The Case for Space

Essay

The Space Program and the National Interest

Robert Jastrow and Homer E. Newell

In1900 the population of scientists and engineers in the United States numbered one in 2,000. Today the ratio is one in 120 and the figure is still mounting. Current federal expenditures for research and development are $15.7 billion. During the postwar era these appropriations built the American research establishment to a level of strength beyond that of any other nation. Throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s the build-up continued without opposition. Recently the taxpayer has begun to regard the House of Science with a degree of concern, because the costs of technological programs have become staggering in the last few years. Painful choices are being forced on the Congress. Shall program A or program B be funded? Each is so expensive that it seems impossible to fund both. Which will advance the national interest more? The general value of research is also being subjected to a closer examination. At what level of support does science make its maximum contribution to society? If the science we have purchased so far has been beneficial, will twice as much science be twice as beneficial?

No administration in recent history has been interested in space exploration except as an opportunity for pork-barrel politics, which explains why Republicans are long on rhetoric and short on results, and Democrats, lately, have been short on both.

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The Case for Space

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In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama articulated his vision for the future of American space exploration, which included an eventual manned mission to Mars. Such an endeavor would surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars -- maybe even $1 trillion. Whatever the amount, it would be an expensive undertaking. In the past, only three motivations have led societies to spend that kind of capital on ambitious, speculative projects: the celebration of a divine or royal power, the search for profit, and war. Examples of praising power at great expense include the pyramids in Egypt, the vast terra-cotta army buried along with the first emperor of China, and the Taj Mahal in India. Seeking riches in the New World, the monarchs of Iberia funded the great voyages of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. And military incentives spurred the building of the Great Wall of China, which helped keep the Mongols at bay, and the Manhattan Project, whose scientists conceived, designed, and built the first atomic bomb.

In 1957, the Soviet launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, spooked the United States into the space race. A year later, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was born amid an atmosphere defined by Cold War fears. But for years to come, the Soviet Union would continue to best the United States in practically every important measure of space achievement, including the first space walk, the longest space walk, the first woman in space, the first space station, and the longest time logged in space. But by defining the Cold War contest as a race to the moon and nothing else, the United States gave itself permission to ignore the milestones it missed along the way...