The committee was created in reaction to the Soviet Union’s surprise launch of Sputnik, the first manmade satellite, which threatened U.S. preeminence in science generally and aeronautics in particular. Today, again, there is substantial concern that U.S. science is losing its competitive edge. Not least of those concerns is that Russia and China are cultivating robust space programs at a time when the United States is about to retire its shuttle fleet while being years away from having a next-generation means of getting into space.

Fifty years ago, the committee also wrung its hands about the state of science education in this country. Indeed, a first order of business in 1959 was the creation of a provision for granting scholarships and graduate fellowships in math, physics and engineering, among other topics in the sciences. Today, the need to better support so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is still a top issue for legislators, and promises to be high on the science committee’s list of priorities for the new session.

“Science does not have a left or a right. It only knows a right and a wrong.”

Of course, not everything from 50 years ago remains a high profile today. For better or worse (C-SPAN ratings would certainly go up), the 1959 subcommittee assigned to study Unidentified Flying Objects—and specifically to investigate what the Air Force knew about them and was not telling the public—does not exist today (though the related topic of extraterrestrial life has been on the committee’s agenda on and off for decades).

Last week’s initial gathering for 2009 was largely spent on routine business, confirming chairmen and members of subcommittees and so on. It was also a chance for committee members to congratulate themselves on how well they all get along and how bipartisan a gang the science committee is. “Science does not have a left or a right. It only knows a right and a wrong,” intoned Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA), in a no-doubt overstated proclamation of committee-wide unity, but one arguably closer to the truth than for many other committees on Capitol Hill.

So what’s on the agenda?

One leading priority is expected to be electronic waste-a topic close to the heart of the committee’s chairman, Bart Gordon (D-TN). Gordon has railed against this nation’s failure to recycle more than a small percentage of the 2 millions pounds of e-waste it produces every year, from which toxins leach liberally into soil and groundwater. And the problem does not stop at our borders. A Government Accountability Office report released in September was highly critical of the Environmental Protection Agency for doing little to curb the export of hazardous waste from discarded electronics, which pose long-term threats to public health and the environment abroad. Current regulations are under-enforced, and the committee is likely to relaunch legislative efforts to restrict current practices.

The committee will also be one of several looking for ways to accelerate the introduction of new energy technologies (with some emphasis on how to get the most promising ones commercialized quickly). Climate change (including a piece of the cap-and-trade debate); water conservation (a growing concern as climate change wreaks increasing havoc with the nation’s limited fresh water reserves); disaster response; STEM education; and transportation (the highway bill, a predictable political pileup, is coming up for reauthorization) will all be on the agenda—along with one of the most difficult of science topics for the coming year: a multi-year reauthorization of NASA, which will raise all kinds of questions about that beleaguered agency’s capacities and priorities.

“NASA is at a very critical stage,” said Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), one of three physicists in Congress. Added Baron Hill (D-IN): “For too long, NASA’s been asked to do too much with too little funds.”

Among the considerations expected to come up is whether to extend the shuttle program to shrink the gap between its planned retirement next year and the launch of the next-generation space vehicles that will be part of the Constellation program, which is not expected to be ready to transport astronauts to the International Space Station until around 2015. Also open for discussion will be how realistic current plans are to revisit the moon by 2020, and to go on from there to Mars in the relatively near future.

Me, I’m all for exploration, and I’ve been thrilled with the footage from our various Mars rovers. But in these days of budget crises and other problems here at home, the idea of sending people off to the chilly deserts of Mars falls squarely in the category of extraordinary rendition—truly, for now, a bridge too far.

Rick Weiss is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Science Progress.

Read the full press release from NAS here.

See highlights from Lane’s the keynote at the launch of our first print issue last June:

Read Lane and George Abbey’s recommendations for NASA policy priorities under the new administration: “How to Save the U.S. Space Program”

More recently, the planetary and astronomy missions, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, have completely changed our understanding of the universe in a human lifespan. The International Space Station, or ISS, which involves close partnerships with Russia and several other nations, is an incredible accomplishment. When it is completed, it will represent the largest international cooperative technological project in history.

But the future of the U.S. space program is very much in doubt. In spite of continued great accomplishments, a number of setbacks—including the tragic shuttle accidents—combined with a series of bold pronouncements by the Bush administration followed by inadequate funding, have led to serious questions of the nation’s commitment to space and, consequently, to a steady erosion of NASA and the aerospace industry that supports its missions.

On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush joined the act, announcing his Vision for Space Exploration, a bold plan for the U.S. space effort to complete the ISS and phase out the space shuttle by 2010. In its place, the president’s VSE program would design and build a replacement shuttle by 2008 and fly it by 2014—returning humans to the moon by 2020 and preparing for missions to Mars. NASA quickly reset its priorities, pushing science further down the list.

Critics of President Bush’s plan expressed a number of concerns, calling the plan bold but incomplete and unrealistic.^[1] First and foremost, the mandate to stop flying the space shuttle in 2010 meant the United States would depend on Russia for human access to space for at least four years, but more realistically a decade. President Bush and NASA also made clear that the president’s VSE would be a U.S.-led effort.

Now that the Europeans and the Japanese finally have their research modules installed on the station, and can gain a return on their substantial investment, it must be galling to be told that Washington will simply cut their lifeline by ending shuttle support (with its critical up-and-down mass capability) and yet not welcome access to the new VSE program. The arbitrary decision to stop flying the shuttle signaled that the United States is no longer interested in the ISS, and that after 2010 other nations are pretty much on their own. NASA plans to buy trips to the ISS on Russian Soyuz and Progress (cargo) spacecraft, but with relations between the United States and Russia at a low point Congress has already questioned this arrangement.

As for space-based science, President Bush’s 2004 speech and NASA press releases signaled that science would not be a priority.

President Bush’s vision, however, was incomplete in other ways. No cost estimates were presented for returning humans to the moon. The commitment by the president was to add $1 billion to the NASA budget each year for five years—far short of what would actually be required to build a new space vehicle and prepare for a return to the moon. The cost of Apollo was approximately $135 billion in 2004 dollars, but the president did not request even these small increases. Former Sen. John Glenn of Ohio has called the Bush VSE program “one of the biggest unfunded mandates that we have had in all of government history.” ^[2]

As for space-based science, President Bush’s 2004 speech and NASA press releases signaled that science would not be a priority. As NASA has scraped to find the money to fund the VSE program, science has paid the price with large cuts in its research programs, space-based science missions, including earth observation satellites, and the aeronautics program. A comprehensive look at President Bush’s budget for research and development in fiscal year 2009 shows the National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget would grow $497 million or 2.9 percent to $17.6 billion, but the science portfolio would be cut by 5.6 percent and aeronautics research would be reduced by 13 percent.

Meanwhile, the VSE program is in trouble. Progress on developing the new “Constellation” space vehicle—the Orion crew exploration vehicle riding on a new Ares I rocket—has been delayed due to a number of significant technical design problems. Even if all these problems can be solved given more time and money, the new system falls far short of the shuttle in many ways. For instance, the Orion capsule, a larger version of the 1960s Apollo capsule, does not allow for extravehicular activity, cannot stay long in orbit, carries no payload up or back, and requires a water landing.

Given budget and manpower shortfalls, NASA is unable to provide firm cost estimates for the projects, while tight White House deadlines continue to put pressure on both the Ares I and Orion projects. Both projects are likely to experience substantial schedule slips and growth in costs. The best advertised estimate of when the Constellation might fly is 2015, though realistically it could be much later. We could be looking at a flight gap as great as eight years, perhaps more. And all the while, science will continue to be held hostage.

The frustration of NASA’s administrator, Michael Griffin, is clear from his words in a recently published email. “It will appear irrational—heck, it will be irrational—to say we’ve built a Space Station we cannot use, that we’re throwing away a $100 billion investment, when the cost of saving it is merely to continue to flying the Shuttle.”^[3]

NASA is trapped by expectations it cannot meet and promises not kept. Morale at NASA is at a low point, many of the agency’s most experienced workers are retiring, and NASA as well as the aerospace companies face dire manpower challenges. Early decisions need to be made by the new president, and those decisions will determine whether the United States continues to lead in space or cede that position to other nations.

Recommendations

The new president should immediately assign White House coordination of all non-defense space activities to his science adviser, the assistant to the president for science and technology, who will also serve as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. In the first 100 days, the president, with the advice of his science adviser, should appoint a commission to assess the current status of the U.S. space program and make specific recommendations for necessary actions in both the short term and the long term.

The decision to phase out the shuttle by 2010 should be reconsidered and reversed if possible.

Specifically, the decision to phase out the shuttle by 2010 should be reconsidered and reversed if possible. Talks with our international ISS partners should be held to openly discuss the future of the ISS and commitments by the partner nations. The Vision for Space Exploration should be reevaluated and modified to reflect realistic goals and expectations of future budgets, manpower, national priorities, and opportunities for international cooperation, including access to the program for our space partners. And any future plans by the United States to return women and men to the moon and someday to Mars should involve many U.S. federal agencies, universities, and industry, and should be fully international in scope.

In the meantime, science, including earth observations, should be restated as a top priority for NASA. Wasteful cuts and delays in science missions should be reevaluated and, where warranted, restored. Coordination between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Geological Survey should be strengthened. Consideration also should be given to the suggestion that NOAA and USGS be combined to form a new Earth Systems Science Agency.^[4]

The steady decline in funding for NASA’s aeronautics programs—down 32 percent between FY2004 and 2007—should be reversed. And a group of eminent aeronautical experts from the government, academia, and industry should be constituted and charged with laying out a roadmap for a revitalized NASA aeronautics program, along with supporting test facilities that would provide the research and development to ensure U.S. leadership in this critical discipline.

A key stated objective of all NASA’s research and technology programs should be to excite a new generation of scientists and engineers and rebuild scientific and technical expertise within NASA and across the nation—a critical need highlighted in the National Academy report “Rising above the Gathering Storm.”^[5] NASA’s research center structure should be reestablished with this objective in mind.

A revitalized NASA will be essential to ensure U.S. leadership as a strong international partner in the peaceful uses of space. Over these past eight years, there has been a movement urging U.S domination of space. We should heed instead the words of John F. Kennedy:

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man…”

Our civil space activities must continue to play a preeminent role in making President Kennedy’s words a reality.

Neal Lane is the Malcolm Gillis University Professor and Senior Fellow of the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and served in the Clinton Administration as Science Advisor to the President and Director of the National Science Foundation.

George Abbey is Senior Fellow of the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and former Director of the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas.

Notes

^[1] George Abbey and Neal Lane, “United States Space Policy: Challenges and Opportunities” (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts & Sciences, June 2005).

^[2] Brian Berger, “John Glenn Calls Bush Space Vision an Unfunded Mandate,” Space News, July 21, 2008, available at http://www.space.com/news/080731-glenn-bush-space-vision.html.

^[3] Robert Block, “Frustrated NASA chief vents about agency’s fate,” Orlando Sentinel, September 6, 2008, available at http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2008/09/frustrated-nasa.html.

^[4] Mark Schaefer et al, “An Earth Systems Science Agency.” Science, July 4, 2008, pp 44-45.

^[5] “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, October 2005).

On Feb. 12th, leaders of the space industry—from planetary scientists to former NASA division heads—will convene at Stanford University to formulate an alternative to the Vision. Those attending the meeting express concern that lunar missions will cost too much while reaping little benefit and possibly lead to delays in a Mars mission. According to Aviation Week, some involved in the meeting claim not only that is there little public support for the lunar missions, but that the Administration has failed to back up their bold plan with the necessary funding.

The proposed alternative vision would include manned trips to asteroids and visits to Langragian points in space—locations were the gravitational pull of the Earth and Sun cancel out, which would allow space vehicles and telescopes to remain “parked.”

In his recent article for Science Progress, Drew Baden explored the tension between politics and space science policy. He argues that misguided forces in the Federal government are proposing unnecessary NASA missions dressed up in “political pageantry” that are hindering the agency’s ability to foster potentially groundbreaking work in the physical sciences.

Congress recently required NASA to commit funds of nearly $60 million for the Space Interferometry Mission, for which it originally earmarked $22 million. The SIM project, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, is intended to search nearby galaxies for an earth-like planet. The project’s budget has ballooned in recent years and NASA moved it to the back burner by reducing funding last year. Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), who represents Pasadena and is on the subcommittee responsible for NASA funding, pushed the funding increase. NASA director Michael Griffin suggests that lobbying on the part of the California Institute of Technology was successful in garnering the money. According to Nature:

SIM is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, which, as a NASA research centre, is forbidden from directly lobbying Congress. But the lab’s operator, the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena, can.

The rebirth of SIM may jeopardize the James Webb Space Telescope, which is to succeed the Hubble telescope, and missions planned to study various astronomical phenomena like dark energy. Academic lobbying has grown in recent years as many colleges have either hired lobbyists or opened offices in Washington in hopes of getting a slice of the budget pie. This trend may cause long-term damage to “general advocacy efforts to boost science funding as a whole,” according to James Savage, also quoted in the Nature coverage, and who studies such instances of academic “pork-barrelling.”

There were 86 reported human cases of bird flu in 2007 compared to 115 in 2006, according to the World Health Organization. The result, says The New York Times, is that preparedness for a pandemic has become less urgent, but it remains as important. New data indicate that more than 700 viruses were cultured after having been submitted to the WHO from 2003 to 2007. More than 100 of those viruses were sent by researchers in Indonesia, which indicates that the country has made enormous progress in playing its part in global preparedness efforts. Ultimately, the WHO recommended that 13 of the 734 viruses should be used for vaccine development (via Effect Measure).

Last week, Drew Baden explained in Science Progress why sending humans to the Moon and to Mars could distract researchers and policymakers from using resources for more significant research about Earth and the universe. Now, investigations have revealed that NASA’s proposed Ares I manned Moon launch vehicle could shake violently during operation, and the results could be catastrophic. The possibility of design mistakes on the part of Boeing or Alliant Techsystems, the private contractors for Ares I, could challenge the continuing value of Project Constellation, NASA’s human spaceflight program (via Knight Science Journalism Tracker).

“Atlantis is grounded till January 2 at the earliest.” (60 Second Science)

The public isn’t worried about nanotech risks; scientists are. But it turns out that “the public trusts industry and university scientists more than governmental bodies, regulatory agencies and the media.” Matthew Nisbet points to Peter Rodgers’s editorial (subscription) in Nature Nanotech on the opportunity to frame scientific communication on nanotechnology (hint: forget the details, and get help from professional communicators if needed). (Framing Science)

Sorting through the empirical research on the “wide variety of social factors that affect (or are affected by) sex differences in math and science.” (Cognitive Daily)

Hill Heat, Dot Earth, and Climate Progress all cover the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies and speeches for the IPCC and Al Gore “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

Venture Capitalists with money in cleantech start-ups at the Always On Venture Summit West were not optimistic that the U.S. government will enact carbon caps in the near future. (Wired Science)

Spaceflight exacts a heavy toll on the human body, but the effect of weightlessness on the human immune system poses a considerable obstacle to long missions in space. The Washington Post spoke with former astronaut Millie Hughes-Fulford, who is studying the effect of low gravity on the immune system, in their coverage of the microbe threat. She explained: “Human beings evolved in gravity, and it makes perfect sense that some systems—especially the immune and skeletal systems—might not do well without it.”

Researchers note that while astronauts are not currently getting sick on Shuttle missions, their immune systems show significant changes after only two weeks in space. This poses a major issue for astronauts making extended stays on the International Space Station, and for any future missions to the Moon or Mars. Travel to the red planet would put astronauts millions of miles away from Earth–out of range for a timely rescue.

Suppressed immune function is just one of many bioethical considerations for long-term spaceflight. In a recent Science Progress article, Paul Root Wolpe explored several other questions, such as how much medical training and equipment should be required on long missions, and what severity of illness or injury will be considered grounds for aborting a long mission to another planet.

After weeks of outcry over online privacy concerns, Facebook reversed course on its new advertising initiative, which tracked user purchases made on outside sites. (Peter Swire recently covered the importance of “opt-in” privacy controls for consumers.)

“Things are now dramatically and in a telescoped time frame all coming together to address these issues that have been on a 30-year detour,” says Representative Edward Markey in an NYT news analysis of energy and fuel economy legislation nearing completion in Congress this week. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee yesterday approved the Liberman-Warner bill, S.2191, with an 11-8 vote.

A coalition of states is petitioning the EPA to regulate the emissions of commercial airlines. California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania called for the limits. Airlines contribute 3 percent of total U.S. carbon emissions, but that figure is expected to increase by 60 percent by 2025 (via Grist).

“This is not a stunt.” It’s commercial travel to the moon. Odyssey Moon is the first entrant for the Google Lunar X Prize.

“This mosaic of images opens up a window to the Antarctic that we just haven’t had before.” NASA and the United States Geological Survey unveil the most detailed satellite-image map of the continent ever created. The map will help researchers plan expeditions to monitor changes in Antarctic ice and should prove useful to the International Polar Year, a multinational effort to study environmental chance at the poles.

A new study financed by the National Institute of Mental Health finds that mental health problems among New Orleans residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina were no more extensive than those after other natural disasters, but that the delayed government response likely exacerbated the problem.

Andrew C. Revkin joins James E. Hansen in lamenting the dearth of metaphors that might motivate large-scale action to avert climate change. Words alone may not be enough.

When President Bush announced his “Vision for Space Exploration” almost four years ago in a state of the union address, he committed the United States to the exploration of the solar system. He instructed NASA to retire the shuttle and develop a new Crew Exploration Vehicle, with the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020 to establish an extended human presence there. With the experience and knowledge gained by the new lunar missions, the president directed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to pursue the goal of human missions to Mars and eventually to worlds beyond.

The president’s ambitious timetable for NASA required it to immediately begin planning to implement the directive. NASA began its life as an exploration agency, culminating with the race to land on the moon, but after the Apollo era and the missions to the moon ended, NASA became primarily a science agency. The building of space platforms such as Mir or the International Space Station were intended to allow and encourage space-based scientific research. Exploration of the solar system was relegated to unmanned missions, which are considerably cheaper than sending people into space, and which freed up considerable resources for scientific research.

A fundamental social and ethical question that underlies this endeavor is, of course, the pros and cons of manned spaceflight itself.

The president’s “Vision for Space Exploration” has shifted NASA’s emphasis back to manned space exploration, which requires a review of the ways we safeguard the health of the men and women who will be our emissaries to the moon and Mars. Along with the shift has come new attention to the medical and bioethical issues of long-duration flight. For the past 35 years human beings have been restricted to low-earth orbit, about 220 miles above the earth. The moon, in contrast, is about 240,000 miles away, meaning that we have to begin planning for a mission 1000 times as distant from earth as the current missions. The goal of creating permanent lunar stations also means, for the first time, constructing human habitats on another planetary surface.

A fundamental social and ethical question that underlies this endeavor is, of course, the pros and cons of manned spaceflight itself. For the purposes of this discussion, we will not engage that question, which is an important one but one that society as a whole must debate and decide. NASA receives its directives from the president, who has instructed the agency to begin designing ways to explore our solar system. While each of us has the obligation to participate in the discussion about the value of manned flight and the expenditures that go along with it, within NASA the obligation is to do the work that elected representatives of the people charge to NASA. To that end, NASA has begun the process of designing medical care for missions to the moon and Mars.

Until now, the philosophy of space-based medicine has been to treat that which is treatable in space, but for major injuries or illnesses, evacuate the crewmember and return them to Earth as quickly as possible. Such restricted capabilities will not suffice for long-duration space flight beyond low earth orbit (that is, missions to the moon or Mars, which we will call Exploration Class Missions).

Who decides what medical resources are used for whom?

ECMs require significant medical capability for a number of reasons. First, a craft can be weeks or months from return to earth. The distance between Mars and earth, for example, varies between 36 to 150 million miles. A craft on the way to Mars, then, can be many millions of miles from earth, and as the earth is orbiting the sun, there are only certain windows of opportunity for the craft to turn around and be able to rendezvous with the earth. Second, even real-time consultation may not be possible; a one-way radio transmission from Mars can take 14 to 30 minutes, with an equal delay for the response. Finally, while restocking supplies would be common for a lunar station, for a Mars mission supplies would have to be anticipated and sent ahead to be met by the craft.

NASA is therefore beginning the long process of undertaking a thorough review of the medical policies that will maintain health and provide medical care to our astronauts as we move to ECMs. Bioethics advisors to the Chief Health and Medical Officer of NASA have emphasized the need to begin that work by exploring the underlying values and priorities that inform medical decision-making. The Chief Health and Medical Officer has been very receptive to that perspective, and NASA has already begun to discuss and hold meetings and conferences about the basic bioethical questions that underlie decision-making about ECMs.

Should we allow the crewmember to continue, to risk or even sacrifice his or her life for the mission?

Bioethical questions begin with decisions about how to equip a craft. Given that crafts will have severe weight restrictions—known as “upmass” in NASA parlance—every decision to include one piece of equipment is a decision to exclude something else. Is ultrasound sufficient for imaging needs in space, or must we include heavier x-ray capability? These questions become thornier when we remember that there will be need for a full range of medical, psychiatric, dental, ophthamalogic, and even surgical and rehabilitative resources. A formulary must also be developed that anticipates all likely pharmaceutical needs of all crewmembers for an extended mission.

How do we balance different likelihoods and needs? Given a calculus between three measures—severity of a condition, likelihood of occurrence, and effectiveness of countermeasures (prevention and/or treatment)—how do we decide which kinds of potential health events we will address? In the context of severely limited space and upmass limitations, should high severity, low likelihood, and medium effectiveness of countermeasures trump medium severity, medium likelihood, and high effectiveness of countermeasures? How should we think about pain and suffering in such a calculus?

Once a craft is equipped, decisions must be made about allocation. Who decides what medical resources are used for whom? In some instances, it may not be prudent to use up a scarce resource on an injured or ill crewmember early in a mission, under the assumption that the resource may be needed later and restocking is not possible. Principles of triage should be worked out in advance of a mission and be part of medical and bioethical policy.

Also, there are basic value principles to be worked out in advance of all decision making. What is the relative weight of mission success and the life and health of the crew? An early mission to Mars will include an investment of tens of billions of dollars and years of work. What level of severity of illness or injury will be considered grounds to abort a mission already underway?

Imagine a crewmember who discovers a life-threatening illness with two years left on a mission. Should we allow the crewmember to continue, to risk or even sacrifice his or her life for the mission? Do we give them that choice? What of a crew member with a severe head injury who is disabled? A disabled astronaut removes two crew members from their normal duties: the injured member and the crewmember caretaker. A mission may not be able to sacrifice the work of two of its members. And what if a crewmember does perish? Do we store the body for two years for return to earth, or give the member a “burial at space”?

Questions like these, and hundreds others, are all on the table both at NASA and with our international space partners. Science fiction has explored some of these questions for decades (see adjacent sidebar), but we are now at the point at which we need to begin turning opinions into policy. Many competing interests are part of the conversation, and no policies for bioethics or medical care on ECMs have yet been adopted by NASA.

The good news is that NASA is taking these questions very seriously, many years before they need to be implemented, and so has the time to explore and debate them thoroughly. But many of these questions are not restricted to NASA. They reflect the deeper values of our society—ones that the American people have to face if we decide to continue manned exploration of the planets near our home.

Paul Root Wolpe is on the faculty at the Department of Psychiatry and Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, and is a Bioethicst at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Yet behind the scenes—and with relatively little fanfare—NASA continues to move forward with what may be its most ambitious new effort since the Apollo program. NASA funding could increase by more than 12 percent next year, if the president signs into law an extra $1 billion the Senate added to the agency’s budget.

Why—and to what ends—do we send men and women into space anyway?

Sputnik’s 50th anniversary has inspired nostalgia for an era when space policy was a major political issue. By contrast, NASA is unlikely to earn much more than lip service from presidential candidates in either party before next November. Yet when the next president assumes office in January 2009, he or she will be responsible for answering several questions that could determine U.S. space policy for a generation or more. Of those questions, three in particular stand out.

President Bush’s Vision might have taken hold, but does it make sense?

The first time a President Bush proposed an ambitious new space program that would return the United States to the moon and begin an effort to send humans to Mars, it was 1989. But faced with a skeptical Congress and a resistant NASA, the Space Exploration Initiative—as it was called—never moved forward. Within two years, the SEI was all but dead, never making it into NASA’s budget.

Given that history, perhaps the biggest surprise about the current President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration is how quickly – and quietly – it has become the status quo in the space policy community.

Like the SEI, the Vision received a skeptical response when it was first announced in early 2004. But in the three years since, a consensus has emerged around the major components of the Vision. In 2010, the Space Shuttle will be retired. Then, after a gap of perhaps four years without any American manned missions to space, NASA will launch a new vehicle. By 2020, that vehicle will return U.S. astronauts to the moon—with longer lunar stays and a mission to Mars intended to follow.

Unlike the SEI, that basic outline gained the support of Congress—and crucially, a place in NASA’s budget. And until January 2009, at least, it is unlikely to undergo any major changes.

“Whatever you call it, I think most people recognize that in human spaceflight, it’s time to go beyond low earth orbit,” says Lori Garver, the president of aerospace consulting firm Capital Space and a former NASA associate administrator for policy who advised Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) on space during the 2004 presidential campaign.

But Garver and others say the next president will still have an opportunity to reevaluate whether a strategy thus far associated with the Bush administration will continue as planned. If not, a new president could do anything from changing the strategy’s timeline to redefining its goals to scrapping it altogether.

In making that decision, he or she will have to face a question that has plagued U.S. space policy ever since the Apollo program ended in the 1970s: Why—and to what ends—do we send men and women into space anyway?

For many in the space policy community, that is the $18 billion question. From a scientific perspective, advocates for human spaceflight can point to certain direct benefits of sending men and women out of Earth’s atmosphere. Astronauts are more adaptable and flexible than robots, they argue, and they point to the many technological “spin-offs”—from dialysis machines to water purifiers—researchers developed as a result of human spaceflight.

But most space policy experts acknowledge that human spaceflight cannot usually be justified on the basis of science alone. As technology improves, robotic missions can provide a far greater depth and volume of data, at a fraction of the cost and no risk to human lives.

Instead, supporters of a revitalized human spaceflight program say the benefits go beyond science. Wendell Mendell, assistant director of the ARES program at the Johnson Space Center, argues that human spaceflight’s symbolic importance is a powerful justification on its own.

“Over the years, as people try to write down why we are going out into space … it has become okay and legitimate to say we have the human space program for reasons of inspiration,” Mendell says.

Yet whether the Vision will satisfy even that justification is a complicated question. The goal of a Mars mission remains only loosely defined, with little indication yet of how long it will take or how much it will cost. For the foreseeable future, the Vision’s focus is a return to the moon—an effort that has questionable value for a Mars mission anyway. That leaves critics to say that in the near term—which means well over a decade—the Vision amounts to little more than a costly move to do something the United States already accomplished nearly four decades ago.

And in order for the Vision to proceed on schedule, NASA’s other priorities—from earth sciences to aeronautics research—have begun to feel the squeeze…

“If you spend money on a colony on the moon with the idea that it will train you to go to Mars, that’s silly,” says Donna Shirley, a former manager of the Mars Exploration Program and original leader of the team that built the Mars Pathfinder. Shirley says that recent robotic missions to Mars are illustrating just how challenging a human mission there, and a safe return home. will be. So while she is an outspoken supporter of the goal of sending humans to Mars, she remains unsure as to how the Vision will accomplish that objective.

Skeptics and supporters of the Vision share the same concern over just how open-ended it remains. NASA set a goal for the cost of returning humans to the moon—about $104 billion, with the Government Accountability Office projecting a total $230 billion cost for the Vision by 2025—but the plan may lack the kind of deadlines that might push the program forward, says American University political science professor Howard McCurdy.

“NASA is an agency full of engineers. They are much more adept at meeting deadlines than meeting cost constraints,” says McCurdy, an author of several books about NASA. “Clearly, the thing that made Apollo work was the end-of-the-decade deadline. If you didn’t have that deadline, we might still be trying to go.”

Can NASA find “balance”?

For critics of the Vision for Space Exploration—and of NASA in general—one of the agency’s biggest failures is that it has become “unbalanced.” If the Vision’s political resiliency so far has a flip-side, it is the fact that NASA’s budget itself hasn’t changed significantly. As a result, as Syracuse University professor Harry Lambright says, “NASA probably has a $30 billion program with only a $17 billion budget.”

And in order for the Vision to proceed on schedule, NASA’s other priorities—from earth sciences to aeronautics research—have begun to feel the squeeze, says Rice University provost Eugene Levy, an expert in astrophysics.

“The risk there—and I think it’s a risk that is not well-understood and anticipated—is that this will be much more expensive with less capabilities than we wish, with consequences with other programs,” says Levy, who served on a council of NASA advisors before falling out with administrator Michael Griffin over the issue of science funding.

Levy and others argue that NASA is already feeling those consequences. The agency’s budget for earth sciences research, for example, has declined 30 percent since 2000, according to a study released by the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year. That research includes missions that monitor changes in sea levels and the size of the polar icecaps, along with efforts to understand how global warming is affecting global weather patterns.

Efforts like the Global Precipitation Measurement mission—which would help track hurricanes and droughts—have been delayed by years. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, another program intended to provide critical data on climate change, has been canceled altogether.

“When you delay like this, you create a gap in critical datasets which we need now to document the extent to which the environment is changing,” says Charles Kennel, former head of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth program and a past director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In the areas of space science and aeronautics, the story isn’t much different. Researchers complain about cutbacks on efforts that explore the suitability of other planets for human life or better understand the phenomenon of “dark energy.” A National Research Council study co-chaired by Kennel concluded that a proposed series of NASA missions have the potential to “fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe”—but also determined that projected funding for the efforts is unlikely to provide enough support to accommodate them.

And then there are the new kids on the block—India, and even more importantly, China.

On the earth science side, at least, the next president will likely feel significant pressure for a renewed commitment. With political views concerning global warming and its consequences finally beginning to catch up with the scientific consensus, earth scientists—who note similar funding shortfalls for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—question how long NASA’s scientific arm will be overshadowed by human spaceflight.

“What the next administration will face is the question of whether they ought to … adjust the pace of the human side to give a little more breathing room to the many good things that are done on the scientific side,” Kennel says.

How does the United States handle a new international playing field in space?

When Al Gore and Russian vice premier Victor Chernomyrdin agreed on plans for the International Space Station in 1993, it appeared to herald a new era in international space politics. With the end of the Cold War, the space race was over, the U.S. program was dominant, and cooperation, not competition, would rule the day.

By the time the next president takes a close look at the U.S. space program, it will be clear how much has changed—and how much international politics is still wrapped up in the space program.

In the case of the International Space Station, the question is how the United States can keep a set of promises with other collaborating nations as the new architecture of the Vision for Space Exploration takes hold. If all goes as planned, the continuation of the shuttle program until 2010 should allow for the completion of the ISS. But the space station is supposed to operate until at least 2016, and it will require regular service until then.

For now, U.S. policymakers are set to rely on a combination of the Russians, new commercial vehicles, and planned Japanese and European flights, but whether those options can fill the gap left by the shuttle is an unanswered question. And already, NASA has ramped down the number of shuttle missions it originally scheduled to the ISS and canceled plans to launch a Russian science power platform and a Japanese centrifuge.

Thor Hogan, a space policy expert at the Illinois Institute of Technology, says that while the Japanese and Russians may accept a scaling down of the ISS, the Europeans are more likely to raise objections.

“I think the Europeans have felt burned by NASA with respect to space shuttle cooperation,” says Hogan.

And then there are the new kids on the block—India, and even more importantly, China.

At first glance, the emergence of the Chinese capabilities should mean little for the direction of the U.S. civilian space program. (Military space is, of course, an entirely different story.) The Chinese have come very far in a short period of time, but they remain decades behind the United States. Yet veteran space-watchers say the emergence of China will affect the priorities of U.S. policymakers.

“The Chinese worry that our capabilities are significant and will only increase,” says William Martel, a professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. “We worry that the Chinese will displace us.”

Ideally, the emergence of a robust Chinese space program might spur cooperation—or at the very least, a renewed effort to bring some clarity to the rules governing space. But a frosty relationship, symbolized by a trip NASA administrator Michael Griffin curtailed last year when he was refused access to Chinese facilities, suggests that close ties may not develop anytime soon.

Instead, it may be competition with China that motivates the next era of U.S. space policy. Indeed, if the Chinese succeed in sending a man to the moon before the United States does—a possibility Griffin acknowledged to Congress earlier this year—it could serve as one of the biggest jolts to the U.S. space program since Sputnik. As Griffin recently said in a speech, “I think when that happens, people will not like it.” In that case, it may be Beijing that determines Washington’s next move in space.

Jacob Leibenluft is a writer in Washington, D.C.

The culture wars exploded. Our national politics became more polarized and contentious. Science fights erupted regularly around environmental, regulatory, and moral issues. In some cases science advisers were even fired.

We’ve gone from the age of Edward R. Murrow to the age of Bill O’ReillyAnd then came the Bush administration, demonstrating just how large the gap between a president and the nation’s knowledge base can really get. Today we look around anguished and feel sorely tempted to label the 1950s and early 1960s a golden age of scientific inquiry married to effective government policymaking.

Yet it would be a serious mistake to blame political polarization alone for a declining influence of the scientific community on U.S. policy. It is certainly true that science suffered along with many other forms of serious expertise over the past several decades, beaten down by our divisive politics. But let’s not forget that something else has vastly changed since the 1950s and 1960s as well: the nature of the media.

We’ve gone from the age of Edward R. Murrow to the age of Bill O’Reilly. And if we seek the reasons that scientists have seen their influence on policy decline—and the gulf between themselves and society widen—we can’t neglect that there’s been very little adaptation on the part of the scientific community to a radically different, and far more challenging, media environment.

Two decades ago we truly had “papers of record.” And if you sat down to watch the evening news at 6 p.m., you pretty much had to opt for network news coverage, including coverage of science-related issues that were seriously explored. Today, in contrast, newspapers are struggling, but we have millions of blogs, ideologically driven news outlets matching every political persuasion, hundreds of cable channels, and Google News to sift our headlines.

The consequence is profound: Citizens who don’t care about science now don’t have to hear about it at all. They don’t need to stick their fingers in their ears and go, “la la la.” They can simply steer away from that particular channel, or from that particular nook of the Internet. They can just watch the Food Network.

As a result, scientists can no longer assume that a responsible and high-minded media will treat their ideas with the decorum and seriousness they deserve and deliver them up to policymakers and the public for somber consideration. Instead, partisan media will convey diametrically opposed versions of where science actually stands on any contentious subject—even as most of the public (and many policymakers) tune out science more or less completely in favor of entertainment, sports, and other media choices.

It’s a perfect recipe for the declining influence of science amid political polarization, misinformation, and unedifying discourse at media outlets—many of which take a generally antagonistic approach to the scientific community, depicting it as a convocation of liberal eggheads. So should scientists and their defenders simply wring their hands and complain about this dismal state of affairs? Or should they instead take steps to adapt to the modern media environment to ensure their continuing relevance and influence?

Fortunately, a new dialogue and perhaps even a new paradigm are now emerging about how to communicate science, through the media, to policymakers, and the broader public. It’s epitomized by The Scientist magazine’s October cover story, in which two communication scholars, Matthew Nisbet of American University and Dietram Scheufele of the University of Wisconsin, explain why scientists must strategically “frame” their knowledge to make it relevant to the diverse audiences that draw information from our fragmented media system.

Nisbet and Scheufele explain in detail what the modern media really means for the transmission of scientific information, and how scientists must adjust accordingly. The gist of their argument is directed straight at scientific institutions, which they say must pare down scientific information and emphasize those aspects of an issue that will resonate with the values and dispositions of diverse audiences.

The two scholars built upon some initial ideas about “framing science” that Nisbet and I first suggested in an April article in Science magazine (subscription required except for members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science), but they carry the argument much further by outlining a comprehensive communications strategy for scientists. This isn’t “spin,” it’s good communication. It increases receptivity to a scientific message.

An accompanying editorial titled “Scientists on Science,” by The Scientist editor Richard Gallagher, acknowledges as much and whole-heartedly endorses the approach, conceding that scientists simply cannot remain passive in the transmission of knowledge. They’ve got to be heavily involved, from beginning to end.

The truth is facts don’t ever speak for themselves. Especially in today’s media environment, they need a messenger, a skilled one. Furthermore, if you don’t frame your knowledge and make it relevant in today’s communication environment, you must get ready to be ignored—or, worse, to have someone else frame your scientific research for you, perhaps in the most unflattering of ways.

Fifty years after Sputnik, then, there’s much that we must do to re-establish a strong influence of scientists on policy. Indeed, we need our scientists now more than ever to ready us for the myriad problems facing humanity. But there are some areas in which science can also help itself. Communication is one of them. That’s why scientists and scientific institutions would be well advised today to consider the advice offered by Nisbet and Scheufele. Scientists have already proven they know how to research, how to think. Now is the time for learning how to speak to all Americans.

Chris Mooney is the Washington correspondent for Seed magazine and author of two books, The Republican War on Science and Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming. He blogs on The Intersection with Sheril Kirshenbaum.

Tuesday, July 29, 1958. President Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Agency Act and on October 1, 1958, NASA commences operation. (In her richly detailed historical retrospective, Eilene Galloway outlines the events leading up to the formation of ARPA and NASA.)

Fiscal Year, 1959. Congress nearly triples the annual budget for the 9-year-old National Science Foundation so it can launch a major program to develop science, mathematics and engineering curricula with a heavy focus on secondary school programs.

Thursday, May 25, 1961. In a special address to a joint session of congress, President John F. Kennedy declares: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” (Watch it.)

Wednesday, September 12, 1962. President John F. Kennedy, speaking at Rice University, challenges the United States to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade.

Sunday, July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to set foot on Earth’s moon.

Reflecting forward on our nation’s incredible ability to respond swiftly to complex scientific challenges one can’t help but begin with the shock of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik launch 50 years ago today. Suddenly, there was a new star in the firmament, its radio signal sounding like the ominous ticking of a clock towards Armageddon. If the Soviets could put a satellite in orbit then they could potentially launch nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles in the future.

Just over a decade later (see timeline) the United States mobilized the basic science, the requisite technologies and the financial and policymaking wherewithal to carry Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Earth’s Moon. This stunning sequence of events and actions spell out in forceful and compelling terms the ability of the United States to marshal its resources to respond to national and international challenges. That we were able to do so is an inspiring lesson that should be applied to the challenges we now face in the 21st century.

Fortunately for humankind, our nation’s advanced science and technology can be harnessed to respond to a very different set of threats than those posed by the Cold War. Even better, all of humanity itself is our common ally in this quest.

Today, quicksilver globalization powered at unprecedented speed by the advent of the information technology revolution leaves our planet choking on the fumes of rapid global economic growth and all the attendant ills of global climate change. Yet these same forces transforming the global economy in myriad ways also enable each and every one of us to be part of the solution.

Modern communications technologies invite us to think of cooperation rather than competition as the venue for new ideas and new wealth. It is widely recognized that while material assets such as factories provided the leverage for the creation of value in the industrial age, information is the new coin of the realm. And unlike industrial infrastructure, which could benefit only one user at a time, access to information is not a zero-sum game.

As John F. Kennedy (the president who was arguably elected by Sputnik) liked to say, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” As we look to solve global problems we need to take a more imaginative, less adversarial approach to generating the products and arrangements that will make for a more livable planet. Our national response to Sputnik 50 years ago should inspire us today to transcend national boundaries—moving beyond competition as the framework of human achievement.

Global climate change is a planetary threat that the United States cannot do less than meet head on with the same kind of determination and leadership that placed us on the Moon. Global warming is our 21st century Sputnik. Former Vice President Al Gore has been tireless and immensely persuasive in his efforts to draw attention to this problem. Yet it is time for scientists, technology leaders, financiers and public policymakers to take the same kind of concrete, swift steps embraced by our country 50 years ago—steps that can result in a new flourishing of creativity and ingenuity emblematic of great scientific endeavors.

Remember, sweeping scientific inquiry informed by smart policymaking carried us to the Moon, but the many ancillary results of that mission are part and parcel of our world today. New materials needed for re-entry into the atmosphere and for protecting human life during space walks found their way into commercial products. Significant computing power was brought to bear in the design and planning of space systems and missions and the analysis of rocket engine performance.

Or consider the command and control of the complex Apollo missions. Computers for command and control led directly to the invention of the ARPANET and the succeeding internet. Management practices for complex systems found their way from the space program into the private sector, enhancing productivity and scalability of enterprises.

Indeed, at age 15, and already a science fiction junkie, I would benefit directly from the enrichment programs stimulated in large measure by the Sputnik launch. Introduced to computers in 1958 via the Semi-Automated Ground Environment tube-based computer at System Development Corp. in Santa Monica, California, I found myself using computers at the University of California, Los Angeles while a senior in high school and taking every computing course I could at Stanford University as an undergraduate.

In 1965 I went to work for International Business Machines Inc. as a systems engineer and returned to graduate school at UCLA where I ended up working on the ARPANET project funded by the agency that was formed in response to Sputnik. I graduated and joined the faculty of Stanford University and, together with Robert E. Kahn, designed the basic architecture and protocols of the Internet.

This led to my joining ARPA as a program manager and eventually principal scientist in the Information Processing Techniques Office that was founded in 1962 by J.C.R. Licklider of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Vint Cerf. SOURCE: Joi Ito

This confluence of events in my life (and in the lives of so many other American scientist and engineers) is demonstrably no accident. Fifty years ago the United States rose to the challenge. Similarly, resources dedicated today to the challenge of global warming will ensure innovation continues to flourish across our planet.

In fact, many of the steps that can be taken to respond to the serious dislocations global warming will cause make eminently good independent economic sense. The development of high mileage internal combustion engine cars, or alternative clean-energy vehicles such as hybrid automobiles or all-electric cars, would reduce pollution and dependence on oil imports. The research needed to achieve this objective could be led by the American automobile industry and even subsidized by a civilian equivalent to DARPA. And just imagine what other benefits would flow from a dedicated wave of research into lighter and stronger materials, more efficient and lighter weight batteries or fuel-cell systems, and alternative fuel sources.

The same multiplier effect holds for other scientific endeavors into a variety of green technologies, among them: reduced energy light sources; more efficient heating and cooling designs and technologies; better mass transit systems; higher speed and more widely available communication services to support working from home; more effective traffic control systems to reduce congestion (and wasted energy); improved desalinization methods to cope with the loss of fresh water from mountain snow pack and glaciers or underground aquifers; global power grids to transport electricity from areas of excess to areas of need.

Indeed, a post-Sputnik-like response to climate change would inevitably spur innovation in seemingly unrelated terrain brought on by global warming, such as preparing for the inevitable increase in diseases caused by the side effects of severe weather and storm surges. Moreover, successful results could become the basis for valuable international economic trade since the uses for these ideas are not bound to their domestic origins.

The National Science Foundation, for example, could accelerate the development of curricular material to emphasize science, mathematics, and engineering in the interest of responding to climate change. The Internet can be used to disseminate this material and to share information globally to speed the research that is needed. Prize programs could be established to encourage research and experimentation in areas of specific need.

Considering the consequences of not responding to this planetary challenge, it seems inescapable that the United States can and must take a leadership role. We consume more resources and generate more greenhouse gases per capita than any other country. Other countries may soon exceed, in absolute terms, our contribution to global warming, and it is in our best interest to develop alternative technologies and to share them widely.

We responded effectively to Sputnik, and this is even more important. We can do it again.

Thursday, October 4, 2007. The climate is changing. Life on this planet is going to be dramatically affected. YOU HAVE BEEN WARMED!

Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.