The death of NASA

President George W. Bush threw a bit of a shocker to us two weeks ago. He wants to go to the moon.\nIn the immortal words of Han Solo, "I've got a bad feeling about this."\nWhen Bush made the announcement Jan. 14, skeptical commentators immediately pounced on it as a pre-election carrot that will be dropped into a JuiceTiger after the November elections. \nAt this point, Darth Vader Bush counters, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."\nBut, the lack of faith is justified. The thought that Bush is digging for some hype with yet another grand plan for America isn't exactly far fetched.\nThe reason is reflected by what one person said in an Associated Press poll, as quoted by The Economist, Jan. 17.\n"You can't have a war, cut taxes, have the economy in a garbage pail and spend billions going into space."\nHow terribly true. Unfortunately, we do have all of the above except for space exploration, so by process of elimination, Mars won't show up anytime soon.\n"So what?" one may ask. One's rationale might be that Big Bush proposed a similar idea in 1989 and nothing came of that (hint, hint). If this one crashes and burns as well, we won't be any worse off than we are now.\nBut, that's not quite correct. With this plan comes the death of NASA.\nLet's look at the facts. According to his speech, Bush offered to donate a paltry $1 billion over the next five years to a project that NASA estimates will cost about $170 billion. Keep in mind NASA's history of grossly underestimating costs, which means the final price tag will most likely be several times that amount.\nBut Bush doesn't have to worry about the final cost. If he is re-elected, he will make it through his second term in office by spending only an extra billion on space exploration. That's not a hard promise to make or fulfill. After that, it is out of his hands.\nLet's assume he does keep this plan alive until 2008. The timeline says complete the space station and retire the space shuttle by 2010, land on the Moon between 2015 and 2020 and get to Mars at some point after that. None of this will happen before he leaves office. After that, there are three more presidencies in which the plan can die a slow death on a shelf.\nBut what Bush has done with this plan is put all the eggs in one basket. According to the Jan. 26 TIME magazine, NASA scratched the Hubble Telescope, one of its most successful projects, because it cannot afford to maintain it with this new Mars priority. The shuttle system will be decommissioned in 2010, so all of our other neat space toys will sit in orbit without anybody to look after them. \nThe shuttle, telescopes and probes account for 65 percent of NASA's budget and nearly all of its current projects. Now, it has lost or will lose its funding in order to concentrate on the moon.\nThe only way this won't happen is if a proposal with mixed popularity can survive four presidencies, 16 rounds of legislative budget cuts, a war, tax cuts and an trash-compacted economy. To get through this gauntlet, NASA would have to be really lucky.\nAnd as Obi-Wan Kenobi said, "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck"