Synchronicity, or maybe just the luck of a vague clue about the issues, strikes today. I posted yesterday about a coming budget tension between space (defense, weapons, and exploration) and climate change mitigation. Well, today, Wired is displaying an article headlined: Bush Budget Funds NASA, Cuts EPA, by Luke O’Brien. The article suggests that we may see some of that argument rear its head over this budget.
It’s a “horns of a dilemna” choice: Our future depends on finding a way to fund both.
The new space race is the next cold war. The consequences of being left out, or losing balance so that we are threatened with space-based weapons we can’t defend against are unthinkable. On the flip side, what an opportunity — if we have the moral fortitude and negotiating skills — to create a better governance model!
The idea that getting to space will save the human race is just as dangerous. It is not an easy place to live. We must save our cradle, since virtually all of us that were born here will die here, and so will our children and our children’s children and…
The right answer is to start focusing on these issues, which are longer term, and to find some way, any way, to spend fewer resources on Iraq. If we don’t, this war may cost us our future. Literally. If we think potential terrorists in Iraq are bad, imagine space-based terrorists.