Pigs In Space (And On The Hill)

As this blog's motif amply discloses, I'm a science fiction mark. And as my age also ought to disclose, when I was growing up, I, along with a great many other members of my generation, figured that when I reached middle age, all the moonbases and artificially intelligent computers and interstellar sleeper ships would be there waiting for me. Might not be like the Jetsons, but it would be a darn sight more futuristic than...well, than where we are today.

Yes, yes, aside from the internet and cell phones (which do more than Captain Kirk's communicator ever did) and personal satellite dishes. But where is the space exploration? Why haven't we gone back to the moon in thirty-three years? Why aren't we exploring the solar system with manned expeditions instead of the occasional, humbly modest robot probe? Heck, by Stanley Kubrick's reckoning the Discovery mission to Jupiter should be four years in the past by now, and the best we can do is a low-Earth orbit "space truck" that leaves a trail of parts whenever it's launched.

Jed Babbin asked the same question yesterday in the context of the small (by government standards) fortune we're expending for so tiny a return:

By now, after years of research on the International Space Station, Russian cosmonauts have undoubtedly proven scientifically that you can make a vodka screwdriver with Tang. Not that you'd want to drink the damned thing, but I bet they did. Racing along, propelled by this fearsome space race, the Chinese are sending their own space explorers up to test the effects of low gravity on pig sperm. The only good thing you can say about the Chinese effort is that we're not paying for it. Which cannot be said of the International Space Station, an orbiting WPA project that - along with its aging and unreliable delivery truck, the space shuttle - are diverting the time, money and scientific talent NASA should be spending on real science and space exploration.

"Orbiting WPA project" is too kind, because if it truly fit that description, at least we wouldn't be paying for other countries to freeload up there on our nickle:

Two years ago, a blue ribbon panel issued a report called "Factors Affecting Utilization of the International Space Station in Biological and Physical Sciences." That report, the second from the panel, elaborated on earlier findings that were severely critical of the cost-benefit ratio that the ISS produced. The 2003 report said that too many US-sponsored experiments were being delayed indefinitely, the payloads delivered by the shuttle flights were reduced greatly by shuttle unreliability, and NASA's record for meeting schedule, budget and priority goals was bad enough to drive away international money to sponsor ISS projects. In the past two years, it's only gotten worse. The ISS can brag of projects such as ARISS: the amateur radio station that occupies a permanent place on the space station, presumably to keep astronauts occupied during their typical 20-hour work week. From its energetically American start, the ISS has devolved to its current French status.

"Current French status" isn't too kind, BTW, but head-shakingly on target.

Ditto the "space truck," which couldn't be more inefficient if astronauts were forced to join the Teamsters Union:

In the Challenger and Columbia disasters of 1986 and 2003, the shuttle proved itself neither inexpensive nor reliable. At this writing, the shuttle Discovery is in orbit, having survived by the narrowest of margins precisely the same failure of insulating foam that caused Columbia to explode. Its bold mission, as the headline of an AP story yesterday encapsulated, is to unload supplies and gather up the mounds of trash that have accumulated on the ISS since the Columbia disaster grounded the shuttle program two years ago. When Discovery returns to earth, we hope intact, it and all the other shuttles will be grounded, again, for an indefinite period. That period should be made definite. And permanent.

Babbin's solution is eminently commonsensical:

NASA has asked for another $6 billion for space shuttle and ISS activities in 2006. The time has come for us to reorient the budget to save the money being invested in this orbiting pork barrel and use it for the advancement of science and space exploration in the manner NASA became justly famous for.

But of course this will never happen. Or at least not for the foreseeable future.

Why?

Here's why:

Venturing down the dustiest corridors of political memory, we recall a time when people thought a Republican Congress would be a fiscally responsible one. The hour to eulogize that hope has probably passed; but if one wished to drive a final nail in its coffin, it would suffice to adduce two monstrosities of wasteful spending that Congress sent to the President’s desk last Friday.

That would be:

1) The $66 billion energy bill that managed to omit any even offhand mention of energy exploration, but is promicuous in "indiscriminately lavish[ing] production incentives on anyone and everyone able to generate a spark of electricity," such as the $550 million for "forest-biomass fuels," which, near as I can figure, means gathering up and burning animal poop;

annnnnnd....

2) The federal highway bill, "which, at $286.5 billion, is the most expensive public-works program in American history," and is today little more than "a slush fund for some of [Congress'] most indefensible pork-barrel spending." And that's enough "slush" to bury Mt. Everest and give K2 a dusting for good measure.

The International Space Station and the space shuttle are pork in the (comparitive) microcosm, two orbiting piglets that will remain lost amongst these vast hordes of porkers whose lifelines legislators of either party are compulsively incapable of not maintaining and expanding.

This is, in essence, a failure of vision. Or, rather, business as usual. And it's an impregnable mindset even the finish of which President' Bush's moon/Mars vision set forth last year is unlikely to smudge, much less its armor to dent.

Let's put it this way: if Congress were given the task of making a bid to explore the final frontier, an orbiting garbage dump whose "mounds of trash" might just as well be the American taxpayer dollars squandered on it would be just about what I would expect that august body to come up with. Kind of like the old wisecrack about a brontosaurus being a mouse built by committee.

And if they suddenly came down with a rash of fiscal responsibility, they would chop out space exploration altogether. Doubtless to free up some additional "slush" for more solar panels that don't work, rotten corn squeezings, and perhaps that long-awaited intercontinental bridge we've all been waiting for. Imagine the tolls the UN could collect!

Wouldn't matter if it was visible from space, though, unless you wanted to aim some ISS trash at it. I understand it has more than even the Discovery can handle. Which isn't exactly the mission Stanley Kubrick envisioned.