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October 12, 2005
Our Future Is In Space
The following letter was published in the Washington Post, Tuesday, October 11, 2005, Page A16. Reprinted by permission of the author, Gary Barnhard, Chair of the NSS Executive Committee.
Our Future Is In Space
To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, it is not clear if the Oct. 2 editorial "Ground This Mission" represents a failure of nerve, a failure of imagination, or both.
The editors should understand that:
* If you do not provide for the future, you can't count on there being one, much less the one you would like coming to pass.
* The dichotomy between people and robots is largely false. In space, robots act as extensions of people, forging the trail of exploration, but it is the combination of people and robotics that will make space exploration and settlement possible.
* The trade-off is not between basic social services and NASA programs. The problems the editorial cited are systemic and are affected more by dedicated personal involvement than specific amounts of funding.
The limited funds that the nation devotes to space exploration and development are "seed corn" for the future. If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, the price of the stars is our willingness to sustain a quest for better tomorrows.
GARY PEARCE BARNHARD
Chairman of the Executive Committee
National Space Society
Washington
Posted by apsmith at 03:43 AM
It would be wrong to put NASA on hold
The following letter from NSS member Jim Spellman, responding to an earlier reader letter, was published September 30th in The Daily Republic. Reprinted with permission of the author.
It would be wrong to put NASA on hold
A recent Letter to the Editor by Suisun City resident Muriel Birland (DR Sept. 25) suggested "we need serious thoughts of what our top priority should be . . . Putting NASA on hold until we take care of our people (affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita)."
Ignoring for a moment Birland's neophyte authoritarian recommendation that "it's time America takes care of Americans before anything or anyone else" (like, what to do with hundreds of thousands of aerospace workers she just decided to place on the unemployment line?; and wouldn't the lack of weather satellites launched by our space program cause us to miss the next hurricane heading our way?). One only has to look at history to see the other flaws in her "just put NASA on hold until we take care of our people" solution.
From 1961 to 1975, $220 billion and 58,000 American lives were spent to preserve democracy in Vietnam (we lost, by the way). During the same time, over $500 billion was spent on the War on Poverty, also known as the Great Society Program. We lost that one, too.
However, we invested $24 billion on the Apollo program which we won - but then threw away - due to inept political leadership that failed to recognize what the U.S. had gained in the effort.
What am I missing here?
For many ignorant Americans like Birland, shooting for the moon again is "Pie in the Sky." That's just what the moon is to them; a barren, lifeless place that serves no practical purpose going back to, because we've already "Been there, Done that."
However, those "Moon Dreamers" at NASA have uncovered what a valuable resource and solution our moon can be to some "down-to-earth" problems. The loose lunar soil - which requires no disfiguring mining - contains valuable raw materials for many useful building products. Items such as important metals and alloys; oxides for making glass, fiberglass and composite materials as strong as steel; ceramics; even cement and concrete.
Additionally, there are considerable volumes of valuable "volatiles" such as hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen and neon that have been absorbed into the fine soil particles that can be "harvested" by heating up the material.
As a result, lunar building materials can be used to expand the first human outpost on the moon and eventually build larger, permanent settlements. The moon's natural resources also allows us to build larger, cheaper space stations, laboratories, factories and tourist facilities in low Earth orbit (LEO), as well as clean solar power satellites to handle Earth's energy needs without polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
The moon? It's not just a "rubble pile" anymore! I suggest Birland and other critics of her ilk return to grade school for a refresher course in science and math again, because the future waits for no one.
Jim Spellman
Fairfield
Posted by apsmith at 03:35 AM