Crooked Orbit

Thursday, April 7, 2005; Page A30

"IT'S AS IF LEWIS and Clark had got all the way to the Rocky Mountains,
and then turned around and headed home," says one scientist involved in
the project. Even if that isn't a perfect metaphor for the planned
termination of the Voyager spacecraft -- which has been traveling 28
years through the solar system and is just about to enter the
little-known realm of interstellar space -- it does give some indication
of the gloom felt by the scientists involved with Voyager since its
launch nearly three decades ago. The news that NASA may cut the funding
for continued monitoring of the twin Voyager probes should also cause
Congress to ask, once again, whether the space agency really has its
priorities straight.

These cuts are not being driven by austerity alone. The annual cost of
keeping in touch with Voyager is about $4 million. By contrast, NASA's
total projected 2006 budget is $16.5 billion, and President Bush's
proposed budget calls for spending even more. Unfortunately, much of the
increase will be spent responding to Mr. Bush's call for new manned
missions to the moon and possibly Mars -- a project usually referred to
in NASA documents as the "Vision." The ultimate cost of these missions,
and their ultimate scientific value, is still unknown. NASA argues that
some other changes -- most notably the end of the space shuttle -- will
pay for most of that transition. Still, it is impossible not to observe
that concern for the bottom line has also led the agency to announce
cuts in funding for the Hubble Space Telescope, for aeronautics research
and even for cuts in space-based earth science, most notably a large
project to measure the impact of global-warming gases.

Equally strange is the fact that a disproportionate chunk of NASA's
budget is still being spent on the international space station, access
to which for now depends entirely on Russian spacecraft. Yet U.S.
funding for Russian spacecraft now depends on whether Russia complies
with the Iran Non-Proliferation Act and ceases selling nuclear material
to Tehran. As NASA rethinks its role in the 21st century, it is not
surprising that the agency would change some of its priorities. But it
is impossible not to observe that, under administration tutelage, this
so far means that the space agency is funding one very expensive program
of unknown value, another very expensive program of dubious value, and
at the same time cutting the funding of smaller, cheaper programs whose
worth was proved long ago.

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