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.