Our Earthbound Candidates

Why is it that the popular imagination flies so high, while the political imagination just creeps along? TV, movies and video games bubble with enthusiasm for space exploration, but politicians, including the presidential candidates, aren't much interested. And yet humanity's future in space is a matter of vital concern.

Space hasn't been a hot political issue since the '60s, but it's a continuing source of public fascination. NASA's 100th shuttle mission last month made headlines. Yesterday's liftoff of three astronauts from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, destined for a four-months-long sojourn aboard the International Space Station, made even bigger headlines--although political leaders didn't seem to notice.

Meanwhile, the commercialization of space accelerates. Mark Burnett, producer of TV's "Survivor," recently signed a deal with NBC for a "Destination Mir" show. And while Mir-sters are scrambling to raise the capital to keep the Russian vessel in orbit--Pepsi and Pizza Hut have already signed deals--other networks are negotiating to create their own "reality" shows in conjunction with NASA.

The satellite business is now a $ 100 billion-a-year industry, seventimes greater than Uncle Sam's space budget. Profit-seeking players such as Richard Branson and Hilton Hotels are mulling space tourism. Celestis, a Houston company, has sent into orbit the remains of 100 people who have chosen space as their final frontier.

This commercial and cultural exuberance builds upon the infrastructure of the space-military-industrial complex. Yet in the decades since John F. Kennedy's death, politicians have lost interest in space venturing; it's been 28 years since a man went to the moon.

Why is that? One reason is that Vietnam shook Americans' faith in grand government undertakings, and the stagflation of the '70s made people think such ventures were unaffordable. Meanwhile, social reform at home seemed more important than exploration above.

Few politicians since have ventured to make the case for space. Former California governor Jerry Brown, pushing his own Golden State space agenda, was mocked as "Governor Moonbeam"; another space exponent, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, was called much worse.

Which explains why this year's presidential candidates are space-shy. George W. Bush may be from Houston, but he didn't get around to releasing a formal space policy until late October: He dares to endorse the status quo. Al Gore is more forward-looking: "I firmly believe that sending humans to Mars must be a goal that we achieve in the 21st century." Of course, if all goes well for him, he'll be out of office in January 2009.

Yet space travel is as important a goal as humanity can have. As sci-fi writer Larry Niven puts it, "The dinosaurs would still be alive today if they'd had a space program." Sixty-five million years ago, a space rock smaller than Manhattan struck the earth with such force that nearly all life was wiped out. In more recent memory, in 1908 a meteorite hit Tunguska, Siberia, and demolished a half-million acres; if it had landed five hours later, the rotation of the earth would have made St. Petersburg ground zero--and left the city a smoldering crater.

Meanwhile, NASA has found thousands of "near earth objects" in orbits that intersect with the earth's. More big hits from the heavens are a statistical inevitability.

Although a space shield is one possibility, such a defense, even it were sure to work, would be no help against threats closer to home. The danger of terrorism still looms large. Nuclear, chemical, biological carnage is even more possible and therefore even more probable. The Internet is yet another tool for spreading deadly know-how for making suitcase A-bombs, poison gas aerosols and anthrax caplets. As recent events in the Middle East remind us, treaties against weapons of mass destruction are no guarantee against rogue states, rogue individuals--and Murphy's Law.

The late Carl Sagan had a better answer: "In the long term," he wrote in 1994, "even if we were not the descendants of professional wanderers, even if we were not inspired by exploratory passions, some of us would still have to leave the Earth--simply to ensure the survival of all of us." Pioneers are still needed, in other words, and visionaries must point the way.

Today's politicians may think themselves shrewd for straddling the political middle. So they crouch over the lowest possible denominator, content with the shortest possible time horizon. Meanwhile, the high court of history, foreseeing potential annihilation, offers an enormous reward to the leader with the longest and broadest vision of the future. It's such a leader who will save the human race--and that's a prize better than anything awarded to a TV contestant.