In another post, I made a second argument about why we shouldn't continue the Shuttle or spend money on Constellation. This post is just for me to express my warning about using national pride to make decisions on science.
My first thesis is that national pride and research, as goals for space exploration and other scientific endeavors, are not compatible but instead in conflict. To see this, we need to look no further than the Apollo program.
I think it is clear that the Apollo program was developed to compete and win a space war against the Soviet Union. And what ensued was an ambitious and dangerous program that was ultimately successful at achieving its goal - landing on the moon before the Soviets.
But since national pride was the main goal, research tagged along but took a back seat. While on the moon, we did conduct some experiments. But it was clear that we were there for pride and once we were there, we didn't have long or medium term research goals. After all, our goal was to get there first.
And in fact, once we achieved the main goal, the tag-along goal of research didn't justify many return trips. We did just enough moon missions so it didn't look like all we wanted to do was touch down then never return.
And so I fear the same thing with a program to go back to the moon or to Mars. If it is national pride that drives us, we risk getting there too soon, spending too much money, then stopping because we aren't willing to spend that much money for undefined research goals.
To tie this back to my other post about the Shuttle, I think research needs to be our main priority. Otherwise, we spend too much just for bragging rights and research takes a back seat. And while we are spending all that money on bragging rights, we could have better spent that money on current defined research opportunities that are more within our reach.
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