Questionable space policy reporting, part 1

On Saturday the Associated Press issued an article regarding criticism of current and proposed Mars exploration efforts. The article starts off by quoting a couple of experts—Amitai Etzioni, a George Washington University sociologist and former White House advisor; and Sylvia Earle, a marine biologst—who appear to be opposed, to some degree, to sending missions, robotic or human, to the Red Planet. Read a little deeper, though, and you’ll notice something interesting: while Earle wants to spend more money on ocean research, she also says, “I don’t want to cut a penny from space.” Moreover, despite the bluster from Etzioni at the beginning of the article, he is not heard again for the remainder of the article.

The author of the AP article, Joseph Verrengia, makes some other questionable statements. He writes that the president “wants to return to the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars, perhaps by 2035,” but nothing in any official White House or NASA document has given any timeline for a human Mars mission, other than at some point beyond 2020. Saying “perhaps by 2035″ gives some official imprimatur that doesn’t really exist: Verrengia could have said “by 2025″ or “by 2045″ or even “by 12:17 am EDT on July 4, 2031″ with an equal level of accuracy. Verrengia also writes that “the current thinking is that robots and computers can do a cheaper, safer job in a hostile environment” like Mars. This implies a degree of consensus that doesn’t exist in the scientific community: many (although not necessarily all) Mars experts argue that while robotic missions can and will continue to do a good job, a human presence on the planet will ultimately be required to perform some necessary research. (The role of humans vs. robots was discussed at length in a recent debate between Robert Park and Robert Zubrin.)

In the end, Verrengia appears to be creating another false dichotomy: we can either spend money looking for water on Mars or studying the oceans here on Earth. Fortunately Earle was smart enough to reject this argument. One wonders if Verrengia’s editors should have done the same.