Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Jan. 25, 2011.“This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the space race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.” -President Barack Obama, January 25, 2011
Last month, President Obama stood in front of Congress and the American people and proclaimed a ‘Sputnik’ moment. I commend his support for science research and development and believe its motivation is well intended. However, certain specifics of this budget relating to science and technology are misguided.
The spirit Obama was trying to invoke was that of the space race, which was captured best in President John F. Kennedy’s speech at our own campus here at Rice in 1962. In his speech, Kennedy clearly and succinctly set a goal for us to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. It was a high bar to set, but one we ultimately achieved ahead of schedule. Furthermore, the basic science research to answer the problems and challenges we faced in accomplishing that goal moved our scientific understanding and capabilities forward. I find it odd, then, that Obama would try to call upon the spirit of the space race while simultaneously proposing to cut space exploration from the NASA budget.
Under the president’s plan, NASA’s budget stays flat and shifts focus from space exploration to more earthbound scientific research. The move away from its true mission will make it more vulnerable to further cuts and changes in focus in the future. Rather than retooling NASA, and giving his own science goals rather soft deadlines (i.e., renewable energy goals are to be met by 2050), Obama should determine an immediate goal as Kennedy did nearly a half-century ago.
The most notable difference between the first and second Sputnik moments is that the first one had a Sputnik. The newer one is merely a declaration. There is no immediate threat of the scale and scope that the Soviet Union posed to the United States in the Cold War. Motivating the general public to back science, as they did in that period, will be much more difficult without the specter of mushroom clouds over their heads. This is why programs such as Constellation, which would have flown astronauts to the moon and Mars, are important; they are valuable symbols as well as vehicles for scientific advancement.
Clear and undeniable goals, like the ones we had during Apollo, capture the imagination of the public and create a sense of opportunity. The youth of the population will be inspired by them in ways not possible with goals such as renewable energy quotas or increased electric vehicle production. These are undeniably worthwhile endeavors, but they lack the spirit and motivating force of missions that expand the reach of man.
The Obama administration’s idea of focusing on science is a good one, but changing the direction of NASA is a bad choice in execution. The president should follow not only Kennedy‘s concept, but also his words: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
We should continue to explore space and our understanding of our universe not because it is easy, but because it is the most difficult question we can pose to ourselves. As Kennedy asked of us, we should do this and the other things.
Greg Shipman is a graduate student at Rice University studying subsurface geoscience. He is on the professional science master’s track in the School of Natural Sciences and a student of Kirstin Matthews, Baker Institute fellow in science and technology policy.