NASA should continue manned flights

In Tuesday's New York Times, Professor Paul Krugman wrote that "manned space flight in general has turned out to be a bust." Reflecting on the costs of the Columbia tragedy, and the greater utility of unmanned probes and satellites, Krug-man calculates that nearly "almost all the payoff from space travel, scientific and practical has come from unmanned vehicles and satellites." He concludes that the United States should stop sending astronauts into space until it becomes "cost-effective."

Although there are strong economic arguments in support of manned space flight — witness the invention of freeze-dried foods and Velcro, products first designed for astronauts — the economics of the matter are a secondary point. After pausing to learn what went wrong aboard Columbia, humans must continue traveling into space for bigger reasons than cost-effectiveness.

To be sure, space flight is extremely expensive in both lives and money; manned space flight exponentially more so. Columbia's fiery end, and previous accidents, demonstrate that technology can only slightly reduce the dangers of journeying into space. Exploration has always been dangerous and has always been a part of the human experience.

The heroes of last week's space shuttle crash follow in the historic legacy of shipwrecked mariners, polar expeditions lost in frozen wastes, and explorers vanished into distant jungles.

Thinking it a criticism, Krugman writes, "We have basically sent people into space to show that we can." Setting aside the imperatives of Cold War competition, this is indeed the deepest motivation for manned space flight.

But it is a good reason. Ultimately, manned space flight speaks not to our wallets but to our souls. The flags and footprints on the moon represent mankind's effort to make an enduring mark on the universe.

In this sense, if there is a case to be made against current manned space projects it is not that NASA has wasted money pointlessly launching people into space, but rather than it has not launched them far enough. We may well wonder why NASA, which once put a man on the moon in less than a decade, inspired President Kennedy's call to do so "not because it is easy, but because it is hard," has spent the last twenty years doing little more than routinely orbit the Earth. What of travel to Mars or the asteroids, projects that would inspire mankind and ennoble those attempting them? If there can be a positive aspect of the Columbia tragedy, it may be a revitalized commitment to space exploration.

Since it began, the manned space program has always been vulnerable to those like Professor Krugman, who point to its cost and insist that the effort be spent on something more immediately useful. Countless schools and hospitals could have been built for the cost of the Apollo program. While it is tempting to think this way, it is important to realize that not all goods are quantifiable by economists. Mankind's journey into space is more than a mere economic good and about more than communications satellites or Velcro. It is an immense civilizational achievement that will be remembered long after all our practical concerns have been forgotten.

For Krugman to advocate an end to manned space exploration is akin to traveling back in time to warn the Pharaohs that their pyramids are too expensive or visiting ancient Athens to advocate budget cuts for building the Parthenon, except for the fact that space travel is more impressive than any of the works of the ancients. At a time when NASA's role is bound to come under significant scrutiny, it would be an error to subject manned space flight to too barren an economic evaluation. Costs matter, of course, but there are bigger things.

Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky is a Wilson School major from Queens, N.Y.