Back in the 90's, I was among those who who protested the launch of the Saturn-bound Cassini probe. Problem was, it was powered by a big honkin' piece of unbelievably toxic plutonium that, in the event of a disaster during liftoff, could end up sprinkled out over half a continent.
But there were others protesting it for a broader reason, and that reason was on display in some liberal blog posts complaining about the recent lunar mission that ended in a piece of the probe crashing into a lunar crater. The idea was to analyze the dust kicked up in the impact with an eye towards finding ice crystals that would both enhance our understanding of Earth's nearest neighbor, but impact long term discussions about returning to the moon someday (they found none).
Lisa Derrick at the generally sensible national blog Firedoglake bemoaned our “explod(ing) a bomb into the Moon,” and was echoed by the usually dependable former Vermont State Representative Chris Pearson at the Prog Blog, in asking “Ah, are we really bombing the Moon? Yes, yes we are.”
“This hardly passes the straight face test,” Pearson complained, without elaboration. The closest thing to a clear argument seemed to be the following: “Given our dramatic national debt and frightening economic times is this really the best use of community resources?”
To Derrick, it was all about the aesthetics of “bombing” the moon. It was icky. SO American, to bomb things. Of course, to bomb something, one generally needs… well, a bomb. A bomb is defined as “a projectile, formerly usually spherical, filled with a bursting charge and exploded by means of a fuze, by impact, or otherwise, now generally designed to be dropped from an aircraft.”
There was, of course, no explosive charge to this project, hence, the moon was not bombed. Period. Derrick, Pearson and many others decided that it was more important to elicit a visceral reaction that might reactively put readers on their side before they even read the details, than to present their case rationally.
From a coldly strategic perspective, you can't blame them. They are, in fact, asking people to join them in straight-up anti-science. The presumably educated readers of their respective sites are not unfamiliar with anti-science silliness, they're just used to seeing it in its more stereoptypical form; right wing creationism and the like.
But let's look at Pearson's presumed thesis and leave the moon-bombing hyperbole for a moment. That this project should be held to a standard of whether or not it's the “best” use of resources, demanding it justify itself against other programs (programs we are to infer it is bleeding resources from).
You remember when parents used to tell their kids to finish their vegetables because of those starving kids in Africa? That's the logic in play here. It's no different. If we spend less money on science, it doesn't then follow that those funds automatically go to feeding the hungry or health care for all. Imagine, for a moment, if that logic were applied evenly and consistently, and every bit of taxpayer spending became a Schindler's List moment. Repave the road? You'll let a dozen kids starve. Somehow I doubt that Pearson applied this reasoning when he cast his vote for, for example, The “Do Not Mail” anti-junk mail bill.
The fact is that we all – left, right, center and whatever – see government as being responsible for certain things. We don't hierarchicalize all of those things or put them up against each other in our worldview – we expect government to do its part for all of them. On the left, one of those priorities is education, and education is about more than teaching elementary school – its also about educating ourselves. Science left exclusively to the private sector will only lead to science for profit, and that's why promoting science (along with the arts and the humanities) has always been a part of any rational, civilized and responsible government's role in promoting education. Always.
Do we need to keep an eye towards priorities? Of course. Science should not take more than a modest portion of our budget as compared to social services and infrastucture. Do we want to avoid frivolous spending on science? Absolutely. Should we try to be as cost-effective as possible on publicly funded scientific projects? Unquestionably.
This lunar project met all of those criteria. Every last one. It was efficient, relatively inexpensive, and was a significant effort to expand our understanding of our natural satellite that could lead to more scholarship, and practical applications down the road. It is not simply an example of the kind of science our government should be funding, its an example of that kind of science done well.
Obviously this has hit a nerve of mine (which is generally what it takes to get me blogging about anything, of course), but I think it's worth calling out this line of rhetoric. The next time we feel just a little too cocky when we look down with scorn on anti-evolution numbskulls in Mississippi, we'll all have a couple examples to remind us that anti-science blather isn't necessarily bound to any geographical or partisan borders.
I’ve always noticed an a version to NASA and space science on the left, namely for 2 reasons. First, because, unfortunately a lot of it is linked inextricably with the defense department, and second, because of that “money could go somewhere else” thing (which, of course, it wouldn’t). I think space exploration is important for bettering human knowledge, more than anything else.
Terrific post. Science is critical, as is the ability of the public to understand and construct reasonable arguments. Both demand a well educated electorate. We are certainly missing the boat on both science and education.
There is a fine bar chart that breaks down government spending by department at: http://www.federalbudget.com/.
The biggest component of our federal budget is HHS, which manages the key federal programs that are so important to actual people.
The next big ticket item is defense, which is also important, but vastly over sized when compared to Department of State. That’s direct comparison of war and peace, and shows we spend far too much on the war side of the equation.
The next big spender is Treasury, which is fattened by debt service, which is itself a massive program of wealth transfer.
Everything else pales in comparison to the big three. NASA is but a tiny blip, as is the National Science Foundation.
The blog post is correct that NASA isn’t taking money from other social programs, but rather is being squeezed by HHS, Defense, and debt service. We have our priorities wrong.
It’s really true that the last bit of Puritanism in the left is our disapproving of exploration and racing.
People are going to take risks, whether we like it or not. And, people are going to make heroes out of risk takers, too. Exploration and racing are always better than war, and can be productive.
Exploration can be unproductive, as in mountain climbing, or can yield a wealth of information, as in Lewis and Clark, or NASA.
Racing is the same. NASCAR races carbureted dinosaurs to sell cars, while Audi races a diesel sports car head to head against gas engines, and wins the race to build a better car.
The defense industry is up to its ears in racing, and exploration, but they are interested in most anything. During the 60s and 70s, the Defense Dept. was the primary funder of linguistics research.
Taking risks and learning are not the problem. It’s where we take the risk, and what we do with knowledge.
the insistence on using an old definition of ‘bomb’. Kinetic weapons are used nowadays (see this Wikipedia entry for a good start): they are a part of our wars.
Kinetic weapons are in active use either by themselves or in conjunction with explosives of one sort or another. Of course then the problem becomes one of trying to find a technology that some warmonger hasn’t wanted to turn against people.