My good friend has a post about the Space Shuttle. Instead of responding in his comments, I thought I would post a response on my blog. His post on the Shuttle is well-written. However, I very much disagree with it. (By the way, I talked this through this past weekend with someone my friend and I know well. This person shares my friend's opinion on the matter.)
His premise is that space exploration should continue through the Space Shuttle until an alternative is found. He says that research and national pride compensate for what he sees as marginal costs. I disagree with all of those points and more. Allow me to take you through my argument by topic.
The Shuttle
First, I want to describe the Shuttle. It is a very expensive and dangerous vehicle with a very limited capability - achieving low earth orbit. I think there is consensus that we can achieve low earth orbit more cheaply and more safely.
Costs
The costs of the Shuttle are far from marginal. If we trust Wikipedia (which I only do to a certain extent, but lack the time right now to validate it - fortunately I don't have to because my debate opponent does trust it), one space shuttle launch costs $450 million and the total average cost of a Shuttle trip is $1.5 billion. In the grand scheme of the federal budget, this is small - the annual Shuttle budget is much less than one percent.
However, if you think of other things this money could fund, I see it as a significant amount of money. For example, my back of the envelope calculation says one shuttle trip could instead be used to house maybe 45,000 homeless individuals. This is a rough estimate, so even half that to me would be more useful than sending the Shuttle into space anymore.
Or we could use the money to decrease class sizes in our most troubled schools. Or it could fund an increase in case workers for families in crisis. Or further increase funding on cancer research. The point is that in a system of limited funds, we have to make decisions between spending options based on our priorities. The Shuttle falls low on my priority list, as you'll see below.
Research
I believe that government should fund science and research and I don't think that we should always choose social services over science and research. But I don't see any examples of great research being done because of the Shuttle anymore. It has proven quite useful in the past, but my sense, and I'd be happy to hear evidence to the contrary, is that payoffs from research related to the Shuttle have plateaued.
Jobs
One more thing I want to mention - I have heard people talk about the jobs that have been lost as a result of this. While that is regrettable, jobs should never be a reason to continue any one program; it isn't a logical reason.
The jobs defense is too vague and can therefore be used to support anything (and often is - see prison closings, and unnecessary war planes). Instead, we need to decide if the particular thing is worth doing, and if not, the money should be moved into something else, which will then create different jobs.
Imagination / National Pride
I do not think we should be spending as much as we do on the Shuttle for national pride or to further the imagination of science fiction authors, their geek readers (including yours truly), or anyone else. And furthermore, the Shuttle isn't even inspiring people anymore. The only time it makes news is when it fails or takes on its last mission.
Where To Go From Here
Whether to continue the Shuttle is a no-brainer to me. The difficult question is what do we do in the future. Even if we continue the Shuttle for a few more years, we still have to decide whether we should have bigger ambitions - like going back to the moon or even mars. My gut tells me no - but I have more thinking to do.
I haven't seen the numbers, but I hear that either one of those things would be extremely expensive. Now, I think there can be research gains from doing something much more ambitious, but I am skeptical that they would justify the steep costs.
I am inclined to say that we should take a break on ambitious space exploration for the moment, give the private sector a chance to move the technology forward, and reassess in five years. In the meantime, we can use the savings for desperately needed government spending.
By the way, if you want to read what people smarter than me think, look at Bad Astronomy author Phil Plait's column in the NY Post or this article at Scientific American.
Update: For an example of a science / research project that I think definitely should be funded, look no further than the James Webb Space Telescope. Too bad Republicans think everything government does, even science, is bad. I wish the House of Representatives wasn't hijacked by uninformed extremists.
