Cursed, Cursed Liberals

I am almost through with the first of the books I picked up from Baylor's library: The Voyages of Apollo, by Richard S. Lewis. I have five more in my first round of volumes to finish by the end of this month, but already I can feel the expert blooming in me. It has been both exciting and painful to read this account; getting to touch and feel and see the Moon from so close was invaluable to the future of human understanding and exploration, but spending $25-$30bn (I can't tell exactly how much yet) on a program that was ended prematurely meant fewer meaningful answers . . . "like buying a Rolls Royce and not using it because you claim you can't afford the gas," said Thomas Gold, astronomer at Cornell University, 1970.

Cursed, cursed liberals. There is so much left to know. At the dawn of the 1970's, a cry went up among the Democrats in congress with the refrain of "Sewers not Space!" This was and is, for anyone who remembers, the best excuse Congress has ever come up with for filling civil works bills to their festering brims with pork-barrel earmarks. One can, after all, complain that a bill has millions of dollars of federal tax money specifically yet sneakily designed for the personal interests of a few congressmen, but not when one is spending billions of dollars a year on projects that don't immediately benefit man -- who, by the way, was going through a series of interesting social changes himself in the late 60's and early 70's which decayed his interest affairs beyond his own atmosphere.

It's happened again. In early February, 2010, President Barack H. Obama suggested to the United States and Congress (two increasingly separate entities) that NASA's 5-year old program with 10 years to go, Constellation, be de-funded and indefinitely postponed while we work on more pressing social issues. His remarks suggested that the program is over-budget and behind schedule -- both observations that are only partially true to begin with. Public opinion, however, is on his side. Most of Congress agrees and it is unlikely that Constellation will continue past Fall, 2010.

More realistically, it is unlikely that NASA has continued the project past Obama's address. As of April, 2010, NASA is being chastised by Congress for using remaining funds in the 2010 budget for Constellation to shut the program down, notifying contractors and subcontractors to do the same. Pink slips are being issued nationally . . . NASA rightfully sees no point in wasting any more taxpayer money on a program a liberal administration won't allow to come to fruition.

I'd like to explain just a few of the tasks entrusted to NASA's modern $25bn undertaking, before Obama promised to shut it down:

• The Space Shuttle, which has been in flight since 1982 and possesses a computer system far less capable than Apple, Inc.'s iPhone, is being retired in September, 2010 after 134 launches. This event is long overdue -- the consensus in Houston right now is that no one can believe they're still flying malfunction-free. The Shuttle is primarily used for docking with the International Space Station. Congressional intention has it that the private sector will pick up the government's slack . . . but only a few orbital rockets have been tested that weren't commisioned by Uncle Sam, and none of them have been manned. Constellation was supposed to create a new space vehicle, and largely has -- the Orion Space Module has been fully designed and mocked up, using advanced modern computers and various other state of the art technologies. It was to expand on the success of the Apollo program, adding what we learned in the late 60's and early 70's to what we know now. According to Obama's plan for NASA, it will never be completed.
• NASA promised a return to the moon by 2018 at the end of the Apollo program, and has since paid for a great deal of research regarding Mars and near-Earth asteroids. The Orion vehicle was to be capable of landing both on the Moon and those other places . . . at the current rate, it will take decades for the private sector to catch up to what NASA has been commissioned to do, for various reasons, not the least of which are defense regulations and secrets kept between NASA and its contractors.
• A rocket was to be, and has been, designed to be and more powerful and efficient, with a longer range than the Saturn V Moon rocket that took the Apollo program to our global mistress. The new Atlas rocket has been entirely designed but cannot be produced or tested under coming budget restrictions.

Sources indicate that NASA's smaller new budget, to be determined later this year, will be used primarily for environmental research.

I have drawn the conclusion that we will NEVER extend a permanent presence beyond Earth's orbit if we rely on our Government's guidance of our tax money. Public opinion changes too quickly, and a program lasting as long as Apollo was intended to last cannot survive the whims of more than a couple of Administrations. The only type of entity that has proven itself capable time and time again of directing capital toward a project's end, as necessary for a push into space, is the Corporation.

What's preventing that push? What's preventing the exploit of materials beyond the Earth's sphere of influence? What's preventing the escape of man from the "cradle of his species"? I'll spend the next long while figuring questions such as these and many, many more. When I'm done, you'll be the first to know.

-- Brandt