MY TURN | David A. King
NASA's new mission
Published: Sunday, March 28, 2004 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, March 27, 2004 at 11:00 p.m.
The new Vision for Space Exploration calls for NASA to return humans to the Moon, where they will lay the groundwork for exploration missions to Mars and beyond. Robotic missions will come first, but later human crews will explore our solar system.
Imagine traveling through space and setting foot on other worlds, then living and working there. That gets the heart pounding, doesn't it?
This is a great and challenging endeavor we are engaged in, one that exemplifies our nation's pioneering spirit, and NASA wants every American to share in the excitement and the benefits every step of the way.
And NASA is counting on Alabama to help us get it done.
We at NASA are already hard at work to enable safe, affordable human missions beyond Earth orbit. First, we will safely return the Space Shuttle to flight, getting back to the business of flying people to and from space. We will use the Shuttle to complete the International Space Station, where we will study the effects of long-term space exposure on the human body, preparing our travelers for the journeys to come.
Then we will return to the Moon -- not as a final destination, but as a/sstepping-stone to other worlds. On its surface, we will learn to live and work in otherworldly environments. We will make use of lunar resources and develop the capabilities we need to conduct sustained robotic and human missions anywhere in the solar system.
From the Moon, we will set our sights on Mars, our nearest planetary neighbor -- and the one most like our own. Did the Red Planet once support life? Will it again? This question has captured the human imagination for centuries. We intend to answer the first question as visitors, and the second as inhabitants.
But Mars is just one possible objective. Other destinations could include the icy moons of Jupiter, which might conceal oceans capable of sustaining life, and even asteroids that could reveal new secrets about the origins and makeup of the universe. We also will identify sites for large, deep-space observatories -- descendants of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- that will open new windows into the cosmos, revealing to humanity the secrets of the stars.
These are challenging objectives, ones only a great nation can take on and accomplish. We Americans are bold in spirit but also practical; we want to know the value of this mission of exploration and discovery, and how will we pay for it. First, the value.
To begin, we need only look at the many thousands of jobs nationwide that result from space activities. Add to that millions of dollars in NASA research grants to colleges and universities, and contracts to industry. Here in Alabama, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, along with many other state-based companies, provide mission-/scritical hardware, manufacturing and information technology solutions to NASA. And the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville employs some 6,500 civil servants and contractors.
Money the nation invests in NASA is spent on Earth, not in space. And that investment produces real, tangible rewards. Since the 1950s, NASA has been a leader in our nation's technological progress. Medical procedures, wireless telephones, satellite television, household smoke detectors, dental braces, cordless power tools -- these are just a few of the advances made possible by the U.S. space program. And as NASA advances the current state of technology to enable our new exploration initiative, many new innovations will emerge and will be applied in business and industry to improve our economy and our quality of life. Perhaps most importantly, the vision for space exploration will inspire our nation's youth as only NASA can, motivating whole new generations to study math, science and engineering and to pursue careers in aerospace and other technical fields. In fiscal year 2003, some $44 million in NASA grants and contracts were awarded to educational and non-profit institutions across the state. The Alabama Space Grant Consortium, funded by NASA's National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, unites researchers at seven major colleges and universities, seven affiliated education organizations, and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville. Marshall's Hands-on Activity Science Program brings focused science lessons to 90 schools and more than 42,000 Alabama students each year. And in 2003, NASA named Phenix City Intermediate School as a NASA Explorer School -- a three-year program that engages and inspires students using NASA-funded technology tools, activities and resources.
Our nation's future prosperity and security depends on maintaining a technically competent national workforce. Our youth are our inheritors, the beneficiaries of our investment in the future, and we owe them a future rich in purpose and possibility.
So how much will this ambitious new program of exploration cost the average taxpayer? Today, NASA receives less than one penny of every American tax dollar. The budget associated with the Exploration mission does not change that. Most of the necessary funding will come from the reorientation of NASA's existing budget, focusing our resources on this mission of exploration and all its associated requirements. This is no small challenge, but we are meeting it head-on, resolved to make Alabama -- and all of America -- proud of its investment in our future in space.
David A. King is director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Reach him at 256-544-2121.
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