Opinion
 

Bush's space plan simply political posturing

By Paul Hensarling

John Glenn stepped up and told President Bush what a joke his space plan is. It's about time. I knew Bush's space plan -- wanting to go to Mars on a whim and build a moon base -- was a bad idea. And I wouldn't put it past Bush to want to get the American public going about space and a fantastic mission to Mars so he could then abandon it and build up plans for the militarization of space. 

His plans for an actual Mars landing are over 20 years away. We can't afford to go to Mars right now, and who knows what will happen two decades in the future. Since Bush's call for a Mars mission, the Air Force has announced plans to militarize space. How's that for perfect timing? The militarization of space, at this point, is uncalled for and will only further divide the world. We could be making allies instead of foes. But it seems that the military can always find funding for its projects, even if funding for a Mars mission suddenly stops. 

Bush only wants research done on the International Space Station that pertains to a moon or Mars mission. Whatever happened to research that helps mankind as a whole? Putting a human on Mars will not benefit mankind as a whole. The two Mars rovers that we have there now, while not as efficient as human exploration, are great alternatives for data collection when you consider risk and cost. Space is a big place, and there is much more than just Mars out there. The research on the ISS is very valuable, more so than just the research pertaining to any moon or Mars missions. Glenn is right when he says there are scientists and projects that will just "have the rug pulled out from them." We cannot afford to just drop everything that we have been and are doing to chase a one-time shot at putting a human on Mars. 

While putting a human on Mars would be cool, putting 1,000 probes out in space investigating hundreds of different exotic places in our solar system would be exponentially more spectacular. Putting 1,000 probes in space; exploring the moons of Jupiter and Saturn; putting them in orbit around Neptune and Uranus; putting them up close to the mysterious Pluto; exploring the limit of our solar system; all these would be hundreds of times more awe-inspiring than putting a human on Mars. All this could be done for the same amount of money or less than a risky one-time mission to Mars.

I'm glad that John Glenn, a pilot who was decorated for his service in World War II and the Korean War, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth and the oldest person in space, spoke out against Bush's space plan. Science, not politics, should be the guide for space exploration. We need a real space plan and program that can truly make our knowledge of the universe blossom, rather than a pie-in-the-sky plan that will most likely get abandoned in the end, or even worse, get distracted along the way and turn into a divisive ploy to militarize space.

Hensarling, an editorial writer for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.