Why Democrats Should Support Space Exploration
FYI,
Even when Democrats admit they are wrong, they are wrong. :)
Democrats hate President Bush so much that they will scuttle NASA's Democrat
style big-science space program that would continue their socialist gripe on
space access. Their myopia may well enable commercial space to do an end-around
on a weakened, inaffectual NASA bureaucracy, and really open up space development.
"Why Democrats Should Support Space Exploration"
The Space Review
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/499/1
: I spent a large chunk of 2004 in the trenches of a vicious
: political battle in Austin, serving as a staffer to a Democratic
: candidate who was attempting to unseat a Republican member of the
: Texas State Legislature. It was one of hundreds of such campaigns
: then being waged across the country, some large and others small,
: all of them taking place in the shadow of the fierce presidential
: contest between George W. Bush and John Kerry.
: Surrounded as I was by partisan Democrats, I heard more than my
: fair share of ridicule and exasperation directed against President
: Bush.
: But, much to the surprise of my colleagues, I rushed to the defense
: of President Bush whenever the subject of the Vision for Space
: Exploration came up.
: Immediately following Bush’s January, 2004, announcement of NASA’s
: new mandate to return to the Moon and prepare for an expedition to
: Mars, it became fashionable for Democrats to trash the project.
: Most of the major contenders for the Democratic presidential
: nomination tossed out sarcastic or dismissive comments. Senator
: Lieberman went so far as to claim, without evidence, that the
: program would cost a trillion dollars. When the Spirit Mars rover
: experienced a near-fatal glitch shortly after Bush’s announcement,
: some Democrats made comments that sounded suspiciously as if they
: actually wanted the robot to fail.
: Needless to say, space policy was not an issue in the local
: campaign I was involved in. But every once in a while the subject
: would come up in conversation. Among my Democratic colleagues on
: the campaign staff, opposition to Bush’s space policy sometimes
: seemed to fester into opposition to space exploration in general.
: The old arguments were tossed out again:
: “Space exploration costs too much. The money would be better spent
: on healthcare and education.”
: “Space exploration is dangerous. Look what happened to the poor
: people on the Columbia.”
: “Space exploration doesn’t really give us any benefit. What good is
: it to have people walk around on the Moon? Besides, we’ve already
: been there.”
: “We shouldn’t go into space until we have solved all the problems
: we have here on Earth.”
: Since this was about politics, it didn’t come as a surprise. Bush
: was for it, so Democrats were against it.
: If unsurprising, I did find the sudden Democratic opposition to
: space exploration rather ironic. After all, the Democratic Party
: has historically been very supportive of space exploration. It is
: no coincidence that the two most important NASA facilities in the
: country, Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center, are named
: after Democratic presidents. John F. Kennedy had the political
: courage and wisdom to launch the Apollo program and Lyndon B.
: Johnson had the political skill and willpower to see it through.
: When John Glenn ran for the Senate, he did so as a Democrat.
: The Democratic Party supposedly stands for progressive values,
: while the Republican Party ostensibly stands for conservative
: ideals. It sometimes seems that these identifications have ceased
: to have any real meaning, but in terms of classical political
: philosophy, conservatism seeks to maintain society as it is or go
: back to what it once was, while progressivism seeks the
: transformation of society from what it is to what it should be. If
: the Democratic Party still holds true to its progressive beliefs,
: it should be a staunch defender and supporter of space exploration.
: Rather than jeer Bush for the Vision for Space Exploration, the
: Democrats should have cheered him for it.
: It might strike some as odd to associate space exploration with
: political progressivism. But space exploration is about far more
: than sending robots to take pictures of the rings of Saturn or
: sending astronauts to pick up rocks on the Moon. Like political
: progressivism itself, space exploration is about a glorious and
: hopeful vision of the future. It’s about making the future better
: than the past.
: In response to the suggestion that we should solve our problems on
: Earth before we head out into space, which is what most objections
: to space exploration eventually come down to, I would respond that
: the solutions to many of our problems are to be found in space.
: Consider protecting the environment, which Democrats claim as one
: of their main issues. A solid reason to support a robust space
: program is that, in the long run, genuine solutions to our planet’s
: environmental problem will require easy access to space.
: In the long run, the only genuine solutions to these problems
: require the use of space resources. Space-based solar power is one
: possible answer; nuclear fusion using lunar helium-3 is another.
: Energy beyond imagining, more than enough to lift the entire world
: up into an acceptable standard of living, without polluting a
: single environment, is ours for the taking. We simply have to
: decide to do it.
: Others have pointed out the immense potential of exploiting the
: resources of the asteroid belt, which contains sufficient raw
: materials to meet every conceivable need of humanity. Automated
: mining operations could dismantle the asteroids and transport them
: to Earth orbit, where they could brought down to the surface using
: space elevator technology, now under development. If we could
: successfully exploit the resources of the Asteroid Belt, we would
: never again have to carve huge scars into our planet’s surface in
: our quest for resources.
: So, imagine a world without smokestacks or stripe mines, a world
: where the air we breathe and the water we drink is not tainted with
: noxious chemicals, a world where all our energy and material needs
: are met by the resources of the solar system, freeing the Earth to
: be the paradise we all want it to be. Rather than simply
: complaining about environmental problems, easy access to space
: would give us the power to actually do something about this.
: This kind of thinking may be visionary and imaginative, but what’s
: wrong with having vision and imagination? If you ask me, the main
: problem in modern politics is that our so-called “leaders” are
: distinctly lacking in the field of vision and imagination.
: Societies that become overly cautious and averse to risk are
: societies that will not be around for very long.
: As the party that claims to be the progressive force in American
: politics, the Democrats could use some vision and imagination as
: they lay what their vision of the future. The knee-jerk opposition
: to Bush’s space proposals among the 2004 Democratic presidential
: candidates illustrates that the powers-that-be within the party are
: more concerned with scoring political points than holding true to
: their progressive values.
: The advocates of space exploration tend to be a starry-eyed bunch.
: We envision a future that sees humanity thriving in colonies on the
: Moon, Mars, and beyond. We envision a future where heroic tales of
: exploration and discovery have replaced stories of bloody warfare
: in the collective imagination of humanity—where the exploration of
: space has become what the philosopher William James called “the
: moral equivalent of war.” We envision a future where the resources
: of the solar system have created such abundance that no human being
: is in need. In short, we envision a future here humanity lives up
: to its full potential.
: The space program can provide the solutions to many of the problems
: Democrats care about, while the pursuit of egalitarianism,
: international cooperation, excellence in education and other
: Democratic issues can contribute to a successful space program.
: All this is not to say that Republicans are opposed or should be
: opposed to space exploration—far from it. There are many aspects of
: Republican ideology which should make it supportive of space
: exploration, too. In my mind, space exploration should not be a
: partisan issue. Space advocates can come from both parties and
: might be bitterly divided over the war in Iraq, abortion, tax
: policy, and uncountable other things. However, on the subject of
: space exploration, there is no reason why Democrats and Republicans
: cannot be allies.
: The fact that it has fallen to a Republican president to issue the
: Vision for Space Exploration should not keep Democrats from
: supporting it. Divided as Americans are on so many other issues,
: the expansion of humanity throughout the solar system is a cause
: worthy of a Grand Alliance.
--
Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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