Don't scuttle space program

President Barack Obama's budget proposal regarding the space program is complicated, at best.

On its face, it sounds like a classic Republican plan. If the president gets his way, manned space flight will be primarily a private enterprise, with the government offering contracts to companies that can efficiently and safely take astronauts to and from low orbit, and with NASA supposedly figuring out the rest from there.

And, on its face, much of the vehement opposition to this plan seems to be grounded in self-interests. A lot of congressional districts, including some in Utah, might lose jobs if NASA cancels its Constellation program, which was supposed to return human beings to the moon by 2020, then take them to Mars sometime after that.

But when Americans talk about the space program, their words tend to be laden with meanings that go beyond the surface and straight to how they define themselves and their nation in a modern world.

The space program always has been outlandishly expensive, but it has delivered benefits that far outweigh those costs. President John F. Kennedy set the nation on the path to the moon in the 1960s as a matter of national pride and with a strong measure of faith that doing so eventually would be a matter of national security. For much of a decade, this nation was in tight competition with the Soviet Union to achieve that goal, although few people could articulate any tangible benefits to be expected from reaching it.

The United States won that competition. That became a source of intense national pride, and the heroic deeds of astronauts helped many people imagine great things and redefine what was possible. Eventually, the Soviet Union collapsed and Russian cosmonauts became partners with Americans in space exploration. Many inventions came from all of this, as did a greater understanding of Earth and its cosmic neighbors.

But in more than 40 years, the private sector has found little incentive to follow NASA into space. The commercial lunar flights so many people predicted after Apollo 11 remain the stuff of science fiction.

To move further will require a new infusion of imagination, unity and national will. The worry isn't so much that the president is relying too much on private enterprise or that members of Congress are looking out only for their own interests. It is that the nation has lost this will.

Ironically, this comes at a time when the rest of the world is starting to blast off.

We wouldn't be so worried if Obama was enthused and dedicated to a bold new strategy with deadlines and measurable goals. His plans, however, are vague. The shuttle program is ending, and there is no firm plan for sending any more Americans into orbit. His decision to cancel Constellation sounds too much as if he would rather push space exploration aside while he focuses on other things.

If that's the case, it would be a mistake, indeed.