Let there be funding

Happy Birthday, universe! Well, sort of.

In the 17th century, German astronomer Johannes Kepler set out to calculate the day the world began. The date he deduced was the start of it all? You guessed it: April 27, 4977 B.C.

That’s right. Scientists once thought this was the day the universe began. Turns out they were a little off. According to the latest estimate, about 13.7 billion years off.

In the age of the Big Bang theory, it’s easy to write off Kepler’s idea. Still, it’s incredible that Kepler ever had the gumption to imagine that he could know the exact age of the universe down to the day.

Or, for that matter, that scientists today can calculate with some degree of certainty just how long ago the beginning might have been.

Skeptics will argue that at the end of the day, what does it really matter if the universe is 5,000 or 5 billion years old? Either way, they protest, we’re still here in 2009 with a faltering economy and an uncertain stability in the Middle East.

And it’s probably the same crowd that argues against continued funding for the space program and wants to slash NASA’s already small operating expenses.

In inflation-adjusted terms, NASA’s budget is 20 percent lower than it was in 1992, and although its funding survived the stimulus slash most still see space exploration as superfluous spending, especially as America continues to lead the world in space technology.

But the era of the American space monopoly has ended.

Six other nations and the European Space Agency can put spacecraft in orbit, and Japan and China have satellites orbiting the moon. China and other up-and-coming nations have made a commitment to growing their space programs just as many Americans have lost interest.

Still, critics argue that because of NASA’s recent string of failures, funding should be adjusted.

But science is a discipline based on trial and error and an endless cycle of failure and growth. It is unfortunate but inevitable that the space program as a scientific endeavor will make mistakes – expensive ones, like the 2006 loss of the Mars Global Surveyor.

Though Kepler’s prediction about the age of the Earth turned out to be wrong, his calculations laid the foundation for the scientists that came after him. Part of the scientific tradition himself, Kepler and his research heavily influenced Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation.

Last week, the spacecraft that bears Kepler’s name began its search for Earth-like planets. The mission designed to probe the Milky Way for signs of habitable planets is at the cutting edge of scientific discovery.

The expedition comes at a time when public support for NASA is at an all-time low, and the competition an all-time high.

If we are to continue our tradition of scientific excellence, the United States must continue to fund space exploration.

Otherwise, American space dominance will go the way of the universe’s birthday and become merely a thing of the past.