It looks like NASA has presented the budget, and potential mission costs, in such a way as to send most of the board of decision makers into "sticker shock." This means that while they have listed the Europa Mission as PRIORITY #2, the cost is so high as to be prohibitive of approval. In these uncertain economic times, I am not - let me be clear - trying to advocate a bigger national debt in order to foot the bill for these missions. However, I have the distinct impression that the lack of budget will result in NASA just maintaining what they've got going on (which is??) and "maintenance" never got us very far.
And while the missions above are unmanned, I would make the case that eventually (and preferably sooner) we're going to have to send actual humans. There is no substitution. "We should not abandon the achievements and technology of manned space exploration, accumulated over the past 50 years. We should build on them, and this will require that we keep planning and carrying out manned flights."
And this is why we need to get our collective butts into space. Not only life but also a place to LIVE.
As a reminder, I will be in Denton, Texas on April 16th for a book fair. Come one, come all!
North Texas Book Fair
Center for Visual Arts
400 E. Hickory
From 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
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