No I am not talking about African Americans (or any derivative thereof), rather I am talking about Space.  A recently graduated engineer, John Benac working for Boeing in Seattle, found out that one could submit questions for the upcoming CNN/Politico Debates.  He saw it as an opportunity for engineers everywhere to have their voices heard (why he didn’t think of it before, when viewers could submit a question to anyone of the previous debates, is unknown).  He drew up an open letter and forwarded it to as many of his colleagues as he could.  The call for submitting questions to the debate spread, by the great power of the Internets, to the Mars Society Website and NASAWatch.com.  Now a question about Space Exploration holds 20 out of 25 of the top questions to be asked at the Democratic debate, to be hosted on CNN tomorrow Jan. 31st in California.  You can still submit your questions or vote for your favourite question, the Republican side is closed at this time as that debate is tonight.

It’s more then likely that the candidates will defer the question if the moderators even choose to ask it, which in itself is unlikely.  The candidates on the Democratic side will probably say that our science and engineering is a great asset to our country (but I have no intention of spending the needed 100 billion dollars or more to do anything about it).  The Republicans will probably say that American science and engineering is the best in the world (and I believe in the free market, so people should just get to space themselves - jump high!).  No candidate will have any actual answer as to what they would do to smartly increases the Space Exploration goals of this country (I say smartly because a base on the moon is useless unless you couple it with a telescope or missile battery).  Furthermore, no candidate will have any answer to America’s growing science and engineering burden rather then asset.

Let’s explore what I mean by that burden a little further since the candidates won’t say anything important.  What I mean to say is that the great science and engineering complex (likened and more or less coupled to the military industrial complex) that we have built up in the United States, stifles innovation and forward thinking.  For example, the only reason we are planning to have a moon base is so that we can give more money to the Lockheed Martins, Northrop Grummans, and Boeings of the country to go out and create a product that will likely be overrun in costs, be expensive to reproduce, and probably has more problems then our much fabled Britney Spears.  There is absolutely no scientific reason the country should have a moon base, save the passing chance a future moon walker steps on a moon rock that eventually leads to the explanation for how the Moon was created, which by itself would benefit humanity about .0%.

What the Candidates, Presidents, and NASA officials need to realize is that we go to the moon not because it is there, but because we stand to gain either in honor or in treasure by our accomplishments.  Furthermore, because we have already went to the moon and spent the present-day equivalent of hundreds of billions of dollars on space exploration over the past few decades, we now have either directly or indirectly technology that we use in our everyday lives.  Everything from cellphones, to the Internet, to clothing fabrics, to medicinal compounds, to metallic compounds - it was all a result of the innovation, research, and inspiration that came out of the Last (and hopefully not final) Space Age.

Inspiration could probably be attributed to having the greatest indirect impact on our lives.  By aiming our countries giant arm at space and the celestial events of not only our planet but all bodies in the universe millions of children were inspired to achieve greatness in either the engineering or science fields.  In recent years even with increasing innovation and technological breakthroughs, the younger generation cannot look to the same places from which those 40 yr. old something engineers and scientist looked to, to give us the products that we have today.  The simple fact is, that today some of the greatest leaps and bounds in science and engineering come from those who may have been inspired or grew up in the Last Space Age.

[SPACE.com]