My reader email of the month, if not the year, came in this afternoon. I reproduce it here with the sender’s permission. Thank you, Sir.

Mr. Derbyshire:
Very interesting perspective. As a retired NASA astronaut perhaps I might add an item or two for your consideration.
• 1 We have done things in the Shuttle era that I have been told have made our lives safer in this country. Our classified work can never be fully known, but on my first mission, STS 39 — an unclassified DoD mission — we did some very complex simultaneous maneuvers with multiple orbiting vehicles that would have been impossible to choreograph with robotic/deployable systems. We were told after the mission that results of our work greatly enhanced our ability to recognize ballistic missile threats, among other things. If true, and perhaps we will never really know, I would think this information and its utilization in America’s defensive systems would be significant. This is just one example of which I have some personal knowledge.
• 2 I do believe that our ability as a nation to mount an effort that faces down a specific and daunting challenge is not insignificant. Perhaps there is merit in the fundamental accomplishment of difficult things. This is not to justify space exploration for its own sake. But, certainly the accomplishments of the space program in general give America a self-confidence and international stature that the rest of the world can only aspire to. Perhaps also this may give rise to American efforts in facing up to new challenges in the future. I have wondered for years how America would fare if we took on the mission of energy independence, for example, with the same can-do spirit with which we have addressed our space program efforts. All out, make it work, do what it takes, get it right. I suspect the results would be impressive, if only we had the will. We look at ourselves differently, and the world looks at us differently, since we landed on the moon. That isn’t all bad.
• 3 We have established rapport in the international community of nations through peaceful and technically difficult endeavors, rather than always being about economic- or military-focused concerns. We have worked with partners from around the world on both the Shuttle program and the International Space Station. All involved nations have expanded their technical corporate knowledge and achieved things they had not previously done. Is lifting a nation’s eyes skyward with satisfaction, and even awe, completely insignificant? I’m not so sure. Would peaceful international cooperation be possible without the space program? Sure. But the space program has provided a focal point that has engendered good will and national pride among nations.
• 4 On a more fundamental level, as a spacewalker myself (3 total, 2 on the Hubble), I can tell you that one major forward technical stride in the Shuttle era is in our ability to accomplish meaningful work in vaccuum and microgravity. We progressed from very simplistic tasks to the highly complex, and EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity — spacewalk) has become a heavily leaned-on and highly reliable capability in our space operations tool box. Perhaps that expertise is ultimately to no avail, since I take your argument to say that the entire space program was unnecessary, but I wonder if the intrinsic understanding of how to not only get to and from space safely, but to also live and work in space, in and of itself, will have utility and application that we don’t yet foresee. I do worry just a little bit that we might lose that expertise if we declare victory and quit our spacefaring ways when the ultimate application may be yet ahead of us.
Warm regards to you and all the good folks at NR.
Greg Harbaugh
NASA astronaut (retired)
Missions STS 39, 54, 71, 82

[Me] As a space nut from way back in childhood, there are few bigger thrills for me than getting an email from an astronaut. As an enthusiast for the human race in general (and even occasionally in particular), I yield to no-one in my admiration of “the fundamental accomplishment of difficult things.” As a green-eyeshade conservative, though, I don’t want the federal government spending huge scads of money on enterprises whose fruits, when not un-disclosable, amount to vague uplift, knowledge that is useful only in furtherance of similar future government enterprises, or the establishment of rapport between members of a very thin slice of half a dozen nations’ high-technical elites.

I would give everything I have, ten times over, to have been where Greg has been and see what he has seen. I don’t see any reason why U.S. taxpayers should fund my enthusiasm, though.