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Column by David Mackey
January 22, 2004
Look out, Mars. Dubya's coming. Faced with unrest in Iraq, economic worries at home and a growing deficit, President Bush did the only logical thing: he decided to leave the planet. In Tuesday's State of the Union address, Bush proposed doubling NASA's budget to fund a permanent station on the moon and, one day, a manned mission to Mars, at a cost of more than $1 billion. One can't help but speculate as to Bush's motives. To the best of our knowledge, there is neither oil nor weapons of mass destruction on Mars. And Martians aren't known for their cheap migrant labor or fat campaign contributions, so I'm stumped. Mars (soon to be The Halliburton Red Planet Presented by Fox News) does have a few obvious advantages for Bush. No United Nations up there, few minorities, non-Christians or homosexuals to offend and, best of all, it's easy to pronounce. The last time America looked to the heavens for inspiration, we were engaged in another global clash of cultures, the Cold War. This nostalgic space challenge is merely a cheap, meaningless way to buy patriotism. It's a resume booster, a guaranteed applause line for stump speeches. Naturally, the space cowboy's plan raised more than a few eyebrows and a lot of hard questions. Why toss billions into the stratosphere while simultaneously cutting taxes, rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan and adding a monstrous prescription drug entitlement to Medicare on top of deficits that would already make a drunken Kennedy blush? Will this do anything to improve the lives of the American taxpayers (besides unemployed rocket scientists)? Will a Mars mission feed the hungry, house the homeless or educate disadvantaged children? But the most important question is the one no one is asking. Why is this any business of the government's? Read the Constitution. (It's that document that used to be the foundation of our law.) Nowhere is the government empowered to explore space, and the Tenth Amendment bars the feds from doing anything not expressly permitted. Of course, that hasn't stopped them since the days of FDR and the equally unconstitutional New Deal, so why quibble now? Mars may very well hold the answers to scientific secrets that could revolutionize technology and make all of our lives better -- which is why NASA should immediately be disbanded and its assets sold on the market. Space exploration should be funded by private investors risking their own money, not ours. It is unconscionable to force every taxpayer to pay for a nonessential project they may or may not support. So let's compromise. Bush can have Mars if he'll give us Earth. We'll even throw in some Tang. |
