Obama's Space Policy

On the idea of Obama being President of the United States, there is one aspect of his way of thinking that I think is such a bad idea that it, alone, quite nearly disqualifies him as President as far as I am concerned.

Obama proposes significant cutbacks to Nasa’s budget, significantly postponing its manned space flight program, in order to free up money for his other programs.

I believe that there is one area in which there is a massive gap between the thinking of an atheist (such as myself) and anybody who believes in God. Those who believe in God believe that we are under the watchful eye of a benevolent and omnipotent being who is not going to let anything seriously harm the human race. There is, for all practical purposes, zero chance of human extinction. There may be a ‘rapture’ or some similar event, but this is not human extinction so much as humanity (or much of it) moving into a new neighborhood, and absolutely nothing that we should be trying to prevent.

As an atheist, I hold that we live in a universe that is entirely indifferent to our survival – a universe that could wipe humanity out in the blink of an eye without a second of remorse, because it needs no remorse. The universe has a lot of ways to do this too – from a new disease, to gamma-ray bursts, to a collision with a large rock, to massive solar flares, to ecological collapse.

Our survival is not guaranteed. So, I advocate the philosophy that the first priority should be to ensuring human survival. People who do not appreciate this fact do not appreciate the value of programs that will have the most measurable effect on preserving our species. The best way to preserve our species is to put an end to the current situation in which we have all of our human eggs in one basket, and to disburse those eggs somewhat. That is the only way that the destruction of Earth will not take humanity itself with it.

Does this sound melodramatic?

It is simple math – as easily proved as anything in science. We know that there are forces out there that are capable of driving human-like species into extinction. I can state with almost perfect confidence that at least one intelligent civilization will exist whose people will not act to ensure their own survival, and will be known to other races only through the archaeological relics that they leave behind.

Will we be that civilization?

I can understand why Obama would not want to continue Bush’s space exploration initiative. It is a Republican plan and its continuation will keep a Republican name in the paper. A lot of us would like to become the victims of selective amnesia and forget the absurdity and stupidity of the last four years.

However, if there were no way to remove this monument to the man who best exemplifies stupidity, arrogance, and incompetence is to gamble with the future of humanity itself, I would let this monument stand.

There are other alternatives. I have argued before, if I were President, I would scrap Bush’s space station plan and simply use the money to offer prizes for private entities that accomplished certain goals. I think that it is valuable to figure out how to send four people to the moon to do some research and bring them back to Earth. Instead of having the government spend $104 billion on the project, how about simply offering $10 billion to the first team that can pull it off, $5 billion to the next, and so on, and wait for the results.

This is just one suggestion. I could probably think of 898.87 others.

Snubbing Bush’s project should not come at the expense of putting human existence itself in the pot and asking the fates to roll the dice.

Sorry, the future of humanity itself is so important compared to any other issue, that the candidate who sacrifices this, whatever he may be willing to do elsewhere, has got a serious mark against him. I simply do not want humanity to end up as a stack of orbiting museum pieces for some other space-faring species to discover.