Super Tuesday drew thin lines in the sand for the Democratic party and gave the Republicans a front-runner whether they were ready for it or not. The day spelled disaster for Romney, but there were non-presidential politics afoot as well.
If you make a point of digging for buried tidbits of budgetary news in sections F or G of your favorite national newspaper, you may have heard that NASA made their official funding request of Congress last week.
After a $500 million budget cut in 2007 ended in the threat of job losses and program cuts, the space agency requested $17.6 billion for 2009. The budget, which is sure to be reworked by the congressional powers that be, would be a 2.9 percent increase over the fiscal year of 2008, according to Wired magazine.
Much of the newly allocated money will be funneled towards Earth sciences, reports the Associated Press. With the support of unlikely climate enthusiast President Bush, the budget provides for six new Earth-monitoring satellites as well as monies for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of course, the president then proposed across-the-board cuts in renewable energy and energy efficiency, so I guess we’re back to square one politically.
I wholeheartedly support the increases for NASA and other science agencies, and I would support billions more even in this time of potential recession.
With this proposed budget, the Human Lunar Lander project should remain intact and on track. I feel that this program, which seeks to establish a sustainable outpost on the moon no later than 2020, is representative of the direction our country and global community should be moving in terms of space exploration. The more manned missions we can send to the further reaches of what is essentially still the “great unknown,” the better.
I’m fully aware that life on Earth requires the financial support of established nations perhaps more urgently than the abyss of outer space, but allowing for the advancement of science and of the human wealth of knowledge is what makes possible the advancement of society in every facet and form.
I count man’s first steps on that naked ball of rock, our moon, to be one of the defining moments of the human race — one of us reached out and literally touched a celestial body. For me, it is our burning curiosity about the mind-boggling vastness that is our universe and the inevitable search for life elsewhere that legitimizes life here and now.
In the past, religious fanaticism effectively halted the progression of scientific thought for centuries at a time. Let us not allow modern-day fiscal conservatism to play the role of the papacies of the past in terms of threatening scientific development. After all, if our government continues shielding corporate polluters and rolling back funding for renewable energy research, we may need a back-up plan.
