Part One: the language of the reporter

Christine Miles, News That’s To The Point, KOIN-TV (CBS affiliate in Portland, Oregon) 5:48 A.M., January 15, 2003 --  Reporting about the proposed billion dollar a year increase in NASA’s annual budget, and a new focus on the creation of a permanent moon base.  A stepping stone toward the goal of a manned mission to Mars sometime around 2030. Miss Miles said, “Many people feel that President Bush needs a reality check.”

This, of course, is a reference to the belief held by some (all liberal)  Americans that the money should instead be spent by government on bloated and inefficient educational bureaucracies and social welfare programs to buy votes for Democrats in future elections.  The Associated Press, also a headquarters for the American Left, said this:

AP article, January 14, 2003 -- Many Democrats say the administration should take  care of problems at home before setting its sights on costly space initiatives,  particularly in the face of budget deficits of about $500 billion.

Same thing, but more direct. 

As we have asked in earlier Oregon Magazine pieces, what number is represented by “many?”  It sounds like “a lot.”  A “substantial number.”  So, we’ll have to figure out what a substantial number is.  If that cannot be decided, the term “many” is meaningless, and so at best useless, and at worst misleading, in a news format. 

One, as opposed to "many," moons

Perhaps, to keep Miss Miles and the Associated Press from being total PR flacks for the American Left, we can agree that “many” in a national story is the equivalent of, say, the total population of one of the fifty American states  To make it easier for them, we’ll use Oregon, which has a tiny population compared to most states.  So, “many” means three million American citizens out of three hundred million. That is 1%.  Not very many.  That can’t be right.  Scratch that.  Skip the state idea.  To help her out, we are going to generously stipulate that “many” means every living soul in America who is a Democrat.  That is roughly 31% of the registered voters in the nation, and while not a majority, sounds like a “substantial number” to us.  So, in this case, that means 69% of America’s population doesn’t think that Bush needs a reality check.

While Miss Miles is constitutionally guaranteed the right to misinform her audience with unsubstantiated terms like “many,” if the majority of Americans believe Bush is correct, she can take her newscast and, well, continue to believe that what she is doing is journalism.

Part two: the social welfare objections

There is no end to the wish by liberals to redistribute income in America.  If you were taxed 100%, it wouldn’t be enough for them.  They want free everything for everybody except people they don't like..  Education through college, health care, housing, annual “living wage,” clothing, food, transportation  – everything free and from the government.  As automobiles approach zero harmful emissions, they want stricter government controls.  As corporate pollution approaches zero harmful releases they want more environmental regulations. With employment at 95%, a number that both in terms of American history and present day economies around the world is a treasured dream, they want more. 

That is the definition of a liberal.  Somebody who wants more government. Why, then are they against the space program?  It 's a government project.  How can a liberal complain about citizens being taxed to provide all those government jobs?  This is a complete mystery.  My guess is that unlike direct welfare disbursements, a space program job requires somebody to go to work immediately.  .

The astronauts we send the farthest away should be liberals.  Hillary Clinton would make a fine Martian tourist.  Shown, the garden spot of Mars.  The casino is off to the right and Lake Klatu is behind the camera. 

Part three: the cost

What, one percent of the budget?  Peanuts. Why would a liberal object to that? About all I can come up with is the fact that the money, thus the jobs,  are in areas related to defense.  Liberals despise the military, and don't believe we should have a national defense.  They think United Nations troops would do the job, as long as we gave up the capitalism madness.  Enterprize is the only thing liberals think shouldn't be free.

But, America, if the Left remains out of power, does have business.  The Bush tax cuts have revived our present economy, just as the JFK and Reagan tax cuts revived those economies.  As long as the economy expands (even at far less than the recent 8.2%) and we keep optional (non-mandated) spending as a percentage of GNP at a reasonable rate all will be more than well.   There is money to work in space. 

Part four: the scientific question

One “scientist” said that building a moon base is an unnecessary step.  Balderdash.  Professor Leonard, ThD will straighten you out on that one. If we can build a base on the moon, we will know how to build a base on Mars.  The technical problems are nearly identical, except that the conditions on Mars are a little easier to deal with than the conditions on the moon. (Mars has an atmosphere.  The moon has a vacuum. Atmosphere, if it isn’t droplets of battery acid, like Venus, is easier.)  Solving those problems close to home, and where there is a known supply of water (the moon has water) to drink and to split via solar generated electricity into hydrogen, a rocket fuel, and oxygen, what you must breathe to stay alive, makes old Luna both a great building site and a superb cosmic truck stop.

A typical Martian split level house. 

The "close to home" reference means that if something weird happens during the construction of the moon base, we are two days instead of two years away from bailing the lunanauts out of trouble .

As to the comment by the expert who said that there is no point to lifting from two gravity wells instead of one on the way to Mars, the issue can be debated.  The gravity well of the moon is 1/6 the strength of the Earth.  You can lift a fully loaded eighteen wheeler off the moon with the thrust from a rocket the size of a standard private aircraft jet engine.  When we are able to make our fuel there, all space exploration that originates from the moon would have a fuel bill that was at least six times cheaper than the same mission lifting off from the Earth.  More if you factor in air resistance. It’s a cakewalk to launch from Luna. 

And, a damn sight easier to land on, than Earth.

“Gravity well,” by the way, is an Einsteinian term.  Relativity theory portrays gravity differently than Newtonian physics.  To Einstein, an object having mass deforms empty space (space-time, actually, but don’t think about that).  You may visualize the Earth as a steel basketball sunk down into a big trampoline.made from a fishing net.   That bag it makes in the net is an Einsteinian gravity well.  The Earth’s gravity well is six times as deep as the moon’s gravity well, so it takes a lot more energy to climb out of it and go somewhere in the solar system. 

Liberals in this case are counting on your ignorance concerning the simplest requirements of physics.  A moon base, besides being a much easier launch pad than Earth, when compared to an orbital station offers a number advantages there, as well.  Having a little gravity helps. It is much easier to build structures on the moon. Things (doorknobs, hammers) don't just driftt away.

Why go to space? (Not, certainly, because technically speaking it isn't there.)

The three greatest stimulants for technological progress in human history are war, profit and space exploration.  Profit and space exploration are peaceful stimulants.  The move to the moon will involve both of them.  War will be no part of the process.  You have recently seen the results of technological progress with the computer revolution.  Further activity in space will result in greater productivity, greater freedom and greater access for all to knowledge, right here on Earth. 

Bush's space spending represents 1% of the U.S. budget.  Other than federal highways and dredging ship channels, it's about the only thing the U.S. government does that ends up making us more money than it costs.  There is no logical reason why many people should fail to support the idea.

(LL)

P.S. . http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/163926.stm

© 2004 Oregon Magazine