Space: a Learning Place
One of the main rationales for the American space program is the contribution that it makes to science and our knowledge of the world and the universe. Yet space science, as this leg of space is called, is usually overshadowed by the much more glamorous (and dangerous, and expensive) manned space program. The space scientists--whose fields range from planetary exploration to earth sciences to fundamental physics, chemistry and life science--have reason to complain that they don’t get no respect.
Four years ago, before the Challenger disaster, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was flush with the success of the shuttle, it asked the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences to come up with a plan for space science into the next century. Its recently released seven-volume report, “Space Science in the Twenty-First Century: Imperatives for the Decades 1995-2015,” details an impressive and worthwhile list of undertakings for observing the Earth from orbit; bringing back samples from Mercury, Venus, the moon and Mars; testing general relativity and gravity theories, and looking into the farthest reaches of the universe. It gives no estimate of the cost of these projects. Nor does it list them in order of priority--although Frank Press, the president of the National Academy of Sciences, recently urged scientists in all fields to cull their wish lists and decide what they really need and what they can live without.
With the space shuttle getting ready to resume flying, the Hubble space telescope and the Galileo mission to Jupiter should finally get off the ground. Both of these projects have been delayed for years, increasing space scientists’ frustrations.
The launching of the space telescope and Galileo may signal a revival of the fortunes of space science as well as of the shuttle. With many commercial and military satellites now scheduled to be launched on expendable rockets, there should be more room on shuttle flights for scientific experiments and cargoes. But that depends on NASA’s launching a dozen shuttles a year by the 1990s. Much space science continues to ride on the shuttle and its performance. The shuttle remains a finicky bird.
The report of the Space Science Board contains no ringing endorsement for the space station, NASA’s next big engineering project, now apparently on hold pending the arrival of a new Administration in January. Space scientists generally believe that they can accomplish more with automated experiments and observing platforms than with astronauts, part of the ongoing manned-vs.-unmanned debate. Space science has traditionally received about 20% of NASA’s budget, and it could be a lot more if the space agency didn’t spend so much on manned spaceflight.
Space science represents the noblest aspirations of our endeavors in space. It is not for military purpose or commercial gain. It is just for the value of finding things out. Sometimes they’re even useful and valuable to know.
Are the presidential candidates interested in these things?
