by Ray Peters

Created on: November 16, 2009

Why space?

Space exploration, be it by manned or unmanned vehicles seems exotic and disconnected from the concerns of the ordinary American citizen. Many wonder why we spend billions to get images of other worlds which seem impossibly remote or risk human lives to collect a few rocks.

This narrow view is characteristic of the current apathy of the general public. It is reinforced by the disinterest of the popular media and lackluster governmental support.

Note that this wasn't always the case. During NASA's golden era of the 60's and early 70's public interest was high, and the media was all over the space program. The federal government also expended huge amounts of money on the space program - particularly the Apollo Project.

Then there came the success of Apollo 11 in July of 1969. It was one of the most important events in human history and saw human beings standing on the surface of another celestial body for the first time, and to be fair, it was covered in extensive detail by the media.

But almost immediately, nearly everyone lost interest - after all, we'd done it, beaten the Soviets to the Moon, and fulfilled the dream of JFK. What no one, the general public, politicians, or the media realized is that the Apollo Program was more than just landing men on the Moon; it was intended to be the first of many future efforts that would eventually see humans traveling to Mars, and beyond.

But the public did (and does) have a short memory. With Vietnam raging with no end in sight, and with civil unrest and other issues moved to the front page, the exploration of space faded from the spotlight. Gradually the infrastructure established to land man on the Moon was reduced to lobbing space shuttles into low Earth orbit, and the follow-on programs that might have seen humans standing on the surface of Mars by the end of the 1980's were discarded. Even the technological marvel that is the space shuttle is only a shadow of its original incarnation and never did deliver on its promise to dramatically reduce space transportation costs.

Still, even with a continuously shrinking budget, NASA has managed some impressive feats; such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars rovers which stir the imagination with their imagery of remote locales and the International Space Station (ISS), our first large scale habitat in space, and all with a budget representing only two tenths of a percent of the US Gross Domestic Product.

Then in 2004, President George W. Bush called

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