The Patriot News, 
Harrisburg, Pa., 
Wednesday, July 26, 1989 -- p. A11

[Note: my personal opinion: U.S. should have gone straight to the Moon, not
build a space station.  The prospects of a permanent manned presence on the Moon
would be an inspiration to many Americans and would point the way toward the
commercial use of space resources in a livable low-gravity environment. 
--Steve Carabello]

Staring into space: U.S. should go straight to Mars, not pause at moon

By Thomas Taschinger 
Cox News Service

	WELL NOW, let's see:

	George Bush has proposed a bold new program for America to recapture the
lead in space and put an astronaut on Mars. (Thunderous cheers from his
audience! Roars of approval!)

	... But instead of going directly to Mars, he wants to return to the moon
first ... a process that will put many years and many dollar bills between now
and the first footfall on the red planet. (Muted applause; quizzical looks
exchanged within the crowd.)

	... And he doesn't offer any real timetable for a plan that will take three
or four decades ... so even if he is re-elected and completes his second term of
office, the vast majority of the effort and expense still lie ahead. (Scattered
hand-clapping; unsettled murmuring begins in the back rows.)

	... And since some members of Congress are already hostile to the plan ...
the long-term prospects of seeing this proposal brought to fruition ... begin to
fizzle before Bush leaves the podium. (Disappointed silence from the assembled
guests, punctuated only by the sound of one hand clapping.)

	Actually, there's nothing really wrong with the three main elements of the
Bush plan - completing the space station Freedom, establishing a permanent lunar
base and landing on Mars. All represent things that should be accomplished by
NASA at one time or another.

	BUT THE APPROACH to reach the final goal - Mars, the real prize - is so
cautious and methodical that it's virtually doomed to major tinkering and delays
over the years - or outright cancellation. Instead of boldly charging at a well-
defined target the public and Congress could support, we're tip-toeing into the
future by taking two steps forward and one back. (And excuse me, but putting Dan
Quayle in charge of the kickoff phase sounds like a sick joke.)

	By pausing at the moon instead of plunging directly toward Mars, Bush is
giving NASA's opponents two fat, juicy targets: time and money. With the lunar
colony thrown in, the whole project could cost something like $400 billion over
several decades.

	Think what the many congressional advocates of giveaway schemes and ...
"entitlement" programs can do with that. They will be constantly carping about
how costly it is - even though it is but a fraction of our overall federal
budget and often returns as much to the economy as it takes away.

	Moreover, they will be doing it year after year - even though a wealthy
nation such as ours really doesn't have to choose between a space program or aid
to the needy. With prudence and common sense, we can do both.

	Eventually, unless Congress (and future presidents) develop a broad
consensus of support for our space program - something that existed only for
Apollo, and briefly at that - the whole plan stands a good chance of being bled
to death from a thousand pinpricks.

	The same day Bush announced his proposal - Thursday's 20th anniversary of
the first moon landing - the naysayers in Congress already started showing their
distinct lack of enthusiasm.

	Sen. Al Gore. D-Tenn., the most moderate of the Democrats' last bunch of
presidential candidates, sniffed that Bush presented .... not a challenge to
inspire us but a daydream to briefly entertain us."

	And even if we can undertake a huge leap of faith and get the beginning of
Bush's program funded, apparently none of the presidential advisers bothered to
think about the following scenario:

	The effort stumbles along in fits and starts because it is so vaguely
defined and costly and time-consuming. Every now and then, Congress threatens to
pull the plug on the whole thing and turn the Johnson Space Center into a
shelter for the homeless. The on-again, off-again funding and support delay the
program even further . . . thus engendering more criticism ... thus slowing
progress even more, etc.

	While we're bogged down somewhere in the early 21st century on Phase II - a
base on the moon - the Russians or the Europeans or the Japanese cheerfully wave
goodbye to us as their Mars mission leaves Earth orbit.

	WITH THE LURE of getting there first now gone, many Democrats (and a few
Republicans) ask why we should continue at all. Faced with the prospect of
spending several more billions and waiting several more years to do what has
essentially already been done, the winner of the presidential election in 2012
reluctantly calls the whole thing off.

	When all is said and done, somebody else has climbed the Mount Everest of
space exploration and we're right where we were waaayyy back in the 1960s - on
the moon.

	No, Mr. President, the shortest distance between two points or planets is a
straight line. Let us go directly to Mars in an Apollo-type program; do not stop
at our single moon or the two Martian moons or any of the secondary targets.

	Then, after we've won the only race of consequence in space exploration, we
can return to the moon at our leisure. We can set up all the mining stations and
scientific experiments we want, and we can take our time -and do it right.

	And in all seriousness, support for a Mars mission can be broadened
tremendously by making sure that all segments of American society are
represented in the first crew - not just white males as with Apollo. By letting
minorities and women know that they have just as much a stake in this effort as
anyone, we can help unite the country behind a single great goal and strike a
hammer blow at the last vestiges of prejudice.

	Heck, if the first four-person crew is made up of a white Jewish geologist,
a black Protestant female physician, a Hispanic Catholic male pilot and an
Asian-American Buddhist female astronomer, we might even get liberal Democrats
to support it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Taschinger is editorial page editor of the Port Arthur (Texas) News.