Over the past week, there's been a lot of debate over Gingrich's moon-base pledge, and over the justification for spending anything at all on space exploration. I've tried to step around the questions surrounding the rationales for spaceflight in this item — but Wayne Hale, who used to head up NASA's space shuttle program, provides a provocative perspective in a posting to his blog, titled "What Would Rick and Gus and Dick Want?"
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/what-would-rick-and-gus-and-dick-want/
The title is a reference to the anniversaries of the Columbia tragedy (helmed by Rick Husband), the Apollo 1 fire (with Gus Grissom as commander) and the Challenger explosion (commanded by Dick Scobee). Here's some of what Hale says:
"It is impossible to build a business plan on exploration of the unknown; some decisions aren’t amenable to the quarterly profit and loss statement. Seward’s folly, Jefferson’s gamble, Teddy’s canal – they were all the butt of jokes and sarcasm. Yet, America, the land of opportunity, was not built by skeptics. America was built by people who were willing to risk everything on a dimly perceived future. Facing the unknown frontier changed Americans and made us what we are. We would be a lesser people if our great-grandparents had not chosen those challenges. The cost was high and many did not live to see the results of their gamble. But as a nation we continued on and became great.
"Now where is our frontier? Making corporate profits on Wall Street by moving money around? Now what will inspire our children? Playing video games that are made in overseas sweatshops?
"You know better than that. Without the challenge of a frontier, stagnation, mediocrity and decline is our guaranteed future."
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