Apr 8, 2011

Washington is engaged in a serious discussion about America’s future — debating fundamental questions about our priorities.

The goals we set today will shape our future and meeting milestones along the way will ensure that we reach our destination. Our deliberations with respect to NASA and America’s future role in space are no less important.

While budget allocations are important to our space program, without a resolute vision for our human spaceflight program, our program will flounder and ultimately perish. As the shuttle program winds down, our human spaceflight program lacks a clear mission.

We are on the verge of ceding 40 years of American leadership in space. Handing over space leadership to Russia and China would be detrimental to our economy and our national security. Time is of the essence.

To help provide this vision, I will introduce legislation calling for NASA to resume the goal set forth in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act to return to the moon.

Our human spaceflight program has attracted and inspired the world’s brightest scientists. Those great minds have spawned hundreds of innovations reaching across all disciplines of science. These innovations have translated beyond space applications to commercial products, infusing our economy with tens of billions of dollars and improving lives around the world.

Restoring the lost vision and recommitting ourselves to setting a return to the moon will be a boon to our economic competitiveness as the pressing of technology will bring the next new wave of innovations.

Our space program has been an economic driver. Our space agency and the supporting contractors have generated some of the most tangible benefits to our citizens — making possible life-changing and indispensable technologies such as improved weather reports and cell phones.

Further exploration of the moon’s surface will provide valuable information about the moon’s resources. In the 39 years since Apollo 17, we have learned volumes about the moon. Yet to date, we have explored through manned missions only a section of the moon roughly the size of the National Mall.

Where would we be today if explorers had come to what are now the Americas, planted a flag, and gone home never to return?

Returning to the moon is a critical first step in further exploration of our solar system as we develop and test new technologies, face the challenges of sustaining life on another celestial body and learn to use resources found in space.

Space also is the ultimate military high ground, Earth’s Golan Heights. Certainly this reality is not lost on Russia and China, which are renewing their commitment to establish a presence on the moon. We cannot cede this military advantage nor the resulting economic advantage to others.

We must make the moon mission our highest priority within a NASA budget that is becoming increasingly distracted with other less important pursuits. The moon is achievable within the budget constraints that are necessary to secure America’s future.

With the establishment of the moon as NASA’s priority, we will rise to the challenge — maintaining our position as the world’s preeminent spacefaring nation.

This article appeared in Florida Today and can be read at www.FloridaToday.com.