Whining for dollars

Rick Weiss, science reporter for the Washington Post, wrote recently of the terrible effects of "Our Incredible Shrinking Curiosity" on pure research, especially on space exploration. The graphic on long term spending on basic research which accompanies the column seems to belie the column itself, but perhaps that is irrelevant. He is concerned that NASA may cut funding for the Voyager project, which has been sending back data since 1977.

I don't know enuf about Voyager's current info to have an opinion on whether we should continue with the project, but a reasonable argument can be made that overall NASA and Congress have inhibited research/space technology/commercial development of space by chewing up research and development money on some extremely interesting projects with no commercial potential. Sending ppl to the moon was a stunt done for political purposes: that might have been worthwhile as such, but confusing the political with the economic or scientific will lead to wasting incredible resources which could better be spent elsewhere.

As I understand it, the space station has little scientific justification: we expend huge quantities of resources doing things with ppl which can be done just as well and a lot cheaper with robots. Ditto on sending robots to Mars: they cost a tiny fraction of what sending ppl to Mars will cost. Sending robots may be a scientific endeavor, sending ppl is political propaganda which costs resources better spent in other ways.

Ditto the space shuttles: neither is justified by what they do: the shuttles and space station exist in order to justify the spending on the other, not because they do anything which can't be done cheaper with robots. Throwing away resources on political stunts is not the way to get into space, and not the way to conduct effective research.

Think of having two options for watching a new movie. You can do so at home on your television, or you can buy a new car, drive several hundred miles, check into the most expensive hotel in the country, watch the movie on an identical TV there, immediately drive back home and junk the new car. Would the second option likely have an impact on what else you do? What would you think of someone who had both options (at your expense), and chose option two because other ppl would admire them for it? Especially when they complained that you were then too cheap to continue paying for the TV in their guest bedroom?

I think there is plenty of money for space exploration with robots if we quit the political stunts with ppl. I suspect that the only way to do so is to either sell NASA to the highest bidder or just close it down. I won't hold my breath for either option.