New space drive - the right thing to do

Space exploration is a fundamentally creative enterprise: A seemingly impossible problem is eventually surmounted by a combination of intelligence, courage, and ingenuity. Missions in space allow us to feel - if only vicariously - the creative energy that pushed Columbus and Magellan across oceans.

That kind of energy manifests itself only fleetingly today. Instead of pushing outward, we've adopted a siege mentality, addressing sinister threats by building formidable defenses. Our quest for security has curbed personal freedom with the natural consequence that imagination and dynamism are stifled.The ramparts we've built are supposed to protect our freedom, but where's the expression of that freedom, where are the manifestations of our greatness? Inside our concentric walls of security, one finds only shallow consumerism and stifling self-obsession. Could the current generation summon the dynamism that once put man on the moon?

It took 100,000 years for humans to learn to fly. Then, just 66 years after Kitty Hawk, Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. Now, nearly 35 years since his small step, all that has been achieved is a few dozen shuttle launches and some unmanned probes. The shuttle, a poor compromise between practicality and vision, symbolizes the sterility of our imagination. Its practical benefits - defined mainly by the military - could have been achieved so much more cheaply through a simpler system of unmanned missions. We've spent two decades repeating what we've long known how to do.

A new, more ambitious space program would provide a life-affirming quest. In contrast to Apollo, it would not be a race, but could instead be a collective effort by scientists and engineers around the world. Such a program could be justified by reference to the usual rationalizations, namely spinoff technologies and the need to explore. But it would also be an important symbolic gesture, an overt demonstration of cultural vitality. Put more crudely, it would be like blowing a raspberry at fundamentalism and bigotry. In that sense, it would indeed be a race - a race against darkness.

Mr. Bush seems to be thinking along these lines. Cynics have been quick to ridicule the plans, arguing that he's interested in a base for Star Wars Mark II, or that he's worried by recent Chinese lunar efforts. Others have suggested that Bush, unable to think of a Big Idea, borrows one from Kennedy. But it seems rather churlish to criticize a president for lacking vision and then to ridicule him when he tries to be visionary.

Critics always argue that money spent in space could be used more productively on earth - on poverty or education. But the connection between the two budgets isn't direct - money saved on one isn't automatically spent on the other. The '60s brought high space budgets and the Great Society. After 1975, NASA's budget was cut, but so, too, was welfare spending. In truth, the race to the moon was an indirect form of welfare, providing an enormous boost to education and employment.

Space exploration is a luxury, but an affordable one. Widely accepted estimates show that the moon mission from 1962 to 1972 cost $25 billion - less than any single year's budget for the Vietnam war. With $10 billion spent annually on computer games, Americans spend more on "Space Invaders" than on the space shuttle.

A manned mission to Mars has been estimated by various sources to cost as much as $400 billion. But that wouldn't be money shot just into space; the cutting edge technologies created by it would bring an overdue revitalization of industry. Compared with the billions squandered on a vague mission in Iraq, a mission to Mars seems cheap.

On a recent visit to the Kennedy Space Center, I was struck by a bizarre sight: Outside one of the buildings, two dozen vultures perched smugly on fence posts. While others saw big ugly birds, I saw an ominous metaphor for the decline of our space program.

But, then, inside the building I encountered a full-scale replica of Saturn V and Apollo, which together measure 360 feet long. It was impossible not to feel the pride and creative energy of the people who built those miraculous machines, and the men who flew them. They were people who believed in the possible and saw hope in the future. Where are they now?

• Gerard DeGroot is professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He's researching a new book on the Apollo mission to the moon.

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