term, President Bush announced a bold initiative to make exploration of space a top national priority once again. He abandoned that for war.
When Barrack Obama takes the oath a month from now, he must vow to make space one Bush doctrine he will strive to pick up and carry on.
He can do it by using a small fraction of the billions we waste to bail out failures to instead invest in those who help us to soar.
