The USA Can't Be Left Behind in Space

Despite towering debts and the need to economize, America intends to go to Mars with the help of “Space Launch Systems.” Will that ever happen?

The United States, saddled with $15 trillion worth of debt, was recently just barely able to avoid declaring bankruptcy, and every future public expenditure will have to be closely examined before it is approved. Yet amazingly, NASA has just introduced a new $18 billion space exploration program.

One has to congratulate the U.S. space agency for aiming high in the midst of this economic crisis instead of burying its head in the sand. The “Space Launch System” and its centerpiece — a 400-foot rocket — have the right stuff to propel astronauts as far as Mars. Or as far as the asteroid belt. Or perhaps only as far as the moon once again. Whether the unmanned test flights take place within the next two decades or whether they take off from Cape Canaveral as planned in 2017 depends on the budget deliberations in the upcoming years.

This time, there’s competition from China

The urge for economization may be great, as is the often-declared will for international cooperation in space exploration, but the United States would be well-advised to go it alone and not become dependent on other nations. It is not about the Russians this time, although — significantly — America has to now depend on Russian space vehicles just to make it as far as the space station. Rather, it is the Chinese, whose up-and-coming “taikonauts” now dream of someday landing on Mars. And whoever thinks for a moment that the Chinese are doing this purely out of passion or to claim bragging rights is mistaken.

Back in the 1950s, the United States got into the space race when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into earth’s orbit. Accepting that challenge helped America develop its technological, political and economic superiority, even though the benefit of satellites may not have been readily apparent at the beginning. Mars will again become man’s focus, and it would be sad if America was looking in the opposite direction.