Lunar bombing boondoggle reveals our dark side
by Rob Parsons
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Forty
summers ago, as Neil Armstrong prepared to make his historic giant
leap, my family and households around the world gathered to witness the
monumental occasion. Though the slowscan lunar transmission images were
grainy and the sound distorted, the importance of the moment on that
hot July evening was clear enough. Armstrong's voice brought a
collective sigh of relief to millions of viewers "Houston, Tranquility
Base here," spoke the flight's commander. "The Eagle has landed."
Standing
in stark contrast to Apollo 11's unifying lunar odyssey was last week's
$80 million NASA mission that sent a spacecraft slamming into the
moon's surface, looking for signs of ice crystals. Further explanations
of the rationale behind the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and
Sensing Satellite) project make it sound even more bizarre: should
there be sufficient evidence of trapped water in the debris plume
kicked up by slamming the upper stage of the Centaur rocket near the
moon's south pole, it could serve as a possible landing and habitation
site (since water could be "manufactured" from the hydrogen-based
material) for future moon missions.
"At the core of NASA's
future space exploration," states the agency's Web site, "is a return
to the moon, where we will build a sustainable long term human
presence. As the space shuttle approaches retirement and the
International Space Station nears completion, NASA is building the next
fleet of vehicles to bring astronauts back to the moon, and possibly to
Mars and beyond."
Not to rain on your parade, NASA, but we
haven't managed to "build a sustainable long term human presence" here
on Earth. So why shoot for the moon?
The moon landing in the
summer of 1969, a month before Woodstock, transfixed the country and
the world in a way LCROSS never will. Making good on President John
Kennedy's lofty goal set earlier that decade, the Apollo 11 mission
signified American technological supremacy in the Cold War competition
with the Soviet Union, which put the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin, in 1961.
It offered a welcome respite from the
deepening disaster of the Vietnam War, civil rights rioting and the
assassinations of two Kennedys and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For a
moment, America, rocked by political and social upheaval, once again
believed in its greatness, ingenuity and promise.
Four decades
later, we could use a dose of that sort of positivity. Last November, a
ripple circled the globe—the leading edge of a surge of hopefulness—as
our country elected a brilliant orator, a man carrying a message of
hope in the face of mounting fiscal, environmental and political crises.
Yet
President Obama alone is not capable of lifting the veil of
stupification and cynicism that has shrouded our country. Even the
unexpected pronouncement that our nation's leader had been awarded the
Nobel Peace prize merely opened new lines of political sniping from his
detractors.
One liberal voice, documentary filmmaker Michael
Moore, came to his defense. "Obama is moving too slow for most of us,"
wrote the man whose movies have taken aim at corporations, gun control,
reaction to 9/11, health care and most recently capitalism itself.
"[B]ut he needs to know we are with him and we stand by him as he
attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness around. Who could do that
in nine months? Superman?
"The world has stood by in utter
horror for the past eight years," continued Moore, "as they watched the
descendants of Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson light the fuse of
their own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations of this planet
by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years of the
polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't attack us, failed to
find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of
terror. People all over the world wondered if we'd gone mad."
Is
it not, then, further lunacy to pursue a Star Trek fantasy for a lunar
space station, when we're still searching for intelligent life on
Earth? And, alas, scientists and astronomers viewing the LCROSS impact
around the world—hoping to see bright flashes or plumes of
debris—saw….nothing. Instead, NASA will analyze data from the mission's
infrared sensor and the world's largest telescopes, including the
88-inch University of Hawaii instrument at Mauna Kea.
A month
ago, Gov. Lingle told the Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce on Maui that she
supports two advanced technology solar telescopes, on Haleakala and the
Big Island, as they could bring 100 construction jobs and needed
revenue. It was a further sign of her misplaced priorities, in the wake
of announcements of drastic budget cuts and furloughs.
Perhaps
it's time to redirect the $300 million-per-month NASA moon program,
announced by President George W. Bush in the wake of the 2003 space
shuttle Columbia disaster. Many have said we need an Apollo
program-like effort to set our course for renewable energy. Certainly
countless other issues could benefit from that level of funding and
attention: education, health care, humanitarian aid, disaster relief,
rainforest preservation, even seeking to free Tibet through diplomatic
efforts. Fill in the blank for a worthwhile cause, however lofty, that
you'd propose to spend $300 million on every month.
Think big. It's possible to reach for the stars while keeping your feet planted on solid ground.