Nasa's Misdirected Mission

The Moon was a Significant Goal, Global Warming is Not


Last evening I saw this sight as I went back to the studio.

As a child the space program enthralled me. When John Glenn orbited the Earth it was a milestone. We were always a few steps behind the Russians and they always seemed to get the jump on the next advance... until the Moon! When Jim Lovell's Apollo 8 orbited the Moon we listened and watched as the astronauts read from the Creation account. We were properly at awe. Next came the landing itself. The culmination of a decade's work spurred by John Kennedy's challenge. Then there was a problem.

We'd made it to the Moon, but settling the Moon was impractical. There was no economic gain or strategic advantage worth the costs that would be involved. Nasa's attention turned Earthward as the shuttle program and the International Space Station geared up. In a move that was more diplomatic than scientific, an Apollo and Soyuz [Russian] spacecraft docked in orbit.

The early days of the space program are remembered in the movie The Right Stuff. In one scene a press liason guy sitting in Pancho's bar with some test pilots asks: "you wanna know what makes your ship go up?" As one of the pilots begins to wax eloquent on aerodynamic theory the guy continues: "I'll tell you what makes your ship go up... Funding! No Bucks, No Buck Rodgers!"

As more elements of Climategate come to light, NASA is now coming under scrutiny. Of course NASA is the home base of some of Global Warming's most stalwart supporters. In the seventies NASA turned from the Moon to environmental studies of Earth. Is it any wonder that Global Warming would be the 'major crisis' most likely to guarantee the agency perpetual funding?

Watching the movie Apollo 13 you see constant references to NASA's funding dilemma after they succeeded in doing what Kennedy asked for. NASA had originally planned nine or more missions but there was pressure to stop the program to save money. The program might not have been continued to Apollo 17 had it not been for the harrowing Apollo 13 near-disaster.

As it happened, Jim Lovell's last mission in space was a brutal reminder of the scope of Kennedy's challenge. The program was continued with Apollo 17 being the last Lunar mission. The reasoning now was that the hardware was already built and that except for the operations the missions were essentially 'bought and paid for.'

The reusable shuttle was a program that was shared with the military. The defense implications guaranteed it's continuation but NASA needed a reason for the civilian component to continue. Climate science was made to order for the job.

NASA data was crunched first into 'the coming ice age' and more recently 'global warming.' The layman assumed that peer reviewed research guaranteed that the science was good. The problem was that there were always larger samplings around that did not support the notion that the sky was falling. Historic data supports a more cyclical pattern of warming and cooling.

In fact the Earth would seem to have a remarkably engineered dampening system as it has renewed it's atmosphere on a global scale for thousands of years. Man made pollution tends to be a problem more in instances like acid rain, urban development in valleys where pollution can hang in place and not disburse and in overuse of pesticides. The problem is that these do not have the selling power of a 'disaster that will destroy us in fifty years' as some have described global warming.

No doubt there are some who see global warming as convenient way to keep money going into solving these real problems but they have sold out Western Civilization to those Marxists who would level it. Just imagine if they succeed in destroying the American economy through Cap and Trade and overregulation. They will have minimal impact if any... but here is what will likely happen. The remnant of American society will resort to burning wood out of our great forests and will create more pollution than the logical step of building more nuclear and natural gas sourced power plants. NASA would seem to be securing it's funding in a way likely to destroy its host.