Here’s how NASA logic works:
“We found some microbes on earth, gave ‘em some arsenic, and they thrived. Might be the way it will work for alien life forms”.
Here’s how FBI logic works:
“We can’t catch real terrorists, so we provide arms to wannabes, they dutifully consider becoming terrorists, and we arrest them. Might be the way it will work for alien Wall Street life forms, but we won’t catch them either”.
Gorilla says: “It’s all about the science of budget justification!”
President Obama’s got a new space plan, and it’s a particularly tasty bit of fudge…
The right space program would make clear that manned spaceflight is both a waste of time and a waste of money. Putting more money into real scientific expeditions, as opposed to high school experiments in low earth orbit or yet another visit to the moon (or to Mars, where we already know what the planet’s surface looks like), would be a great change of pace.
But astronauts, and the people whose jobs depend on them, aren’t keen on a world without spacemen and spacewomen. Like the Pentagon, NASA is essentially a middle class jobs program. Study after study has concluded that money could be spent more wisely on real science, but that means a lot of folks in Cocoa Beach and Houston will lose their jobs.
So the President splits the difference, going for more manned spaceflight, but not for another 20-30 years, by which time we’ll either be anxious to visit Mars or working so that our Chinese masters can do so.
Gorilla says: “Foreclosure: the final frontier!”
NASA’s big plans for another return to the moon and a visit to Mars look like going nowhere: they’re too expensive.
The real difficulty for NASA is that it has been stuck on human space exploration for 40 years and there’s very little point to it other than publicity. The space station, its high school science experiments, and faulty plumbing in low earth orbit are hardly the stuff of boldly going. The Shuttle should have been retired 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, real science is being done at a fraction of the cost by unmanned satellites.
Gorilla thinks: “Houston, we have a problem with the earthlings!”
Where We’ve Been:
Where We Are Now:
Where We Are Going:
