Moon or Bust: Newt Style

While I wish our political discussions where geared towards Mars, it appears our moon is back on the table as the ultimate destination in the near future.  Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has been discussing the merits of a moon base at his recent campaign appearances. In fact, he is already looking at delegate counts for his third term as president since the moon base will be an established post with 13,000 residents by the end of his term, by his reckoning at least.  Yes, these moon colonists can apply for statehood. 

In a recent interview, Neil DeGrasse Tyson noted that Newt has been bashing government with one hand and then touting the Apollo program and first landing on the moon on the other hand.  Dr. Tyson pointed out that government has a role in funding risky ventures, be it Columbus and his journey to the New World or Lewis and Clark as they explored an expanding America. 

Jon Stewart had it right when he noted that Newt has more interest in statehood for a non-existent moon colony then 500,000 Americans situated in Washington, DC.  One wonders if Newt has any interest in science on the moon or only campaigning for statehood on the moon.  And we may need to set some boundaries with the Chinese and Russians if they already have some similar claims.  Maybe we can buy out the Russians as we did with Alaska and give the Chinese the dark side of the moon.  So many possibilities.

I support the idea of big thinking for our space program, and maybe we need to piggy-back on silly political aspirations to do something at all.  As Great Britain's Telegraph noted recently,

Both the United States and to a greater extent Europe are suffering from a collective sense of ennui, a lack inspiration or purpose, which has manifested itself in a decline in invention and innovation. Nothing better illustrates America’s decline than the technological improvements of its space programme, or lack of them. The LA Times noted last year, when NASA announced plans “to build a heavy launch vehicle capable of sending astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit by 2025", that it would be only "slightly more powerful than the 1960s-era Saturn V that launched Americans to the moon”. How shameful.

If we needed the Cold War to get to the moon, maybe we need a pompous politician to break earth orbit.  I just wish we had even bolder aspirations than repeating the past.  If this base is a more practical port for later adventures, then it may have merit.  If it is only to thumb our nose back at the remaining earthlings, then I believe we can do better things with our money.

Update:  I enjoyed Jonah Goldberg's somewhat humorous take on big government projects, such as a lunar mission, in the February 20, 2012, edition of National Review:

...if you're going to go Keynesian, it might as well be on big cool stuff that helps define you as a nation for the better, inspires little kids in positive ways, encourages scientific education and training, helps create a whole generation of creative people (Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, and countless others were defined by their love of the space program), intimidates our enemies, and gets us one giant step closer to a Taco Bell on the moon.  You can't put a price on that.

The End of "LIFE" (And the Russian Mars Probe)

It’s another unexpected event in space exploration, always a risky business.  Rest assured that The Planetary Society will continue to press forward and seek answers to those deep questions: Where did we come from, and are we alone?

 -- Bill Nye
    CEO, The Planetary Society

I received this email a few days ago and now I read the Planetary Society's LIFE experiment, as well as the Russian probe Phobos-Grunt, came crashing down into the Pacific ocean yesterday (see my earlier piece).  It was a sad ordeal for the Russian space program, made worse by some Russians looking for someone to blame.  According to Canada's National Post, the Russians are looking at the internal causes of this failure. 

That's more encouraging then what we heard a few days ago where Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin indicated the West may have been to blame for the probe's problem.  Of course, not only did the probe contain a U.S. experiment (LIFE) but also a Chinese probe.  It was a truly international effort.  I hope we are getting past finger-pointing now, but it is not encouraging when the only country getting us to the International Space Station may think we are sabotaging their space program. 

What About the Worst Science Stories

We finished up 2011 with the biggest science stories, but what about the duds?  Fortunately, the magazine The Scientist came up with a list of the top science scandals of 2011.  Sadly, not every scientist is showing the greatest judgement or demonstrating a high level of integrity.  Five examples cited by the article related to (1) Diederik Stapel and his multiple problematic papers, (2) mice and chronic fatigue syndrome, (3) genes associated with extreme longevity, (4) arsenic-based life, and (5) change skeptic Edward Wegman. 

One of my earlier pieces discussed the arsenic-based life story when it first broke.  In fact, it was a NASA announcement, which only makes the error more serious. As I even noted then, there was great skepticism about this finding from the outset.  However, the paper has not been retracted.  Hence, the controversy continues. 

Such scandals are quite destructive at a time when much of the public is looking for reasons to ignore difficult choices and retreat to a more comfortable position where everything that needs to be known has been settled.  Risk-taking is a natural part of science, as is trial and error.  We just need to recognize those errors, learn from them, and move on.  Publishing these errors as new knowledge does great harm.