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Ronald Reagan envisioned it in 1984, America's space station would
have quickly earned a place among the modern world's wonders. Within
ten years, Reagan promised, the nation would construct a veritable
city in space, a quarter-mile long and as nearly as bright as Venus
in the night sky, a place full of labs, Reagan said, "to produce
quantum leaps in our research in science, communications, and in
metals and lifesaving medicines."
It never happened:
Instead it took 14 years for the first hardware to reach orbit and
another two before a crew could move in. In the budget released
earlier this month, the administration singles out the half-completed
orbiting tin can of an international space station as one of the
worst examples of mismanagement in the entire government. The budget
has grown from $17.4 billion in 1993 to over $30 billion today.
Worse, the
space station has little scientific or diplomatic use. NASA's own
list of 2001 accomplishments
places the space station next-to-last. Almost nothing about the
space station has appeared in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Although NASA says that 15 foreign nations take part in the program
only three, Canada, Japan, and Russia, will actually help build
the space station: The others have just promised to provide experiments
when and if the station is ready.
One might still
justify the space station, however, on the grounds of national pride,
technology spin-offs or public interest. But today's space station
uses off-the-shelf computer hardware and, as an explicitly international
venture, does little for national pride. Modern astronauts hardly
fit the mold of bold explorers. Given the space station's mechanical
woes, indeed, they have become little more than space janitors.
Every elementary-school science class includes lessons about the
Voyager missions' grand tour of the outer solar system but who can
name a space shuttle astronaut besides Christa McAuliffe?
America's human-space-flight
program produces bad, uninteresting science at immense cost. The
best scientific missions, on the other hand, have produced much
of public interest at modest cost. The Hubble Space Telescope and
Chandra X-Ray observatory have vastly expanded knowledge of the
distant corners of the universe along with stunning pictures. More
exciting missions are already in progress: In three years, the Cassini-Huygens
mission will begin to explore Saturn's moon Titian for organic molecules
similar to those that gave rise to life on Earth.
New missions
could answer important scientific questions and stimulate public
interest in science. New space telescopes and comet-exploration
missions could reveal the origins of our solar system and the universe.
Probes might find life beneath the water-ice shell of Jupiter's
moon Europa. A reconnaissance mapping of the asteroid belt could
unlock vast mineral wealth. But space-station commitments don't
leave any money for such ventures.
The private
sector can do better. Already, the X
Prize Foundation has attracted 22 competitors seeking a $10
million reward for building a reusable space-tourism vehicle. One
Virginia
company even books orbital flights — similar to the
one John Glenn took in 1962 — for $98,000. And cash-strapped
Russia has already sold two tourist slots on the international space
station. Private space hotels could well launch within 25 years.
Landing people on Mars and a return to the moon will need public-sector
help but, even there, private companies could do important work.
The government could provide tax credits and even X-Prize-style
payoffs (in the billion-dollar range) for companies that produce
the needed advances. But it doesn't need to specify build the hardware
or even run the flights.
Given its international
commitments and the vast sums already invested, NASA probably can't
abandon the space station right away and, indeed, with private management,
it could still produce scientific payoff. But cutting back obligations
for the space station and other human space flight as quickly as
possible and redirecting the money towards science offers the biggest
payoffs. Americans have a future in space but the government doesn't
need to take us there.
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