The nobility of the above stated reasons for cutting human spaceflight here is not in question. The reality of what such cuts would actually be used for...should be questioned.

The usual arguments for manned spaceflight, such as it employs people right here on Earth, or its our manifest destiny, will not be expanded upon here. They too, are the usual and just as valid arguments.

The problem is, there are compelling reasons as to why critics of manned spaceflight have failed to make their case, particularly since 1973 when deep NASA manned spaceflight budget cuts began after Apollo.

We have actually lived a three decade period in which the critics against manned spaceflight arguments should have been proven. NASAs record budget was 1965...not 1995, nor is any record budget planned for 2005.

There are those who state that "If we can land a man on the moon, we can...fill in the blank". America no longer has the full technical infrastructure required to send humans to the moon. If America decided to return to the moon, it would take a minimum of five to seven years to put people on the moon as a result of putting such an infrastructure in place...and that's being optimistic!

Human spaceflight should not exist solely on the basis of how it benefits taxpayers directly.

Ending human spaceflight completely is what some of the human space flight critics apparently want based on the fact they still complain after three decades of no effectively applied budget cut savings.

In Barnharts "Re-Thinking Manned Space" commentary, he says a human mission to Mars will cost $1 trillion with a "T" as he put it. He provided no data to back that claim up.

The highest serious estimate for a human Mars mission was that proposed by NASA for the George Bush Sr Administration for $500 billion.

This plan was proposed in 1989.

$500 billion is beyond reason and Congress let the Bush administration know this. However, estimates for getting a crew to Mars and possibly setting up a small outpost are far lower.

Robert Zubrin, an engineer who pioneered his living off the land concept known as "Mars Direct" believed and to some degree, supported it with data, demonstrating that it could be done for possibly as little as $20 billion.

Of course, once you get NASA and others involved, the price goes up, but even NASA has never publicly proposed a trillion dollar Mars mission! The sixties Johnson Space Flight studies estimated the price tag for such a mission to be in the $100 billion range in 1969-70 (Less than $500 billion in 2002 dollars).

Its probably in actuality, doable for around $75 billion.

An inflation calculator can be used to convert the data, it is available to anyone with internet access here.

Another assertion by David and other critics is that NASA somehow knew it was selling a bad bill of goods back in the early seventies when it sold Congress on the shuttle.

What is almost never pointed out by the critics is that the shuttle was all that the Nixon Administration would approve and with a $5.5 billion dollar (In 1971 dollars) cap!

It was thought that the shuttle would economically open the doors to a space station, lunar and mars missions among other, more mundane missions.

NASA sold the shuttle because they were trying, as they still are, to get away from throwaway rockets that critics then thought too expensive.

The shuttle made economic sense in 1972 and just as we cannot foresee all aspects of future plans now, we certainly could not foresee them at that time.

The Vietnam war was also cited as a reason for NASA funding cuts in the early seventies...what a waste the Vietnam war was!

Its time some of these critics took responsibility for what they are claiming. We have what we have because substantial segments of the public and Government have not had the will to properly fund NASA.

That is not to say American taxpayers should give NASA blank checks.

Indeed, NASA could use some lessons in how not to estimate projects based on the cost overruns associated with the shuttle and ISS.

The blank check scenario is another popular NASA budget myth perpetrated by critics who blanket state that Apollo was provided a blank check. If this were true, why did Apollos 18 through 20 have to be canceled?

To say nothing of planned lunar bases.

Fact is, budget estimates for Apollo from the early sixties indicated that Apollo would range in cost from twenty to forty billion dollars. The Apollo program was budgeted based on these estimates, not on blank check promises.

The peak funding for Apollo was about $5.5 billion in 1965-66 which works out to over $30 billion today. NASA gets about $15 billion annually...haven't we saved enough money from cutting NASA? Where are the tangible benefits from the NASA cuts of the past three decades? That's the question taxpayers ought to be asking!

Recall critics often claimed money from NASA cuts would be used to end poverty, house the homeless, cure diseases...since the big drop in NASA funding starting around 1973, poverty continues to be a problem that has shown no real improvement. The homeless, plenty of that to go around, and diseases are doing just fine. In fact, since 1973 some new ones (AIDS) have appeared and previously treatable diseases have mutated to become resistant to treatment.

The least expensive program reasonably possible will not satisfy those who simply want the manned space program to end. Its not possible to have a cheap and totally safe human spaceflight program with foreseeable near term technologies.

An example of this is that these same arguments were heard after Apollo and cries to have the program benefit man on Earth could be heard as the justification for reduced spending. Skylab was partly advertised as benefiting taxpayers directly even though its primary mission was solar science.

Safety was not as major an issue before the shuttle because Apollo did not last long enough to produce more than one catastrophe.

For critics who claim we should utilize cost effective robotic missions, this is exactly what was done during the nineties with missions such as Mars Pathfinder. Pathfinder was an enormous success promoted under the "Better, faster, cheaper" slogan.

These missions were highly promoted because the loss of one or two missions was not as expensive as loosing say, a single "billion dollar" Viking class mission.

That is, until the twin Mars probe debacles (Mars climate orbiter and Polar lander) which were actually a loss of less proportions in terms of cost than a Viking class probe would have been. But some of the very proponents of these better faster cheaper missions could be heard screaming about the monetary loss once it actually occurred.

These critics were a substantial part of why "Better, faster, cheaper" came to exist to begin with.

In addition, robot probes cannot do as much as humans in certain situations. No better example of this exists than the Viking Mars missions. Billion dollar babies that were equipped to seek out life on the red planet.

No doubt Viking did all of its tasks well, except one, the one that was the primary reason for sending it, the search for life on Mars.

When they landed and data began showing evidence for possible organic activity, the scientists who rightfully decided it could be a chemical reaction rather than a sign of life, demonstrated the shortcomings of robotic exploration.

Indeed, the Viking missions actually contributed to lack of Mars exploration for the two decades following the missions.

Robots are good for some missions, including something say, as hazardous as landing on Jupiter's moon Io. Robot probes are also good for mapping, and other science investigations.

The one mission in which humans are required would be a journey to Mars. Only humans can ascertain what constitutes living organisms as opposed to chemical reactions.

The whole reason for a human Mars mission should be to set up a base primarily devoted to the search for Martian organisms or fossil remains.

For those who believe NASA has lost its way, humans to Mars to search for life is what manned spaceflight should be about in the near term.

NASA knows this, as evidenced by their own endless in house studies.

It seems unlikely that NASA has lost its way.

Its more like, we as a society have lost our will!

As mentioned in "Human Spaceflight: At The Crossroads" we should not be justifying manned spaceflight solely for how it directly benefits the man on the street immediately. No other program of scientific research is expected to do this.

Case in point, one may recall the sixties when it was thought mankind would begin to have a large presence such as cities under the oceans.

To this day oceanic presence is still relatively small and expensive (Though not space budget sized) and is not being asked to directly and immediately benefit Joe taxpayer.

Critics also seem to believe we should wait till space exploration matures to the point where it is safe and economical. How can this occur if human spaceflight is ended?

One cannot reach the top of the stairway by skipping the middle steps!

Fact is, it may take decades to see the true returns from manned space activities. Returns such as industrialization of low Earth orbit and/or the moon which would alleviate some of the environmental concerns associated with industrial activity here on Earth.

We may yet discover an earth-like world around a nearby star system.

Such a discovery could be less than a decade away. If it can also be shown such a world has advanced life forms, the discovery of the ages, then manned spaceflight may finally appeal to its critics.

America is a vastly wealthy Nation and we can afford properly budgeted manned spaceflight.

But for now....since many out there seem to think we as a Nation can afford everything but human spaceflight...lets take a look and assume that we cannot afford human spaceflight:

We can therefore afford multibillion dollar budget deficits!

(The Government has been deficit spending since 1969 until the Clinton Administration surpluses. We are now back to deficit spending).

We can afford the $12 billion Medicare could not find in the late 1990s and had the gall to say they did better than the previous two years (The 1996 loss was some $23 billion dollars)!

Orlando Sentinel report, February 10, 1999.

We can afford the Reagan era S & L bailout in the hundreds of billions over a thirty year period, which at last report, we as taxpayers were still paying for.

Oh yeh, did I mention the above mentioned taxpayer expenditures are far more important than human spaceflight!

No wonder we cannot afford human spaceflight!

Much less apply any savings from NASA cuts to disease, poverty, and social programs designed to alleviate those conditions.

We better eliminate human spaceflight so we can afford more deficit spending, More Medicaid, and other Government screw-ups and bailouts including $600 hammers and toilet seats for the DOD.

The places we could save money have barely been touched upon here.

If critics are really so concerned about actually saving money. In fact, billions from NASA funding reductions since the Apollo program could have already been used to directly benefit taxpayers.

However, the Medicaid loss alone wiped out approximately three years of potential NASA budget savings. NASA is funded annually at about $15 billion. Just the above reported Medicaid loss was two, maybe three times the annual NASA budget...Oh yeh baby, were saving taxpayer money now!

The S & L bailout cost approximately $500 billion which is over three times the amount spent on human space flight in its entirety since its inception in 1958 (Creation of NASA when funding for project Mercury began).

Guess we cannot cure cancer and end poverty this decade!

We can afford to spend $20 billion annually on human space flight (Recalling peak funding is equivalent to over $30 billion in todays dollars) until private industry is finally able to take over.

Indeed, NASA should assist in this transition. But to do so, they first have to bring the cost of getting into space down to levels where private industry will invest in manned space activity.

But I could be wrong, the critics who wish to end manned spaceflight because its too costly, could be right. Maybe were better off with S & L bailouts, and deficit spending.

Criticisms, questions, or comments can be directed to me at [email protected]

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