locussolus - To boldly go

January 8, 2004

This has tremendous potential:

President Bush next week will announce a sweeping space plan that includes new manned missions to the moon and Mars, sources told United Press International.

But of course, it will have to be unilateral:

The president's plan also calls for retiring the aging fleet of space shuttles and gradually withdrawing from participation in the International Space Station, sources said.

This has been a banner week for Bush. His new immigration policy is a political coup, and this new announcement has the potential to create a new sense of national pride and optimism in the United States. I think as a high tech national project, going to Mars is a close second to developing fusion power, and fusion power isn't quite as timely (or shiny).

I do think it can turn into a fiasco - certainly withdrawing from the space station seems like a mistake, and the whole thing may well get swept under the rug like last year's AIDS pronouncements. But for now at least, I'm excited.

Comments

bigoldgeek {January 9, 2004}

Scientifically, I think fusion power is infinitely more valuable. But it would have to be owned and controlled by the oil companies for Bush to promote it.

paul {January 9, 2004}

Hmmm... I think from a technological standpoint at least we'll probably get more out of the Mars mission. Sure, we'd get some new science out of the fusion project too, but I was thinking of it more as a moral project than anything else - with it we could easily, cheaply, and cleanly power the whole world, which would have tremendous consequences for the third world, and for teh environment.

BigOldGeek {January 9, 2004}

I do find it ironic that the conservatives have now started funding NASA, the program they used to deride as the worst example of pork.

Personally, I think NASA is a great agency that's had some setbacks that resulted from trying to do the programs on the cheap. But then, I believe in paying my bills, too and not asking my grandkids to pick them up for me.

apostropher {January 12, 2004}

I'd feel better about it (and if you read my site, you know I'm a huge fan of NASA) if I didn't have the sneaking suspicion that this is mainly about militarizing space. Worse yet, from UPI: "Sources said Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap all existing programs that do not support the new effort."

With as much as we are learning from robotic probes, scrapping them in favor of blasting meat-based observers into space a decade hence seems downright perverse.

paul {January 12, 2004}

Interesting... I was wondering why you hadn't said anything about the new initiative, I figured it would be right up your alley. I definitely syumpathize with your concerns...