Sky & Telescope October 1988 [antikvár]

focal pointSpace: The Non-IssueIN THIS ELECTION year in the United States, the pohtical debate on the nation's space policy has been deafening in its silence.The presidential candidates have only recently begun to make an issue out of the health of the civilian space program, and then only because the resumption of the Space Shuttle program this fall is making headlines almost daily. Yet, since the Challenger disaster of January, 1986, our space program has been effectively crippled. And the Soviet Union, Western Europe, Japan, China, and even India are moving forward with space programs that will reap vast economic benefits for those nations.Last February the House of Representatives subcommittee on space science and applications held hearings on space goals in Iowa and New Hampshire during those states' primary campaigns. The subcommittee invited all the presidential hopefuls to testify about their views on the nation's space program. Not one showed up.Why is space a non-issue? Because few American voters care very deeply about our space activities.Why don't they care? The answer, surprisingly, is that the nation's scientists have taught them not to care.That is more than a surprising conclusion it's a shocker. But the facts are clear enough to anyone who has been involved in space activities since the beginning (like me).Although scientists insist that money be spent on their own exploratory missions, they constantly deride other space efforts. For example, while the Apollo program held most of the world spellbound, many scientists pooh-poohed it as a "moondog-gle." Even today many prominent scientists present space as a domain for their own intellectual pursuits and nothing else, except perhaps a side trip to Mars someday. Many university researchers publicly sneer at space flights by astronauts and call the Space Shuttle a waste of money (money that should, they hint broadly, be spent on their pet projects).As a result of this constant carping by "unbiased experts," many in the mass media have become convinced that piloted space flight is frivolous and that only robotic scientific missions make any sense. Instead of seeing space as the mainspring of the nation's economic well-being, theypresent it as a drain on the federal budget, a playground for scientists and astronauts, with little or no connection to the everyday needs and wants of the taxpayer.Nothing could be farther from the truth. Space is a frontier, just as ,the American West was a frontier more than a century ago. If the nation's scientists would stop deriding efforts to develop economic benefits from space, perhaps the media, politicians, and the American people would begin to think more seriously about what we are and should be doing on this new frontier.Polls show that most Americans feel that space is exciting and interesting. Most are willing to support a strong civilian space program. But while that support is wide, it is not terribly deep. Most Americans do not think that our space program is as important as, say, crime, or drugs, or AIDS, or even garbage collection.They see no relationship between what we do in space and how well they live on Earth. Yet the relationships are clearly there, if anyone will bother to look. Space-derived technologies account for some $300-500 bilhon in each year's gross national product. The industries that these technologies support provide upwards of 10 million jobs. In a global economy that is increasingly dependent on high technology, no nation can maintain a strong position without being on the cutting edge of space-age research.American taxpayers have spent less than $150 billion on the civilian space program during the entire 30 years since NASA's creation in 1958 roughly half of oneyear's current Defense Department outlay. The U. S. economy enjoys two to four times that much in return every year in the form of sales, profits, and jobs derived from space technology. Clearly, the space program is the best bargain taxpayers have had since the Louisiana Purchase.But perhaps the space program is too visible. A senator like William Proxmire of Wisconsin can vote to cut back the NASA budget and tell his constituents back home that he is guarding the nation's purse strings even while he blithely votes billions of dollars in subsidies to the dairy industry.Pro-space activists like those in the National Space Society are well aware that next month we elect not only a president, but also one-third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives. Efforts are now under way to convince as many of these candidates as possible that they should support vigorous efforts in space.At stake is the economic well-being of the United States. An economically weak America will not be able to afford even the modest scientific missions that the anti-astronaut researchers cherish. And it would be a pity to see the Hubble Space Telescope turned over to Western Europe or Japan because the United States could not afford to operate it.BEN BOVAThe author, president of the National Space Society, has written more than 70 futuristic novels and nonfiction books.Focal Point invites contributions from read-ers who wish to comment on contemporaryissues in astronomy and space science.