NASA Priorities
An editorial in today’s Boston Globe raises a good point (and one a couple of my fellow TR.com bloggers have made in the past week or two): what’s the point of the space shuttle, anyway? It’s a tired, practically obsolete jalopy, a sad consequence of Congress’s starving of NASA over the last two decades, a machine whose only mission seems to be serving a space station that has limited scientific value. It does seem absurd to launch a vehicle into space–only to spend the most of the mission checking to see if it’s safe to come back again.
Instead, as the Globe advocates, let’s concentrate on what’s been successful:
While manned space exploration should continue to be a long-term goal of American science, the failure of the shuttle program argues strongly for concentrating on Mars robotic rovers, the space probes, and the Hubble space telescope, which are providing a wealth of new information about Earth’s planetary neighbors and the universe.
The successes of these latter projects puts the shuttle program to shame.
Let the Russians resupply the international space station. Let’s repair Hubble, put up more rovers and probes, and begin to study how to send people to Mars. Meanwhile, the shuttle can stay permanently grounded–if it’s not already.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build
“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”
ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it
The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better.
Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives
The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.
Learning to code isn’t enough
Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.