NASA’s apparently successful smashing of a spacecraft into an asteroid last weekend provides a reminder that even fiscal conservatives have good reason to support an ample budget for the space agency.
It will take some weeks to know whether the asteroid was forced into a slightly different orbit, in line with the mission’s goal. But the early indications of success are heartening. The goal, of course, is to practice now so mankind can be prepared to do the same in an emergency that affects the survival of life on this planet.
Even those of us who have long championed private-sector space efforts must acknowledge that SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and others are extremely unlikely to put “saving humankind” at the top of their list of priorities. Private efforts in space will be driven largely by a profit motive. For now, at least, there is no predictable financial profit in developing specialized anti-asteroid spacecraft on the off-chance that an Earth-protecting mission could someday be required.
There really are some things for which only national governments are well suited. National defense and diplomacy, obviously. Immediate major-disaster relief — because, of course, it’s hard for a devastated region to provide its own relief quickly. There are very few others, but some functions involving space are definitely in that number.
There is, of course, a national-defense component of space capabilities. Elon Musk isn’t going to pay for military satellites, much less for any futuristic space-laser weapons if such things are developed. Meanwhile, many of the major advances in medical science that stemmed from experiments in space would not have been cost-effective initial investments for any particular company or group of companies, but once accomplished by NASA scientists (using zero gravity, or whatever the space advantage was), they are cost-effective for development and use on Earth, where they save or improve millions of lives.
Also, the NASA Mars modules and rovers that have so enraptured us for a quarter-century would not, could not, have been doable by private efforts, but they certainly will prove to have been necessary building blocks for either public or private human visits to Mars (or beyond).
And now, we have an asteroid-redirection project that is off to a promising start. Real life may indeed imitate all those fictional movies long after Bruce Willis is around to provide derring-do.
Finally, what NASA offers is a collective effort, a national effort by and for the United States, to continue the sort of exploration and questing that has always been a hallmark of human imagination and striving. We explore the universe because the human quest for knowledge is both admirable and never-ending.
NASA, properly managed, is a good investment. And it might just save human civilization.
