Fly Me to the Moon . . . Or Not

Okay, I'm confused. Granted, that isn't really a hard thing to accomplish; just ask the dogs I live with, they do that regularly. But I really don't understand how someone can say one thing to one group of people, then turn right around and say something completely different to another group, all without batting an eye. Maybe it's just a continuity error, or maybe I should just remind myself that when dealing with politicians, lying is a way of life.

In case you missed it, last week the President floated a budget plan for NASA that, while increasing spending for that agency by approximately $6 billion dollars, also entailed scrapping the two new boost vehicles (on which we've already spend several billion dollars) and the programme to return a manned mission to the Moon by 2020. In return for, well . . . nothing.

Right, a President can propose any kind of budget he wants. That's not what I have an issue with, although in this case, peremptorily shutting down a return to the Moon is just a stupid idea. But, just in case you missed this one, too, in a monumentally transparent "Pay no attention to what I'm saying" moment, the President spoke to the current crew on the ISS and told them not only how "proud" he was of their efforts, but how "committed" he was to furthering the manned exploration and exploitation of space.

Umm . . . what? It could just be me, but I'm having problems reconciling those two statements. I mean, you can't possibly be committed to the exploration of space when you just got done cancelling . . . the exploration of space.

Somehow, this reminds me of Senator William Proxmire and his "Golden Fleece Awards." For those of you who don't remember, he was the guy who would periodically hold press conferences and hand out these "awards" to individuals and programmes that he viewed as a complete waste of public money. NASA in particular, and the space programme in general, were frequent "winners" and, as far as I can tell, handing out these "Golden Fleece Awards" was about the only thing Proxmire ever accomplished while in the Senate.

It's an easy thing, I suppose, when you don't really know what you're talking about, to look at the money spent on a space programme and blanch. I mean, it really is a pile of cash. But the fact remains that for every dollar spent on the space programme, somewhere between four and five dollars is returned in terms of useful technology.

Don't believe me? Velcro is a product of the old Apollo programme. That cell phone you're talking on? Your microwave? Your PC and laptop? LEDs? The computer chip controlling your car? GPS? Just some of the things derived from the space programme.

And, yes, good old Tang, too. But some returns are more valuable than others.

But that isn't really the point. No, the real point is that, while people here are wringing their hands and worrying over depletion of resources and a resulting fall in standards of living, there's a whole solar system full of resources just waiting to be exploited. All we have to do is have the intestinal fortitude to go out and get them.

Returning to the Moon would be a good way to start, though it seems the President is blithely oblivious to that fact. One would think that, as "green" as he claims himself to be, he would realize that setting up solar-energy collecting "farms" on the Moon would be a great way to help knock us off our oil addiction, but, well . . . he'd first have to realize that we'd have to go back to the Moon to do that.

Of course, there are also all sorts of rare metals on the Moon that might help us out, too. You know, things like chromium and oh, yeah, gold, as just two examples. But move beyond the Moon. Out in the asteroid belt there's iron, nickel, silver, platinum, irridium, just all sorts of goodies. How about going out into the solar system and mining bodies for water ice, so maybe we can truly turn deserts here into green areas? Or, at least, head off some unnecessary tussling over fresh water resources here? The possibilities are pretty much endless.

I can understand, I suppose, a reluctance to rely on government to fund the whole thing. And, in truth, government can't afford to do so. If we are really going to exploit the resources that are present in the solar system, the private sector is going to have to get involved, too. But the private sector isn't going to do that if the government won't do it, either.

Pay attention, Mr. President. At least in the short term, the government is going to have to do the heavy lifting, so to speak. Call it a proof-of-concept. Of course, the government is also going to have to provide the private sector with some sort of incentives to get involved. The cash outlay for the private sector is going to be just as large as it is for the government, so they might like to be assured of making some sort of profit in return for their effort. In other words, you and every other politician out there are going to have to resist the urge to tax the snot out of them just because you can. Besides which, if you get off your rear end and seriously start to get out into the solar system, you're going to wind up rolling around in more revenues than you know what to do with.

But, really, to say that you're committed to exploring space while emasculating the ability to do so? C'mon, now, it isn't April Fool's Day yet.