Awhile back, then President Bush, announced his desire to rejuvenate the Space Program. Apparently, the plan is to have a station on the Moon by 2020 and people on Mars by 2030. And, this can all be done for $400,000,000,000. At the risk of sounding cynical I have to point out a conspicuous, but commonly overlooked fact. A $400,000,000,000 projection by the government may mean a $1,200,000,000,000 reality for the taxpayers. Do most people think this is realistic and does the average person believe this would be money well spent? There is an even more important question for us to ask. What could come from this to improve our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren?

The actual benefit of the space program to a planet of people, the majority of which are; at war, starving, suffering from self-induced diseases and just plain scared of what the so-called leaders are doing is questionable, to say the least.  But what baffles me most is of the few people I have mentioned this to, there is support for continued exploration of Space. People think this is okay?

Some years ago I watched a program about Mars. The people in this program were absolutely enthusiastic in their support for the continued exploration of Mars in spite of what they already knew. It is claimed that scientists have determined a meteor hit Mars 16 million years ago and knocked some of its landmass into space. They further concluded that 13 thousand years ago one of these pieces of Mars entered Earth’s atmosphere and was then found on Antarctica in 1984. That part is amazing to me, as I can’t begin to imagine how they can make those determinations.

So, what was the all the fuss about? Apparently, in 1984 a rock was found on the ice; it was bagged and stored. Then, after about a decade, someone decided it looked like other samples presumed to have come from Mars, and it should be studied. They probed and studied it for years. They discovered what they believed might be signs of life on early Mars. You have to magnify these specimens 100,000 times to be able to see them and then you can make out what appears to be the fossils of segmented worms. But, after much time and even more money they backed off from the early predictions of proof of life on Mars. Now they say, ‘maybe not.’

Turns out many of the specimens which are studied are gathered each year from Antarctica through expeditions funded by several agencies, including NASA. Specifically, these expeditions are paid with taxpayer’s money to walk around looking for interesting rocks to bag and bring back. Apparently, this has been the routine for quite some time.

So, in the mid 90’s there was a lot of excitement in the scientific community about possibly having evidence that there is, or was, life on Mars. Perhaps it leaned more toward ‘was life on Mars’ because a Mars mission in the mid 70’s determined there were no organic molecules on the surface of the planet.  But, this did not seem to deter anyone as they have continued to fire rockets at Mars ever since. Sadly, they have continued in earnest for the last few decades, trying to get more information on a planet basically determined to be lifeless in the 70’s.

Can we justify spending money like this? I may have missed something important, but the way I see it, this country is on the verge of ruin, in many ways. The America I grew up in is being pared like it is the product of a hostile takeover. Kids are even starting to worry about their future here. America is heavily indebted to foreign countries around the globe and we have been informed it is so bad we won’t get the Social Security we have paid into all of our working lives. The air, water and food are becoming more polluted and we may be experiencing the effects of global warming. We can’t afford homes anymore. Benefits are becoming a thing of the past, as are good jobs. The rich are getting richer and the working class is getting poor. Medical coverage for everyone—forget it! I could go on all day in this vein, but I think I have made my point.

Consider for a minute what this all means. Just in the Mars portion of the space program you will find approximately 18 attempts have been made to launch rockets to Mars between 1964 and 2005. And with all the billions of dollars spent; the success of these missions, the contribution to humankind, can be measured in the quantity of photographs returned. Some of the early successful missions returned 21 photographs—I shudder to think how much each of those photos cost the taxpayers. Of course, by the end of the twentieth century we were getting back thousands of photos. I say we, but I had no say in the matter and I didn’t get any of the photos either. So someone gets thousands of photos for the billions of dollars and the lost lives offered up for such misguided endeavors as these, all in the name of progress and technology.

What progress, may I ask? What improvements has the space program brought to the lives of the average person? If I were feeling a little facetious, I might say ‘Teflon coated skillets.’ I am being facetious because Teflon didn’t come from the Space Program. Yes, I have heard many people say a lot of technology came to us from the space program. In my opinion that does not validate anything. To begin with one may rightly ask, in fact intelligently ask, how has most technology really improved life on earth? And if you could somehow conclude it has, I think it would be easy to argue the same thing could have been accomplished just for the sake of improved technology—without a space program. By the way, there is a technology which did improve life on some parts of the Earth. Plumbing! Check history, you may find this technology has eliminated more disease than everything else combined.

I was in the military when America put a man on the moon. What did we learn and how has humanity profited from that? One thing we do know for sure is that it is not made of green cheese! Is there something else we now know because a man landed on the moon? I mean something worth knowing, something with real value, you know, something helping you and your family in important ways? Something worth all the lost lives, the ruined lives, the waste of natural resources, the additional pollution and the billions of dollars wasted while many people suffered and starved? Do we have a new source of food and natural resources we are shuttling from the Moon? Are there colonies of people on the Moon right now developing wonder drugs in low gravity? I’m a bit of a pessimist on this one.

So, after spending billions of dollars while people go without food, shelter and soon, Social Security, someone has thousands and thousands of pictures of Mars. Well, what about those pictures of Mars? What has been learned? What do we know of the ’magnificent planet?’ (Not my words, just one of the sparkling monikers a scientist is apt to use when describing Mars and its continued exploration.) Scientists will tell you of all the planets in the Solar System, Mars has the most potential. The rest of the planets are just absolutely hostile to human life—uninhabitable. So this leaves Mars as the potential ‘oasis in space’ for human habitation.

What about this place? Mars is a little smaller than Earth with about one-third the gravity. The temperature on Mars is anywhere from minus 220 to minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmosphere is just the opposite of ours, what there is of it. On Earth we have about 78% nitrogen, Mars has 2.7%. On Earth there is less than 1% Carbon Dioxide, on Mars it is 95%. There is no water on the surface; there is no plant life, there is no animal life. Humans can adapt to some lousy conditions, but I don’t think we can adapt to this! Yeah, they will probably make some interesting proposals about how they will terraform this ‘potential oasis’ into a real life ‘Garden of Eden’ for another $1,000,000,000,000 or so. We can’t even keep the air clean on this planet, and this planet has evolved for billions of years to produce large volumes of just exactly the air we need. None the less though, they will still try to convince us they can make all the air and water we need—but only on other planets—not here. Sadly, they will convince enough people to have their way—and more money and lives will be wasted.

I wonder what stories were being fabricated about the Moon in the 60’s. What did they say about that dry, lifeless, still-unoccupied hunk of dirt which seemed so important to so many at that time? What can be said to make it seem as though all the lives, resources and money sacrificed for that effort were justifiable? Sadly, the Moon program had a lot to do with the very childish motivation of beating the Russians. And this was from the top down.

Some of the phrases used to describe the Mars landscape are; Death Valley, Mono Lake, Channeled Scabland in Washington, permafrost in Siberia and Antarctica and volcanoes in Hawaii. I think we should invest in property on Mars right away. Sounds like it could develop into a real-estate bubble at anytime.

By the way a round trip to Mars, at the speeds we can travel now, is between one and two years. I wonder how long it would take to get enough lumber to Mars to build malls and subdivisions, commuting at those speeds. I suppose we better find a planet close to Mars that is full of trees, because we won’t have trees on Earth for that job.

I am only hoping some people who are open to sensible thinking may consider whether we, as a society, can make sense out of supporting this type of endeavor. Fact is! Mars is a big chunk of lifeless dirt, just like the Moon, and I would rather spend what little resources, energy and money we have left trying to do something on this planet. I suppose in my way of thinking the grandiose plans should be reserved for when we have solved the serious problems. Just ask someone who is poor, sick or just not going to benefit directly from the space program, as in no job or fame, what they think of spending money exploring such things.

You know folks, we have problems! And as I talk to people, I sense awareness, but I detect a reluctance to talk about it. As if ignoring it will make it go away. I am tired and fed up with being lied to and taken advantage of. There is another stratum of people who make the decisions affecting our lives, our children’s lives and our country. And those decisions are generally being made to benefit those deciding. If we don’t wake up and change the way things are going, someday it will be too late.

There is plenty to fix right here, and dealing with the Space Program is not the total answer, but it is a start. I always point out if we can’t solve the small problems we will have no chance with the big ones. In this case, deciding if large amounts of money are going to continue being wasted exploring lifeless, useless objects is a simple problem. A few hundred years ago Jefferson said (paraphrased), if the common folk don’t stay involved in the happenings of government, government will run amuck. Well, we didn’t and it has.

I’ll tell you something—those nice folks in government need our help. They are in over their heads and don’t know what to do. I’m sure they must sense they are hanging on by their teeth as the condition of the country and the planet continues to decline. So we need to let them know we only want them to do things that make sense for the majority and if they continue to support foolishness they will be replaced. I do not wish to support foolishness, so in no particular order, I picked this foolishness first—and there are plenty more to go.

The thing disturbing me most in all this is so many common working people in this country are willing to support this kind of activity. It is simple, will the people of this country, including the next few generations, benefit from exploring Mars and can the country afford it? Those with the power may be able to foist their junk on the younger generation, because they just don’t know better yet. But, for those of us who were here in the middle of the last century, there should be no question. Aside from the potential rewards to a small percentage of the people who are looking for riches and glory, nothing important will be accomplished in the continued quest for Mars—just as nothing important was accomplished in the quest for the Moon.

Will we ever learn from history?