NASA must grow up or go away

Gregg Easterbrook hammers NASA in general and the shuttle program in particular in this piece published in Time. As much as I hate to agree in print with an editor of The New Republic(even when he's writing for Time), he�s right. Without rehashing the whole thing, here is the main thrust of the argument, no pun intended:

"[The] core problem is the space shuttle itself. For 20 years, the American space program has been wedded to a space-shuttle system that is too expensive, too risky, too big for most of the ways it is used, with budgets that suck up funds that could be invested in a modern system that would make space flight cheaper and safer. The space shuttle is impressive in technical terms, but in financial terms and safety terms no project has done more harm to space exploration. With hundreds of launches to date, the American and Russian manned space programs have suffered just three fatal losses in flight�and two were space-shuttle calamities. This simply must be the end of the program."

"Will the much more expensive effort to build a manned International Space Station end too? In cost and justification, it's as dubious as the shuttle. The two programs are each other's mirror images. The space station was conceived mainly to give the shuttle a destination, and the shuttle has been kept flying mainly to keep the space station serviced. Three crew members�Expedition Six, in NASA argot�remain aloft on the space station. Probably a Russian rocket will need to go up to bring them home. The wisdom of replacing them seems dubious at best. This second shuttle loss means NASA must be completely restructured�if not abolished and replaced with a new agency with a new mission."

What Mr. Easterbrook hints at goes to the heart of NASA question: what is its mission? Supply ship / passenger bus to Space Station Alpha? A floating science fair platform?

This latest mission was the latter of the two: the crew of Columbia were up there doing science experiments. To bring this down to earth, Dr. S, a frequent contributor to this space, has an acquaintance that actually had an experiment on this shuttle mission. The way he explained it, the crew of the shuttle � at great personal risk and tremendous institutional cost � was researching how plants grow in Zero G.

�I see,� I responded to Dr. S. �You mean to tell me that these people are dead and the Government lost a very expensive piece of hardware just so a graduate student could finish her dissertation?�

"Yes," he said. "Now I'm sure she's in a panic about finding another way to finish it."

That is basically the upshot of my argument: indeed NASA has become a giant science fair, run by risk-averse academics who just want to play with coolest toys around. NASA management has spent the last 17 years since the Challenger tragedy in a continuous search for a justification of its existence. In light of the horrific downside manned space programs have, a number of very vocal critics have sprung up, decrying a management culture that is more concerned about winning funding and PR wars than insuring astronauts are not exposed to unnecessary risks. And every time anyone seriously questions the value of the program, NASA�s management or its toadies in Congress spit up pabulum about the need to �stretch the bounds of human freedom�, or some such nonsense.

The reality is simple: the shuttle program itself does nearly no useful work, other than the occasional military payload. NASA doesn�t seem to have an enunciated mission other than to conduct scientific research, which by itself is not enough to justify the expense involved. If we were using these resources to travel beyond The Earth � maybe for the colonization of Mars, for example � then I could see the value. If we were building laser platforms to shoot down missiles that Kim Chong-Il might shoot at us or our allies � or deflect errant asteroids like a real-life Bruce Willis movie � then I could see the value. Heck, if they were building a Hyatt with a Zero G swimming pool, I could even see some value in that.

Look, spider-web studies and plant propagation experiments are great things in a high school or college laboratory, but they are not adequate reasons for the world's only superpower to spend billions on a manned space flight program. Somebody � the President or the Congress � needs to come up with a better reason for NASA�s existence. Based on the video I watched live Saturday morning, I think NASA must either graduate to some adult-type usefulness or simply go away. Too much blood and treasure have been lost for no good reason.



I knew it

It appears the Jerusalem Post founds some folks that are delighted the Space Shuttle Columbia's flight ended in disaster. The Arab News has us working on a Death Star. Reuters has a story here that quotes an Iraqi as saying that the Columbia disaster is "God's vengence".

Sometimes, I hate it when I'm right.

03 Feb 03 dpny