R.I.P. NASA

The worst thing about the announcement was the timing. February 1st is the anniversary of the Shuttle Columbia disaster.

I saw the initial reports on Friday about the impending doom of the space program. I refrained from commenting here as I was hoping that leaked reports of the Administration's scientific shortsightedness were greatly exaggerated. With the release of the Federal Budget today, little choice remained. It is official, NASA's budget has a gaping hole where funding for the Constellation Program once rested.

For those who don't know the program by name, the Constellation Program was the future of America's manned space flight program. It was to encompass a new set of booster rockets and spacecraft that would first let us retire the shuttle fleet while remaining independently space-faring, and eventually lead people back to the Moon and eventually on to Mars. It was to be a visionary program bringing us back to the stars in earnest. It was.

With the shuttle fleet scheduled for only a handful more launches before mothballing, we will soon be in the position of depending on the Russians for all of our launches to the International Space Station. It's a sad state for astronauts from the only nation ever to put human feet on the moon to be relegated permanently to the shotgun seat. Not to mention the fact that Indian or Chinese astronauts could very well place the next set of footprints on the moon in the not too distant future (India intends on being space-faring in 2016). Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for humanity at large exploring the stars, but our drive to explore used to be a point of great national pride, and it's hard to watch it dissolve into apathy.

I've heard many people over the years question whether the expense and danger of spending people into space is worth it. I've often been one of those to retort things like, "We owe so much of the technology and standard of living we enjoy to the Space Program." I've said it, and meant it, many times. But the news of the budget cut made me really start looking at what we've gained from our astronauts. The list is longer than I ever imagined. In coming posts, I'll explore some of the notable examples, and references for discovering them.