Quick Thoughts on the US Spaceflight Report

The Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee’s 154-page report was delivered on October 22. While it was an honest assessment of NASA’s woes, it’s recommendations were almost laughable.

“The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursing goals that do not match allocated resources.”

Translation: Congress hasn’t given the space agency enough money. In the end, it pretty much boils down to that. Congress (or the White House) comes up with some project, expects NASA to do it, and then consistently under-funds it. It’s asinine.

As a result of this situation, the committee recommended that NASA scale back its mission — heaven forefend that they recommend that Congress not only allocate money, but lock in the funding.

So…instead of landing on the Moon, how about just orbiting it a bit? Or instead of landing on Mars, how about just orbiting it a bit? Or…if you feel you really MUST land on something, how about a nearby asteroid or maybe one of Mars’ tiny moons? Surely that will be just as good.

Seriously?

It’s like being dressed in a bunny suit instead of getting “A Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time.”

Honestly. This isn’t a NASA issue. It’s a funding issue. The trouble is, too many in Congress underestimate, or simply don’t understand, how important not only science but exploration is. As a result, while they vote for their own pay raises, or franking privileges, or porking up a bill for the benefit of their re-election funds, or whatever else passes for “important legislative business” inside the halls of the U.S. Capitol, actual cost-benefit-useful stuff gets pushed to the side. Why? Because the return isn’t immediate.

I suggest that the president toss the report’s recommendations. Why? Because it sounds an awful lot like something the comedian Eddie Izzard has in one of his most famous routines:

When I was a kid in school, the career advisor came to see us and said, “Look, I advise you to get a career, what can I say?”

And he took me aside and he said, “What d’ya wanna do, kid? What do you wanna do with your life? Tell me your dreams!”

So I said, “I wanna be an astronaut! And go into outer space and discover things that no one’s ever discovered before!”

He said, “Look, you’re British, so scale it down a bit.”

“All right, then I wanna work in a shoe store! And discover shoes that no-one’s ever discovered! Right at the back of the shop on the left …”

He said, “Look, you’re British, so scale it down a bit!”

Apparently, in the eyes of the Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, the USA is now Britain. I wonder if, in their eyes, we’re at all capable of even selling shoes?

Honestly, it’s not a money issue. NASA doesn’t cost that much. The budget request for 2010 was around $17.5  billion, which Congress slashed. Compared to the bank bailout ($200 billion initially to upwards of $1 trillion when all is said and done), the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (just about $125 billion a year) and so forth… CLEARLY it isn’t a money thing. The bailout alone would have paid for decades worth of NASA projects.

So, I say again, the president needs to toss the recommendations and come up with one of his own: stake NASA with locked-in inflation-adjusted funding. From my point of view, I’d rather the government spend a few billion dollars for really cool Hubble images than flush away hundreds of billions of dollars to already rich fat cats whose only contribution to the world is to make themselves richer. At least the Hubble images make me happy.

It’s time that the U.S. Government start thinking about posterity and enobling who we are as a country and a species. Ladies, gentleman, it isn’t about the money. It truly isn’t. It’s about worth. It’s about value. NASA gives us both. It’s time to help them out a bit.