Retired General Wesley Clark hinted at what his space policy might encompass should he be elected in November. In a speech Saturday in New Hampshire, Clark briefly touched upon space during a speech where he gave his 20-year vision for space. According to the Clark campaign’s press release:
“We’ll move beyond the Space Shuttle and a few unmanned missions within the Solar System with more substantial efforts to help humanity explore the frontiers of space,” Clark forecasted. “We’ll do it with real programs designed to most efficiently and effectively generate the science skills and technology we need to meet what I believe will be our destiny.” Within two decades, we could even land a man on Mars.
In the speech itself Clark mentions how reading science fiction shaped his childhood:
As a kid, I read science fiction books – like Isaac Asimov’s The Red Planet Mars – filled with fantastic tales only possible in the imagination. Of magical electronics, communicator devices small enough to fit on your wrist, space flight that was an everyday occurrence, and journeys to far-away planets. Just a few decades later, the science fiction fantasies of my youth have become our realities. We have phones that actually capture moving images, and while space flight isn’t an everyday event, just this week, we saw the first color photographs of Mars.
(Somebody please tell the general that Spirit is not the first spacecraft to provide color images from the surface of Mars, a honor that dates back over a quarter-century to the twin Viking landers.) He also offers a few additional details about a possible human mission to Mars:
Imagine if in the next twenty years, we actually sent humans – not just rover robots — to Mars — which we can do if it truly advances our ambitions. Astrobiolotists [sic] today believe we will, and as a result, we’ll have a better understanding of our own planet and our own people.
As an advocate for smart space policy, I’m disappointed in the political schlock offered by Clark. The comments on a national space policy or direction, as is usual for a presidential candidate, are infantile and silly.
I believe the human exploitation of space is as important an initiative as any other major policy, actually derived from domestic and foriegn policy areas. The problem, I think, is that human space activities are still seen as methods to make science fiction dreams and wonder come alive for its own sake, to provide an interesting diversion to everyday Earthly concerns. The scientific missions also provide a degree of this, for the public is well aware of the cool images from Hubble and Mars rovers, but probably knows little about Gravity Probe B, which is not expected to provide sexy images at all (despite the fact that discoveries by the probe could be very significant).
The objective is to parcel out human space activity in some way that distinguishes it as a tertiary policy arena (together with domestic and foreign affairs). By doing this smartly, one can cast space initiatives as part of a long-term comprehensive plan with a level of legitimacy necessary for carrying out major decisions with long-term budget implications. Today, space remains the sub-sub-subset of some random technology office, where it doesn’t belong.