CAPE CANAVERAL -- America's space program should embark on a plan to explore the solar system if it wants to keep the public excited and interested, space experts said this week.
Sending humans to the Moon, Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa, which scientists suspect is covered with water, could recapture the public's interest and enthusiasm for space exploration. It also could solve an age-old mystery: Are we alone in the universe?
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But acute budget problems and lack of political will have prevented NASA from pursuing expensive human expeditions back to the Moon or Mars. Instead, NASA focused its attention first on building a shuttle fleet after Apollo, and then on a space station.
Those projects are not enough for the American public, Wesley Huntress of the Carnegie Institute of Washington told the House Space Subcommittee.
And unless NASA pursues something more interesting to the public, government funding could fall along with public interest.
"Until we know where human spaceflight is going, it (NASA) will continue to struggle to find the support that it used to enjoy 30 years ago," Huntress said.
"Put simply, the public has an inborn interest in knowing if we are alone in the universe and whether there is now, or ever was, life elsewhere beyond the Earth."
Huntress' testimony was cast in the context of a $4 billion cost overrun on Space Station Alpha that either crippled or killed several NASA programs.
Marc Schlather, founder of the space lobbying firm ProSpace, said Wednesday that budget problems keep government officials from focusing on goals that are 10 to 20 years off.
Huntress also chastised NASA for letting the Saturn 5 and other Apollo-era technology pass into history.
"We have even forgotten how to go to the Moon -- we've thrown away all the hardware that got us there last time," Huntress said. "We need to learn to walk again before we run."
Ever since the Apollo Moon landings, NASA's vision has been confined to building a reusable spacecraft -- the shuttle fleet -- and a permanent space station.
Only robotic probes have ventured beyond Earth since 1972.
Excitement about probes such as 1997's Mars Pathfinder prove the American public wants true exploration from NASA, even if it does not mean going to Mars right away.
"It is possible to put together a plan for human space exploration that will find resonance with the public," he said.
But the cost to get to Mars may be too great right now.
Mars has long been an unofficial target for NASA, but research for human flights to the Red Planet was cut for at least two years to make up for station cost problems.
Robotic exploration of Mars has continued and will pick up again this weekend with the launch of Mars Odyssey from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Science fiction author Allen Steele also told the committee that NASA will be ready to send people to Mars soon after Alpha's completion.
"...Such a mission would be a major boost to both space science and international relations," he told the committee.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2001 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of
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