Fantastic Voyage

President Obama released a revised plan for the United States space program that has space exploration advocates evenly divided over the issue. Obama has canceled the Constellation program meant to develop space vehicles to return astronauts to the moon, and he's revived the Orion program originally meant to supplement the Constellation program but downsized it to create rescue craft for astronauts trapped on the International Space Station. How will anyone get to the space station in the first place? By hitching a ride with the Russians on their Soyuz spacecraft.

Instead, Obama wants to develop new spacecraft designed to go to Mars and beyond - possibly moons of other planets, asteroids - and he wants to land on Mars by 2025. The moon is redundant in Obama's vision - we've been there before, why go again? A public-private partnership will develop commercial spacecraft to transport astronauts to the space station - which will have its life extended by about five years - to eventually replace reliance on hitching a ride with the Russians.

Many complain about the lack of a U.S. presence in space for an indefinite period while the Chinese are starting their own moon mission program, and lawmakers in Florida and Texas balk at the idea of so many NASA jobs possibly being cut. Others counter by citing the jobs that will be created by Obama's long-term strategy, and still other proponents of his plan cite the entrepreneurial opportunities for private interests - though, since NASA works in the name of science and the public good, such a perspective seems rather dubious. So what do the original moon men, the Apollo 11 crew, think of all this? Neil Armstrong is against it; Buzz Aldrin is for it. I don't know what Michael Collins, the only Apollo 11 crewman who remained in the space capsule and thus did not walk on the moon, thinks.

But here's what I think. Although Obama says the space travel is not a luxury, I would like to point out that international travel - especially for those of us who've never been abroad except for a couple of trips to Canada - is a luxury most of us can't afford while we're in a recession. It so follows that, in this recession, the government should be paying more attention to problems here on earth, and not worry about getting to Mars so much. We can try for that eventually, but in the meantime, we should try to make it possible to transport people in high-speed trains on earth, not send high-speed spaceships to another planet. Besides, the only difference between Mars and the moon is that Mars is red. If there were life on that planet, the unmanned Viking spacecraft would have found it in the seventies. Which leads to the obvious point - we find out a lot about space with such unmanned projects, so why do any of us have to go up there and find it out in person? What's left to develop from the space program for civilian use, anyway? We have the Internet, and how much Tang can we possibly drink?

And please, keep private money out of it. Private money corrupts the public interest.

Let China go to the moon. They're only going to copy our achievement and it will seem unremarkable when it finally happens.

Just like the first American high-speed passenger rail line.