FC: What to do with NASA? Paul Weyrich channels R.A. Heinlein

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, to be precise. --Declan]

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Free Congress Foundation's
Notable News Now
February 10, 2003

The Free Congress Commentary
America's Space Program Needs
To Recapture The Public's Imagination
By Paul M. Weyrich


It is hard for those under 50 to appreciate the excitement that President
John F. Kennedy generated when he announced the United States would send a
man to the moon by the end of the 1960s.  It was a bold plan and even though
many members of my family were anything but JFK supporters, they gave him
credit for making this remarkable effort in the space race with the Soviet
Union.

That was an era when the space program had overwhelming public support. We
hung on the every move of the astronauts of that era. We held our breath
until John Glenn, bobbing up and down in the sea, was rescued.

Astronauts became greater celebrities among young people than baseball or
football players. Even movie stars were hard pressed to compete for the
affections of high schoolers.

The idea that this country could win the race to the moon was the sort of
thing that dreams were made of.  And that was the secret of the program. It
was truly bold.  Space became the new frontier, and cartoons of the day
speculated about man going to the planets and beyond.  Suddenly that table
of the planets in our science books came alive.

Contrast that era with this one. Most of us hardly knew the Columbia had
lifted off.  We sort of heard vaguely that the on-board experiments were
going well, but we would be hard pressed to name those experiments.  And
speaking of names, compared with those days when astronauts were household
figures, only die-hard NASA fans could name the seven who went home to the
Heavens.

Now we know their names, but only because their spacecraft blew apart.  The
syndicated columnist and television commentator Charles Krauthammer has it
exactly right. The reason for the loss of interest in the space program is
that its mission is no longer bold. It has been years since we sent anyone
to the moon. Where we once spoke of manned exploration of Mars and even
Venus, now it is only robots, if anyone, that will go there.

The president has said that manned space exploration will continue and on
that I am completely with him. After a decade of NASA's funding being cut,
the president's budget calls for a $500 million increase.

But the space shuttle? Why? To commute to the space station? The space
station has utterly failed to capture the imagination of the public. The
reason is that its mission is not clear.

The president ought to do several things. He ought to pull together some of
the best minds involved with space and he ought to reconstitute a major new
manned mission, one which will renew the concept of space as the last
frontier.

Then, the president should appoint a commission aimed at coming up with a
plan to privatize the space program. I know the NASA crew is very dedicated
and that they believe themselves to be a family. That is commendable but I
have never yet seen a federal program that operates better than one run by
private business.

Of course, the federal government will have to continue to subsidize the
space program, at least at first. But there are thousands of people who are
willing to pay big money to have a taste of space. Establish a moon colony
and you will have people tripping over themselves to live there for a time.
Or I have another idea. The British originally set up Australia as a penal
colony. They sent a lot of rebellious Irish there to get them off their
hands.

Perhaps we could do the same thing. Our prisons are overflowing. Some
governors are letting non-violent criminals out early. Why not set up a
penal colony on the moon and send our prisoners there? They might well set
up a model colony and they would not be a menace to those of us on earth.

Alternatively, a moon colony might be a training place for establishing a
permanent colony on Mars. It is exciting just to think about it.

I completely disagree with those who say we should shut down the space
program. On the other hand we spend a lot more on space than all the other
nations combined. We should spend that money for a noble mission, one which
captures the imagination of the people, and one which may have some very
beneficial side effects for all of mankind.

Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.




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