It's Not Rocket Science!

As the State of the Union Address came to a close tonight, I found myself online poring over various news articles saying the same predictable things criticizing and praising our president for the things he said. However, one article in particular caught my eye. It was a NY Times article exploring the uncertain future of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Amid all the budget crises and political altercations occupying the mainstream media, the dire circumstances facing the future of our country's space program has been drowned out by most. As a former NASA employee, I take interest in keeping up on such issues.

When I started working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2008, I remember all the fiscal issues facing the Mars Science Laboratory project, and with the Obama Administration taking office in 2009, I remember increasing uncertainty about overall NASA funding. It was an interesting time to be working for the government. Space travel and exploration is expensive. Period. No matter how you cut it. And especially after the Obama administration placed the responsibility to conduct R&D and provide space transportation on the private industry, the steadily decreasing budget is not enough to fund anything.

Mars Science Laboratory, 2008

This dilemma poses an interesting question as to what the American people value, and in terms of space travel and exploration. What function does research on outer space serve in our society? Does it really better who we are? I am so fascinated by all things relating to astronomy. I took astronomy for my science general education category, and I love watching documentaries on TV having anything to do with outer space. Since I was little it was my dream to work for NASA (see, dreams do come true!). It is something I have always been passionate about, even though I am no physicist or engineer (apparently there is a BIG difference between the two from what I heard at JPL, just so you know). But lately I have been thinking more and more about why space fascinates us, and why it's important. Of course, on a functional level having access to space has led us to build satellites and GPS systems which fuels our access to nearly every piece of modern technology like the internet, television, and cell phone signals. However, going beyond that, why is it important for us to know what a supernova or a black hole is? Why was it a landmark moment when we sent men to the moon, and if it was so important, why haven't we bothered to send them again? Space is the last frontier, and it is truly symbolic for America to explore all that we can. But is it a realistic goal? When thinking about the Voyager 2 Spacecraft, it was sent to explore the outer solar system in the 1970's, and is still transmitting data back to Pasadena today. But why did we spend money on attaching a record player and a little makeshift time capsule of life on earth for possible extra-terrestrial beings to access? What is the significance of these things, and are they worth the trillions of dollars spent on them? There are all these questions that have come to mind when evaluating the importance of space science. Obviously, many nations have poured billions upon billions of dollars into many projects going into outer space. So is it worth it?

To me, it seems as if this debate is playing out in real time. Congress, the White House, and NASA can't seem to agree on answers to these questions, thus creating a tricky situation in terms of deciding what projects are important, how much funding to allocate to space science, and where the future of NASA will take us. If we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on each project taking what seems like decades to complete, and all we are doing is collecting soil samples on Mars, will we be able to apply any information we gather out there to society? Will we be able to send mankind to Mars in the next 100 years, or even 200 years? I am not one to answer these questions, but if the current government is going to continue funding NASA's directives toward this kind of research, they will have to come up with a reasonable answer very soon. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and to see if space science will start to affect our social life more broadly.

I don't mean to sound so pessimistic about the purpose and future of NASA. I do love the work that they do. However, given the present fiscal challenges we have, I can't help but think of a history project I carried out last spring. There is an empty city block smack dab in the center of downtown Los Angeles. That city block was supposed to house a new federal courthouse, a much needed building for the city. But because of similar budgetary issues and the inability of the several government agencies, contractors, and planners involved to reach a concensus on how to proceed with the construction under the budgetary and time constraints, this city block has been empty for nearly a decade. This city block was once the happening place in LA. It was huge part of the major cultural center of the city, and now all it is is a BIG hole in the ground due to the bureacratic nightmare this project has faced. And I fear that the future of NASA may be headed in this direction, doomed to share the same fate as this empty city block if our government can't get their act together.

There is an ongoing joke at JPL all across the lab: when someone faces a difficult task, people say "It's not rocket science" - oh, but it is!