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NASA: Countdown to the Future?
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19226 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1991 |
3,087 Words |
| Author
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Leonard David
Leonard David, a space consultant living in Washington, D.C.,
is former director of research for the U.S. National
Commission on Space. |
America's space program is caught between a Moon rock and a hard place.
Gone are the nostalgic and mind-boggling days of faraway astronauts bounding across the Moon's cratered terrain, propelled there in large measure by Soviet and American political rivalry.
Missing today is the seemingly bottomless well of support from Congress and the taxpaying public that NASA once tapped. Now blunted are the cutting-edge technologies that transported humans beyond Earth's gravity grip and allowed robotic probes to survey the depths of our Solar System. Fading from our collective memories are the close-up images of Saturn's rings or the ice-spewing volcanoes of Neptune's enigmatic moon, Triton. These once-hazy pinpoints of light billions of miles away were brought into sharp focus by speeding spacecraft.
Increasingly, NASA appears to be looking for a future on which to hand its space helmet. A 12-person panel recently appointed by the White House, the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program, was asked to independently review management and technical issues of concern to the U.S. space program. Following four months of deliberations, and after listening to hundreds of individuals who offered a spectrum of views with regard to the space effort--past, present, and future--the committee reported that America's civil space program "is at a crossroads." The advisory panel found that "NASA is currently overly committed in terms of program obligations relative to resources available." While calling for a redefined American space agenda, the committee also concluded that "the civil space program is neither as troubled as some would suggest nor nearly as strong as will be needed, given the magnitude of the challenges the program must undertake in the future."
The report went on to say that while most Americans were for a viable space program, "no two individuals seem able to agree upon what that space program should be." A balanced space program, as advanced in the report, is one nurtured by a high-priority space science program. With science the fulcrum of the entire civil space effort, the advisory group blue-printed two major undertakings for the future:
·Mission to Planet Earth--A set of Earth-watching satellites, probes, and related instruments, tied to a computer system built to provide a much-clearer view of global climate change and the impact of human activities on Earth's delicate
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