Questionable space- and Earth-funding ideas of U.S. Congress

William Atkins
Saturday, 11 April 2009 23:00

Opinion and Analysis

We really have become a throw-away society. Just throw away something when something better comes along or when something else becomes the new hip thing to talk about.

We don’t have money for this project, but we do have money to spend on pet-projects from these same Congress people. What about all of this pork that was contained in our stimulus package?

We have money to build a road or bridge to no-where, but when we want to improve our ability to explore outer space and to learn more about our planet; or when we want to build better schools or repair older schools, or when we want to build better bridges or repair older bridges, we don’t have the money.

In addition, we could find other ways to fund the ISS.

One other way that pops to mind is with space tourism. We have already seen that wealthy individuals around the world are willing to spend millions for a chance to go into space.

And, we have private enterprises right now gearing up for suborbital flights into space. Their next step will be orbital flights. These could include a visit to the International Space Station.

Many of these private companies, such as Virgin Galactic, have already announced plans to reduce these millions of dollar tickets to thousands of dollars as soon as frequency of mass-tourist space travel becomes a reality.

We also have been promoting that the ISS will expand our science and technology knowledge. Well, get private enterprise interested in contributing money that will promote such advancements.

Science and technology trips could also be planned to the Space Station. Educational classes could be taught on the Space Station with live links to Earth-based schools around the world.

What about countries that don’t have the ability to go into space? Ask them if they would like to participate with the Space Station, and pay for the experience.

I bet if the U.S. Congress sponsored a contest to find concrete, usable ways to promote and use the International Space Station from the American people, they would come up with a million of them. Especially Congress offered a million dollars for the first-place winner, half a million for second place, and $100,000 for third place.

Why doesn’t the U.S. Congress find out just how much money could be raised with tourism trips to the International Space Station? Let’s look into other possibilities before shooting down the Space Station!

Let’s also replace the world “throw-away” with the word “consistent”—that is instead of using “throw-away society” let’s promote “consistent society.”