Take Your Protein Pills and Put Your Helmet On

The space program is what makes my inner-geek shine. I am one of those who would go tomorrow, without hesitation, if I had the means or was for some reason offered a seat. The Space Shuttle, the workhorse of NASA, has only five missions left, with the last, STS-134, scheduled to liftoff at 11:57am EDT on Sept. 16th of next year. It will be sad to watch such a successful program, and the only space program anyone of my age has any memory of, be mothballed. In the pre-911 world, the Challenger blowing up and perhaps Reagan being shot were my generation's moments-you-remember-where-you-were-when-you-heard-the-news. Ending the program is, however, a step in the right direction.

We sent manned missions to the moon 9 times, with 6 landings. Twelve men have walked on the moon. A few of those played golf, drove a kick-ass dune buggy, and one pissed in his suit on the way down the ladder. And we did this between 1969 and 1972! It is a daunting feat to imagine doing today, and NASA pulled it off 40 years ago, with computer that had 2k of memory, 32k of storage, and ran at 1.024 MHz. That's 0.001024 GHz. (Great article about this at http://tinyurl.com/ns286m. After going to the moon, however, America's love affair with space exploration seemed to cool. Or perhaps it was being satisfied by Star Wars, Close Encounters, Aliens, et al. Either way, we settled into a low orbit. The Space Shuttles are amazing machines, to be sure, but have lacked a true purpose. There have been some great successes- the recent repair and overhaul of the Hubble Telescope would not have been possible without STS. But satellites are cheaper to deliver by rocket, with the obvious advantage of not risking human life in the process. The International Space Station would also have been impossible without the Shuttle. It can now be supplied by rockets, as it has been many times by Russia.

The recent discovery that there is likely abundant water on the moon is a game changer. President Bush proposed a return to the moon. A trip to Mars has been on the wish list for decades. But until this probable discovery of large reserves of water at the moon's south pole, there seemed little enthusiasm for the enormous investment of money that would be required. The moon had been done, and seemed little more than an unwelcoming, dusty dead rock. Now, it's a launching pad. If resources such as water, oxygen, and fuel can be generated on the moon, the costs, while still astronomical (sorry), are something congress may be able to wrap its head around. After all, of every dollar you spend in taxes, less than one half of one percent goes to the space program. (And I got those numbers from Fox News, so you know they're right!)

Yes, dear Skeptic, we have all sorts of things we need to spend money on here at home. The deficit, for one. The war(s). The bailout(s). Health care. Potholes, bridges, the power grid, high speed trains, investigating ACORN, climate change, diseases to cure. But, for a little perspective, we went to the moon right when Vietnam was at it's apex. There were potholes in 1969, too. And poverty. And disease. A whole host of things we could have spent the NASA budget on besides planting an American flag on the moon. We were in a global pissing match with the Soviet Union, with Vietnam at one extreme, and Apollo 11 at the other. We lack that clear opponent now, and Al Queda doesn't seem so interested in going to the moon, as there's not much there to blow up, and no women to suppress.

So why go? Because it's what we do. Humans explore. We invent. We take risks. We can someday, hopefully, solve many of our problems here. The budget, the infrastructure, health care. But there will always be a reason why not to do something. There will always be disease. I hate to say it, but there will probably always be war, too. And poverty. But what is the greater point of striving to win these wars, cure these diseases, and solve our myriad of other problems? We imagine ourselves in movies and books colonizing other worlds. Well, that starts here. It's like anything else- marriage, having kids, changing jobs- if you wait for the 'right time', you're never going to do it. So, let's do it. Plus, NASA research pays back a thousand fold with nifty stuff, like the Dustbusters, shock-absorbing helmets, home security systems, smoke detectors, flat panel televisions, high-density batteries, trash compactors, food packaging and freeze-dried technology, cool sportswear, sports bras, hair styling appliances, fogless ski goggles, self-adjusting sunglasses, composite golf clubs, hang gliders, art preservation, and quartz crystal timing equipment, just to name a few. Oh- and noise abatement equipment, pollution measuring devices, pollution control devices, smokestack monitors, radioactive leak detectors, earthquake prediction systems, sewage treatment, energy saving air conditioning, and air purification. Finally, there's also Arteriosclerosis detection, ultrasound scanners, automatic insulin pumps, portable x-ray devices, invisible braces, dental arch wire, palate surgery technology, clean room apparel, implantable heart aid, MRI, bone analyzers, and cataract surgery tools. http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html So, it's win-win. For once in my blog, it's not even democrat vs. republican. Because, we all like flatscreens.