Congressional Fingerpointing At NASA Way Out Of Line

by ANN Associate Editor Pete Combs

If some members of Congress have their way, what the aerospace world worried would happen will happen. The Columbia disaster will be used as an excuse to permanently ground manned shuttle flights. That's just wrong.

NASA deserves a lot of the heat it's gotten since the February 1st disintegration of Columbia over Texas and Louisiana, just 16 minutes from scheduled touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center (FL). Seven astronauts, including Israel's first-ever man in space, were killed in the disaster.

Sure, you can make the case against NASA's "culture of self-preservation." You can argue that cost cuts and a lack of vision plague the space agency to the point of serious handicap.

But you simply can't kill the space program. Redefine it. Re-engineer it. Reinvest in it. But don't kill it.

We find it tearfully amusing to hear suggestions from Congressional wanks like Representative John Mica (R-FL) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) who criticize NASA for budget cuts. Where do these budget cuts come from? It's as if Administrator Sean O'Keefe woke up one morning and decided to carve $4 billion out of the manned space flight program. Wrong. Let's remember just who it is holding the pen full of red ink. It's the administration and Congress. NASA is simply stuck doing the best it can with budgets that constantly grow smaller and smaller.

We saw a very funny cartoon the other day, depicting Homer Simpson eating a donut, carelessly pushing buttons on a high-tech NASA control panel. A man and woman at the door look at each other knowingly and say, "That explains everything." No, it doesn't. Anyone familiar with aviation will tell you that NASA is a foremost authority on doing more with less. But at some point in the process, you spend nothing and you get nothing.

The Space Race of the last century was certainly based in large part on "point-of-pride" issues. America, mired in the Cold War and Vietnam, needed something peaceful and yet powerful to demonstrate our ability to keep a commitment, to reach for a star. We found it in the space program. But deep down, it's shallow to think that the United States' success in space and its position as a world leader in all things technological is solely driven by a "keeping ahead of the Joneses" mindset.

Our space program does need redefinition. We applaud the recommendations of some that call for a return to the thinking of the Apollo days. But those in Congress who demand a return to the glory days better be ready to spend the money it takes to get from here to there.

Plagued by spending mandates that look worse on paper than a journalist's credit report, it's no wonder that NASA has trouble with the "vision thing." What do we, as a nation, want to achieve in space? Do we want to explore strange new worlds, etc? More importantly, what are we willing to spend our hard-earned money on?

Give our brilliant engineers and planners at NASA the chance to regain their glory by giving them a clearly-defined, unambiguous mandate to explore the heavens. And give them the money they need to do it.

FMI: www.aero-news.net