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January 16, 2004
Robots and Humans in Space
NSS Vice President for Chapters, Jim Plaxco, sent the following letter to the Chicago Tribune. Printed with the author's permission. It was with dismay that I read several of the "Voice of the People" letters of January 16 on our country's new human space exploration initiative. Dismay because many of the statements were apparently made based on a lack of familiarity with the subject. One writer spoke of the contrast between the Spirit rover's success and NASA's "checkered history with manned missions" when in fact the exact opposite is true. The failure rate for robotic missions is far higher versus human missions. Several writers cited a cost of $1 trillion, a number that appeared in the story written by reporter Michael Kilian as coming from an unnamed source. I suspect that this number was conjured up out of thin air by someone outside NASA who opposes the human exploration of space and wanted to scare off support of the initiative. To be fair to the reader, Mr. Kilian should have cited the source of this figure and the basis on which it was calculated. To put cost in perspective, federal outlays for FY2003 were $2,140.4 billion of which $14.6 billion was for NASA - less than 1% of U.S. outlays. Compare that with much of the 60's when the NASA budget was in the 2.5% - 4.5% range. The space initiative outlined by the President last week calls for only $1 billion in new NASA spending to be spread out over the next five years. The balance of the program funds during that time will come from reallocations within the existing NASA budget. That's $1 billion in new spending for NASA, out of a projected total five year U.S. government budget of $12,323 billion. That is eight-thousandths of one percent in new money for NASA. Another writer asked "why re-enact something that was done 35 years ago?" This is not a re-enactment. It is the first step in the establishment of a spacefaring civilization: the creation of a human presence on the Moon preparatory to sending humans on to Mars. The same writer then stated that we could use these funds to end our oil dependence in 7 years. Interestingly, the possibility to substantially reduce our dependence on fossil fuels may well depend upon the Moon. Solar power satellites, built from lunar materials, or lunar solar power bases could potentially solve our energy problems while simultaneously addressing the problem of global warming brought about by the combustion of fossil fuels. Additionally, lunar helium-three is an ideal fuel source for commercial fusion power plants once they become available. Another writer stated that the money would be better spent on medical research. CATScans and MRIs are an outgrowth of work done by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop digital image processing in order to analyze pictures of the Moon. These are just two examples out of the literally thousands of medical technologies that trace their lineage back to the space program. Another writer spoke of solving our environmental problems. The scientists who discovered that chlorine-based CFCs were destroying the Earth's protective ozone layer, for which they received the Nobel Prize, had previous experience studying the chlorine chemistry of the Venusian atmosphere. The theory of nuclear winter, which describes what would happen to Earth's climate in the event of a major nuclear war, was a consequence of the study of Martian global dust storms. These are just two examples of how we can better understand our own environment by studying the environments of other planets. It is my hope that the ongoing debate over the value of establishing a human presence on the Moon and sending people on to Mars will raise the public's level of awareness about the incredible economic, technological, and cultural potential these programs have to offer not just our country but all of humanity.Posted by apsmith at January 16, 2004 03:56 PM
