NASA: Grounded

An independent panel of experts has reviewed America's muddled policy on space exploration and come to the dismaying conclusion that current resources cannot match the nation's lofty goals. It's all very well to talk of returning man to the moon, as George W. Bush promised to do by 2020 -- but that is not going to happen under current budgetary constraints. Nor does it make much sense to shut down the International Space Station after it has been operational for just a few years, the panel says.

A "mismatch between resources and rhetoric," an expert summarizes, leaves President Obama with a choice between spending more money or "essentially abandoning human spaceflight."

Returning man to the moon is not imperative; it was merely to have been an intermediate step toward the next goal: human travel to Mars. Other intermediate stepping stones, such as nearby asteroids, could serve just as well. Likewise, NASA need not do all the flying. Private enterprise might be able to ferry astronauts to the space station, for instance.

That is all true. But so is this: Like maintaining a fleet of aircraft carrier strike groups, manned spaceflight to Mars is one of those projects whose scale and lack of near-term commercial return on investment require federal-government involvement. Washington does not have to do either of those things. But if America is to do either of those things -- and it should do both -- then Washington has to manage and pay for the enterprise. The cost is not great: about $3 billion a year above NASA's current $18 billion annual budget. In an editorial some years ago, this newspaper asserted:

"[M]an is both an organic creature and a creature that transcends being mere organism. The nature of organic life is to expand and to grow; man, being a transcendant creature, exists not merely to grow within his natural bounds but to exceed them . . . .We believe each of us faces a figurative choice between Ulysses ('yearning in desire,/To follow knowledge like a sinking star,/Beyond the utmost bounds of human thought') and Prufrock ('And indeed there will be time/To wonder, "do I dare?" and "do I dare?" /Time to turn back and descend the stair') . . . "

And this:

"[T]hose who insist on perfecting existence on this planet before trying to reach other ones are misguided. Raise the ceiling, not the floor . . . .[O]ur age is at a turning-point. One path leads upward to space exploration, colonization, adventure, discovery, new lands, new dreams, new modes and orders -- higher days and higher ways. The other leads downward toward resignation, dilapidation, and dissipation. Regarding space, mankind stands at the fork in the evolutionary road -- looking upward, wondering, Do I dare? And do I dare? We believe no tragedy could be so great as to shake the collective head, mutter no, and turn back and descend the stair."

Sixteen years later, the country still stands on the lowest landing. With each day that passes the country's ability to climb further deteriorates. The new report offers an important reminder that a continued failure to choose will, by default, deprive the country of the choice entirely.

Time is growing short.