|
[an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive] |
  
|
|
COMMITMENT Grieving public and politicians see value in program
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 2/3/2003
''May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. You are all true heroes and heroines. You will be missed,'' a visitor wrote on the postcard, which was surrounded by flowers, American flags, and a book of Hebrew Scripture left to honor the team killed on Saturday, including one Israeli astronaut. The museum, normally packed with chattering schoolchildren and space enthusiasts, was uncharacteristically somber yesterday, as visitors mourned the deaths of the Columbia crew and wondered about the future of the space shuttle program. ''It's terribly sad, but I don't think it should stop us from doing the kind of space exploration we should do,'' said Howard Taske, 44, as he held his young son and gazed at a picture of the astronauts at the shuttle exhibit. ''It's part of our country. It reminds you of what you can do as a society, do as a culture.''
Lawmakers and former astronauts maintain they are committed to continuing the space program and do not want to interrupt medical and scientific experiments done in the space program or to retreat in the world competition to explore the universe. But with competing financial demands, including a looming war with Iraq, advocates for space exploration wonder whether Washington will be able to keep that commitment. ''The shuttle program has been very important,'' said Senator John Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, on CNN's ''Late Edition.'' But Breaux cautioned that ''there's only so much money available'' and that the nation might have to choose between shoring up the NASA program and providing a $674 billion tax cut proposed by President Bush. ''That's money that could be used, at least part of it, to rebuild NASA,'' Breaux said. John M. Klineberg, director of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said he worried that Congress would choose to reduce the space program. When the Challenger exploded in 1986, Congress approved a one-time, $2.5 billion appropriation to replace it, Klineberg said. But with the poor economy, the budget deficit, and demands for more tax cuts and defense spending, Congress and the White House may decide it's too expensive to replace the Columbia. Theodore Postol, professor of science, technology and national security policy at MIT, said, ''We may well need to reorganize the whole program. ''The objectives that NASA has have not been well defined,'' he said. ''They talk about men in space to do science, but anybody who looks at the science that [people] in space do, it's either marginal science or not science at all. What they're doing is creating excuses to launch human beings into space.'' Both the House and Senate are planning to hold hearings on the Columbia episode, although neither has called for a separate congressional investigation. The NASA budget is sure to receive a close review when Congress takes up the Bush administration's budget proposal. Bush will recommend a $469 million increase in the NASA budget today, up from the current $15 billion budget, a senior administration official told reporters yesterday. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they still want to go ahead with the program, while carefully examining both costs and safety issues. ''Inevitably, there will be a discussion out of this about how much NASA should be funded, should there be another orbiter built, and in fact, has it been so poorly funded in recent years that maybe, just maybe it wasn't as safe as it should be?'' said Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, yesterday. Nelson, a former astronaut who flew aboard the Columbia, said he wants the United States to return to the moon and to go to Mars. ''You can't skimp when you are doing bold things, when you are pushing the envelope, when you're trying something that no one has ever tried before,'' Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, said on ''Fox News Sunday.'' She said NASA has suffered draconian cuts equal to a 40 percent budget cut over the last decade. ''The mission should be absolutely clear, and we cannot be second place to anyone in the world with the technological advances that we can have by going into space research,'' Hutchison said. But Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York and chairman of the House Science and Technology subcommittee, said Hutchison's numbers were wrong and that NASA had received $600 million more this year than the previous year. But Boehlert, echoing the comments of his colleagues, said the overall NASA mission should not be deterred by Saturday's tragedy. ''For us to say this is going to end man's space exploration would be totally wrong,'' Boehlert said. ''We need to continue that space exploration and do it safely.'' Visitors at the Astronauts Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida agreed. ''There should be a time for mourning, a time to remember, but no, I don't think this should deter [the space program] at all,'' said David Stallard, a computer programmer from Bristol, Va. ''These people, the names on the wall here wouldn't want the program to be deterred in any way because of this. They gave their lives for it.'' Also contributing to this report were Globe staff members Anne Barnard in Boston; Robert Schlesinger in Cape Canaveral, Fla.; and Glen Johnson in Washington.
This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 2/3/2003.
|
|
|
|
|
|
© Copyright 2003 New York Times Company |
|||||||
ASHINGTON -- A folded postcard of a space shuttle lay almost inconspicuously yesterday near the model of the space shuttle Columbia at the National Air and Space Museum, carrying a message of grief for the seven astronauts lost.
