Heavens Above

This morning, as every morning, Spenser and Owen (the Wonder Dogs) and I went down to get the newspaper. It’s a slow journey, as Owen has to stop and sniff numerous spots along the way, evidently identifying which varmints have been visiting overnight. It’s an endlessly interesting and engaging task, at least for him. The half-mile round trip to the mailbox usually takes us a good 15 minutes.

While Owen sniffs I usually look at the stars. I identify the few constellations I know, look at the planets, and watch the early morning airplanes scurry to and fro (and feel grateful that I’m not a passenger on one of those planes, a businessman catching the 5am flight to get to an important meeting. Been there, done that, and I ain’t going back.)

This morning I was treated to the International Space Station going overhead. Debbie and I like to sit around our firepit at night and watch satellites go overhead. Heavens Above is a great website for telling you what’s going over your location and when and where to look. Once you’ve seen the ISS you can easily recognize it when you see it again. It makes a distinctive track across the sky, much different from other satellites, and it’s also very bright.

While Owen sniffed I watched the ISS go into the Earth’s shadow and thought about NASA ending the space shuttle missions. The space shuttle fleet is obsolete and, with the government looking to save money, manned spaceflight is evidently something we can no longer afford.

Just how much is NASA’s budget, I wondered. I googled it when Owen finally convinced himself the homeland was secure and we got back inside. 18 billion dollars a year was the answer. Is that a lot? I read the papers and the Republicans and the Democrats yak and yak about the coming fiscal apocalypse and with the numbers they throw around 18 billion seems like a drop in the bucket. Is it?

By comparison I looked at what the most recent war in Iraq has cost us in dollars. 900 billion dollars through the end of last year. 900 billion. The interest on 900 billion would fund NASA forever at more than twice its current budget.

I’m not saying the war in Iraq is a bad idea or is money wasted and that spending money on space exploration is a good idea. Well, actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The people we elected chose to throw away over 900 billion dollars and to throw away the lives of over 4000 of our youth for no good reason in Iraq. Money and lives that could’ve been used for so many better purposes.

The ISS will be overhead tomorrow morning at 5:11. That’s a little earlier than we usually head out for the paper, but maybe I’ll be out there, watching the ISS cross the sky, and dreaming of the stars and of a country that does not value war.