In a previous post I mentioned my frustration with a piece by Gregg Easterbrook that recently appeared in TIME. A far better piece by the same author can be found right here and actually echoes many of the thoughts I've had, namely, that the single greatest obstacle to proper space program goals has always been funding. When, in 1980, Easterbrook mentioned that NASA had come up with a list of ideas of where to go after the moon, the shuttle was dead last. The reason? The others, (Mars, a lunar base, the space station) were all too expensive. The solution? Implement the cheapest idea, the shuttle. Unfortunately, even with the cheapest idea the cost ballooned and budget cutters began to reduce the goals of even the cheapest idea. This is the central issue: you can't have a big idea, cut the funding in half, and say that things will be 50% just as good. With the shuttle (which was born of budget cuts to begin with) you had a somewhat decent idea that, as the budgetary axe began to swing, grew less palatable. By the time the military abandone the shuttle as a way to launch satellites, almost all of the original reasons for shuttle construction were gone.

The international space station faces a similar future. Paired with the shuttle, the ISS can actually perform many useful experiments on a day-to-day basis. But cut the costs to 50% and you're once again gutting the program so that it can't even peform up to 10%. Reduce the operational crew from 7 to 3, and you can't do as many experiments to even justify the cost. Yet cost is still the prevailing issue behind all the space program problems. Only with full funding for all of NASA's desires can the space program attempt to rebuild itself. Let's hope that the moment for change is now.