President George W. Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior U.S. administration officials said. Bush doesn't plan to send Americans to Mars anytime soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade from now. The president also wants to build a permanent space station on the moon. The initiatives are part of a broad, new commitment to manned space flight. They said Bush wants to aggressively reinvigorate the U.S. space program, which has been demoralized by a series of setbacks, including the Columbia space shuttle disaster last February that killed seven astronauts. The officials said Bush's announcement would come in the middle of next week.
Rand Simberg doesn't seem to think much of this idea, and he gives his reasons. He may be right â he doesn't disagree it should be done, just doubts NASA's the tool to do it. But I'm not a professional space guy, just a consumer of government services. I look at it differently. This makes me feel good on a number of levels.
First, it's a reminder to the world of the difference between our society and jihadi society. (Lileks is already on this, by the way, just with the news of the Mars landing and the pictures.) It's rubbing their faces in the fact that we can go to the moon if we want, and all they can do is seethe and explode.
The second level is political. The announcement's coming middle of next week, which gives the Dems time to get their own statements together. They're still going to look reactive, even those who have the vision to see the potential of serious space exploration â and exploitation. Those who don't have the vision will fall back on "we should spend the money here, to solve our social problems first," which is an even more sterile argument today than it was in 1969. Lieberman will probably support it. Gephart and Clark might. I doubt any of the rest will. But even if they do, they've been scooped.
Thirdly, it's the right thing to do. Space is the ultimate adventure, just waiting for the human race. I never got into Star Trek, and I stopped being interested in Star Wars when the teddy bears showed up. But I read enough science fiction when I was a kid to regard the stars, as Alfred Bester described them when he rewrote The Count of Monte Cristo, as our Destination. People climb Mount Everest because it's there; we'll go into space because it's there. The reward will be in the accomplishment, though we'll probably end up with a pile of riches from it, whether through the exploitation or through the fallout from the R&D. Bush is setting it in motion again, after all these years of navel gazing. Good for him, and good for us. |
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