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		Points of View Posted January 26, 2004 Guest Column © 2004 Ray Sharp Published with Permission

I See a Bad Moon A-Risin'

By Ray Sharp

Cold enough for you? I just checked the weather on Mars. Temperatures range from minus 80 in the summer to minus 200 in the winter. Fahrenheit or Celsius, you ask? Does it really matter? And what's the wind chill? Not the kind of place where you'd want to take a quick roll in the sand after the sauna, eh?

George W. Bush wants to send a manned mission to Mars by 2030, echoes of John F. Kennedy's call, on May 25, 1961, to "commit to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Only I didn't hear much mention from Pres. Bush of returning safely to Terra Firma. Given the Administration's habit of charging off into the hostile unknown without a clear plan for the end game, I for one would want to know, before I sign up for a mission to Mars or even the moon, what's the exit strategy.

By the way, a recent New York Times opinion piece speculated that the more cost-effective method for human exploration of Mars would be to send older volunteers on a one-way voyage, thus saving the expense of engineering a return trip. The scientists would live out their lives on the frozen, wind-swept plains of the red planet, sending back information and drilling for water, oxygen and other vital resources. Presumably, they would be re-supplied periodically with food shipments and perhaps with nubile volunteers who would help populate Mars Base One. (I just made up that last part.)

Speaking of drilling, Halliburton, Dick Cheney's one-stop superstore for government contracts, has been pushing for Mars colonization for years. No, it's not what you think. There's no oil under the Martian desert. You make oil by burying rotten plants under heavy rocks for 600 million years. And even if there were oil, how would you get it from the field to the pump? Anyhow, there may not be oil under the lunar or Martian surfaces, but there is plenty of drilling to be done -- for rocks containing hydrogen and oxygen needed to produce air, water and rocket fuel -- the three essential materials for interplanetary colonization. And nobody knows drilling like Halliburton.

But lest you think the sudden interest in space travel is motivated by profit only, it's actually a little more complicated. Here are some of the factors that may have influenced the President's announcement (take your pick): 1) China recently sent up a man in a can, proving that whatever Russia and the United States can do, China can do 43 years later. 2) Rockets are exciting, noisy and fun to play with; every president deserves some. 3) Another space shuttle exploded last year; after two such mishaps, it's about time to come up with a different way to risk lives for dubious gain. 4) The International Space Station just goes 'round and 'round but never gets anywhere. 5) It is man's destiny to conquer the heavens; and we better darn well get there soon and bring plenty of firearms and MRE (Meals Ready to Eat), before some other SOB (Space Occupying Battalion) gets there first.

What's the cost?

Bush claims we can build a rocket to get to the moon (which will then serve as a launching pad for Mars) for $1 billion per year. Yeah, right. Is anyone missing a couple of zeros at the White House? (No sir, I'm not looking at you, Mr. Ashcroft, sir.) Of course, I'm not so sure Messrs. Bush and Cheney really want to go to the moon. My sources at NASA tell me that once they set up a solar power station on the moon, they'll be able to beam unlimited energy back to Earth for pennies, which wouldn't play too well in Texas, would it? (As a side benefit, we could aim that beam at Osama bin Laden for a few seconds, if only he would hold still.)

So, if space exploration holds the promise of an unlimited supply of cheap solar energy, why is this liberal irritated by the President's space initiative? It's not the proposal, just the context. I love space exploration. I'm a child of the Space Age, that heady decade when the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts not only beat the Soviets to the moon but inspired a nation of children and adults alike with their heroism. We used to watch every liftoff at home or at school, caught up in the awe, excitement, and pride. When I sat, as an 8-year-old, enraptured in a theater watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, I was certain that Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke had depicted our inevitable future -- routine commercial space flight for scientific and business purposes, cities on the moon, artificial intelligence, picture phones and zero-gravity toilets.

Somewhere along the way, after Viet Nam, Watergate, Skylab, oil embargos, recessions, the Challenger crash, Star Wars (the movie and the proposed militarization of space) and the massive budget deficits of the Reagan-Bush era, we lost the momentum and the will to focus our burgeoning technology skyward and pursue the next step in human cultural evolution. Face it, the space shuttle, designed in the 1970s, is an 8-track player in a DVD age. Then the Cold War ended and Bill Clinton forged the bipartisan budget deals that led this nation out of the morass of federal deficits, thus freeing up trillions of dollars for capital investment in technology. Think the Internet and the unprecedented economic expansion of the 1990s, fueled by the "peace dividend" that accrued from diverting military spending into technologies that make life better.

Along comes the Bush II manned mission to Mars, and I should be cheering, but I find myself feeling quite curmudgeonly. Not because we can't afford it -- we're spending $100 billion a year of my Social Security and Medicare savings in Afghanistan and Iraq -- but because it sounds more like a cheap, feel-good gimmick than a long-range plan. So cheap, in fact, that Bush wants to spend more per year on promoting marriage ($1.5 billion) -- as if that's the business of the federal government -- than on increasing NASA funding.

For anyone who believes that Mankind can use science and reason for good and glorious achievements, the current moon-and-Mars plan is insulting. After all, here's an administration that abjectly ignores the solid science behind global warming, HIV prevention, stem-cell research and a whole host of other crucially important issues, to the rabid cheers of Big Business and the Christian Right. Now they trot out some vague pie-in-the-sky space proposal and expect us to forget about the body bags of Baghdad, the wholesale gutting of environmental protections and food-safety laws, and the mortgaging of our futures to finance another round of massive tax-cuts for the rich.

It was my boyhood dream to travel to outer space, but I hate to see NASA hijacked by a gang of political hacks armed with election-year box cutters. This nation has proven time and again that it can achieve the bold and lofty goals of leaders who can think, understand, articulate and inspire. Absent such leadership and a clear purpose, our space program will remain adrift like a damaged craft in the cold vacuum of space.

Editor's Notes: Read more about guest author Ray Sharp.

For information on the Mars program and recent photos visit the NASA Web site.

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Note: Views expressed by our guest columnists are not necessarily the views of Keweenaw Now.