Space Program
Re “To the Moon, and Beyond, NASA, to Mars,” Column Right, Dec. 8: How wonderful that we have bright, brave women like Shannon Lucid to further our understanding of space, to serve as powerful role models for our children and to earn Congressional Space Medals of Honor for having more than “domesticated, miniaturized aspirations.”
How pathetic that Charles Krauthammer cannot stand to see a woman in that position. I hope he’s on the first one-way flight to Mars
ANDREA MARQUANT
Burbank
* Krauthammer says, “For a quarter-century, we have literally been going around in circles”--totally ignoring the remarkable discoveries by unmanned planetary probes, such as Viking, Voyager, Magellan, Galileo. He does refer to ice on the Moon and organic molecules in Martian meteorites, in pushing sending man to the moon by 2005 and on to Mars in 2010. But in listing groups who would lament this, he overlooks one: planetary scientists, who know that such an effort would dry up funding for scientific investigation by un- manned spacecraft, which are vastly more efficient, such as the sample return from Mars, planned by NASA for about 2005.
WILLIAM M. KAULA
Professor of Geophysics Emeritus
UCLA
* Krauthammer recommends aggressive space exploration, which he claims we know how to do, as opposed to the investment of resources in “curing poverty,” which we don’t know how to do. I contend we do know how. We just haven’t the will. He then cites the miraculous discoveries of medical science re the HIV virus and the medications to combat AIDS. Does he not think that the medical and social problems that plague mankind can use the massive resources which are being squandered in space exploration?
Having been involved in designing space hardware, I can assure Krauthammer that NASA is not bashful about undertaking any project that it deems has a reasonable chance of succeeding. Unfortunately our space effort and investment are strongly influenced by the gullibility of an ill-informed public, a sensation-hungry media and an army of scientists and engineers whose careers and fortunes are enhanced by grandiose space projects.
J.S. CARDILLO