Spending Priorities: Super Trains vs. Manned Space Program
By Michael Boyajian
With concern growing about our government’s deficit spending many are wondering if we have to chose between government programs. Two programs that may face each other for federal dollars are the super train network and the manned space program.
Well I am all in favor of the glorious march into space and love the history of our landing on the moon driven my President John F. Kennedy’s immortal statement to carry out the endeavor within the decade. But there must be a reason to land on the moon. Yes, it’s true as the second man to step on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, has said that it took us ten years to land on the moon and in the ensuing four decades we have done almost nothing in the way of space exploration. We certainly have not met the dreams of our science fiction writers, there is no 2001 story out there or Space 1999.
But we need more of a reason to put men and women into space other than to land on the Moon or Mars just to plant a flag and beat our chest. Look at the early explorers. They didn’t sail the globe to prove the Earth was round. They went in search of riches, of a passage to India, a northwest passage to the Pacific.
That is what we have to determine from the manned space program. What riches will it provide for humanity? Now I will include scientific gains as a treasure, after all I still mourn the passing of the planned super collider in Texas back in the 1980s. The question then becomes can the same scientific gain be obtained through unmanned missions. For examples of this one can look to the fruits reached from the Hubble Telescope or the Mars Rovers. Prove to me that you will colonize the planets so as to free humanity to its captivity to Earth or to mine the solar system for minerals that will advance civilization and I am on board.
On the other hand we have the super train network proposed by President Obama. Almost immediately this program will create visible construction jobs as tracks are laid and blue collar jobs as trains are built linking New York City to Buffalo in a matter of hours or points in Florida to one another, L.A. to San Francisco, Chicago to the Midwestern heartland even a triangle system between Austin, Houston and Dallas. The super train will improve the economies of the places that it links, boost tourism and take polluting energy consuming automobiles off the road easing congestion on the nation’s highways and lowering the strain on our airports, all while easing climate change.
So the choices are on the table and require a balancing to determine which gets the priority when it comes to spending. Perhaps each get a little bit of both based on the impact they make on humanity and the economy. That might just be the Solomon like solution to the conundrum of government spending.
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