Chasing Dreams

Lileks has an above-aveage Bleat today on space.

If you’d asked me on 9/12/01 what headline I thought I’d see on 01/14/03, I would have said something depressing like “Seattle relies on Israeli experts for help in nuke damage” or some such apocalyptic concept. Back then it all seemed ready to tumble into the deep black pit. I would have been cheered to learn that attacks on our troops in Iraq were down 22 percent. I would have been gobsmacked to learn we had decided to return to the moon as well. That's the sort of news that transcends today and defines tomorrow.

And makes people blurt out silly rhetorical curlicues like the one above. Okay, let's have some more:I have a dream. I believe that this nation should put a man on the moon by the end of this decade and keep him there. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard and expensive and boring and lethal and just might – might – give people something to watch that’s more important than Paris Hilton pitching a fit because she chipped a nail. But we know how it’ll go. We know that awe and wonder will quickly give way to japes and boredom. Year One: everyone’s riveted to webcam streams from Moon Alpha. Year Two: a UPN sitcom about life on a moon base draws more viewers. Year Three: New York Times Sunday Mag runs a story about how we’re really not learning very much on the moon, and the entire program is driven by NASA cliques who zealously guard their power against the anti-moonbase forces who want to shut the program down.

There's something about space exploration that makes you want to stifle that inner curmudgeon that complains about high taxes and government waste. When done right, the space program spins off useful tech, gives kids reasons to pursue science and is just plain neat. It gets us to dream about bigger-picture things.

From a conservative curmudgeon's standpoint, it's another budget buster. Yep, but it may well be worth it. If we stay earthbound, we'll stagnate. We work better when we have a frontier to inspire us, and the frontiers of medicine or computers don't quite do it.

From a liberal curmudgeon's standpoint, its money that could be better spent elsewhere. Yep, but when it works, you have a government agency doing something cool. That's good PR for government, one to throw back at the conservative curmudgeon who uses "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" as an example of an oxymoron. People will be more willing to pay taxes if they can see something for their tax dollar other than welfare and defense.

I'll be looking to see those devlish details, but the basic plan to replace the Shuttle, go to the Moon as a camping-in-the-backyard dry run, then go to Mars seems to be solid. Even if we wind up spending $5-10 billion a year, that may well be money well spent. $5B/year would be about $15/person/year. Is it worth a CD-a-year to go to Mars? What sayest thou?