Page 4-Thursday, June 5, 1980-The Michigan Daily
NASA endangered by'
budget cutting fervor
D1gs deserves
no extra favors
F ORMER CONGRESSMAN Charles Diggs (D
Detroit) resigned from his 25-year
congressional career Tuesday after the Supreme
Court refused to consider his appeal to have his
1978 payroll-padding conviction overturned. It is
especially unfortunate that blacks will lose their
senior U.S. representative, but now the seat is open
for a new, more virtuous spokesperson for both
Detroit's and the nation's blacks.
Diggs now plans to ask the sentencing judge to
reduce the three-year prison sentence he faces. He
must not receive special consideration in the eyes
of the law.
Many will say his sentence was too harsh,
especially when compared to the recent treatment
of other delinquent congress members. Sen. Her
man Talmadge (D-Georgia) was found guilty of
falsifying public records by a Senate committee,
but was not prosecuted by the Justice Department
Former Rep. Daniel Flood (D-Pa.) admitted
taking bribes in the form of campaign con
tributions but he plea-bargained and.avoided a
prison term.
We cannot condone the outcomes of these crimes
Both men should have received harsher treatment.
It is unfortunate that they did not, but these in
justices do not mean that Diggs too should be let off
lightly. Just as Talmadge and Flood deserved
stricter punishment,-so Diggs ought to serve the
full three-year sentence.
The congressional crime rate is abhorrent. The
public official who commits a crime has sinned
twice by breaking the law and then by misplacing
his constituents' trust. Criminal congress members
should not be treated less severely than private
citizens who break the law. If there is to be any
discrepancy, their sentences should be harsher.
The middle-and upper-level
bureaucrats sat worriedly at the
edge of their desks, waiting
anxiously for their initial depar-
tmental budget requests to return
from the Executive Office. They
knew full well they would see a
difference in the figures. But how
big a difference would it be?
In this annual game where the
rules seemingly are made up as
-the game progresses, some agen-
tcies end 'up bigger losers than
others. One perennial loser which
seems to stand out among the
rest is the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration
(NASA).
SPURRED IN part by opposing
public sentiment, Congress can
never seem to appropriate
enough money for what NASA
wants and needs to accomplsh.
The White House has told NASA
to cut $760 million from its $5.6
billion request for fiscal year
1981-a figure that has stunned
tNASA officials and members of
the House Science & Technology
- Committee.
f Of course, what is also at stake
in Washington's budget-cutting
fervor is roughly 25,000 nation-
wide jobs connected with the
Space Shuttle project. Few
around here need to be told what
being unemployed is like.
In addition to the prospective
layoffs, NASA officials claimed
the maiden launch of the Shuttle
will be postponed yet again from
- March 1981 to midsummer 1981.
f Further flights may ,be delayed
as much as nine months.
The $300 million supplement is
expected to clear the Committee,
but committee members expect a
fight on the floor for final ap-
proval.
WHILE POLITICIANS and
administrators can wrestle with
budgets all they want, one must
consider where the money is
headed. The average American is
rarely reminded about how the
benefits derived from our
nation's invaluable space
program have affected our daily
lives.
Contrary to populr belief, noted
Cornell University astronomer
and author Carl Sagan contends,
people are interested in space. He
cited the immense popularity of
movies like Star Wars,- its
promising sequel and Star Trek.
He says by studying science we
can take a look at the way things
really are. One of the greatest
benefits of Apollo, scientists
often say, is that once the
astronauts were orbiting the
moon, they could look back at the
Earth and see how finite and
minute it is just floating out there
in the vast emptiness of space.
We all have a sense of
imagination and adventure. Man
also is inherently curious. And
the only thing left to explore is
outer space. And there is so much
out there to explore.
A recent survey cited by NASA
By Timothy Yagle
shows that the American people
believe administring the space
program costs more than im-
plementing the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare
(HEW). To set the record
straight, NASA's budget is dwar-
fed annually by HEW's, which
was more than 40 times the size of
the space agency's in 1979 ($180
billion to $4 billion).
Sagan puts the figure at
roughlyone-tenth of one per cent
of the annual federal budget!
than $50 billion in benefits, ac-
cording to government figures.
Today, unlike the 60s, the space
program is no longer driven by
the egocentric impulse to put
man in space (we've proven we
can do that) as it is by the in-
satiable desire to explore the
science of space. That need to ex-
plore the outer reaches of the
Solar System, scientists say, has
resulted in an incalculable wealth
of new scientific knowledge that
is beginning to enlighten us not
only on the dark universe, but,
and more importantly, on the
earth and mankind itself.
I
I
4
THE GARGANTUAN SPACE telescope is dne of many ambitious
projects associated with the Space Shuttle. It is among several
programs endangered by the political scramble in Washington
to balance the budget.
"The entire space program,"
said one NASA official recently,
"costs each American less than a
six-pack of beer (per year)."
NASA SPENT billions on the
overwhelmingly successful
Apollo program. All that
"wasted" money gave us was.
several men on the moon and
national esprit de corps un-
paralled in modern American
history. What many don't realize
is that every cent of the Apollo
program consumed came right
back to earth in technology
people use every day.
Aside from the billions netted
in practical human benefits the
Apollo program gave us, the
national spirit is worth pursiing
because we haven't seen it since.
Beginning with then-President
Kennedy's inspiring speech
before Congress and the nation in
1961, everyone in the U.S. could
now worJh toward achieving a
very clearly specified goal; that
of "landing a man on the moon
and returning him safely to Earth
before this decade is out." We
need that spirit today because
nearly everyone is disillusioned
about the future of this country.
THE SAME holds for the now
infamous but equally successful
Skylab program. The ambitious
$2.6 billion project netted more
"It seems that the further we
get from earth," commented the
policy director of the National
Space Institute, "the more we
learn about ourselves." Nothing
could be closer to the truth.
The main impetus for sending
the Voyagers, the Pioneers and
the Vikings out to wander
through the Solar System is to
find out more about how the
galaxy and the universe evolved.
Knowing (and that's tose key
word) more about this can help
us learn more about how we
evolved and about the earth's
future.
With the tremendous amount of
knowledge already gained from
the space program and the
miniscule percentage of the total
federal budget is represents, it
seems absurd to reduce it yet fur-
ther. But both Congress and the
president, even though he has
repeatedly advocated an expan-
ded space program for defensive
and national security purposes,
need to trim even more from a
NASA budget they believe is too
big and money they claim is
wasted in space and never seen
again. If they only knew .. .
Timothy Yagle is a former
Daily staff writer.