Uplifting science
Texas’ representatives in Washington need to protect NASA’s funding and mission.
The search for alien life may be over! Well, maybe that’s a stretch, but we are as close as we’ve ever been, according to the team of astronomers who discovered another solar system that could, maybe, support life similar to Earth’s. A mere 40 light years away, seven terrestrial planets about the same size as our own beautiful blue marble orbit an ultra-cool, dwarf red star known as Trappist-1. Thanks to NASA’s space-based telescopes, astronomers were able to calculate the number and size of the planets and are continuing to peer across 750 trillion miles of space looking for tell-tale signs of life. The accomplishment is a mind-bending testament to the wonder of scientific ingenuity and the importance of NASA’s work.
Scientists from Galileo (astronomy) and Isaac Newton (celestial mechanics) right up through Albert Einstein (E=MC2) and Alan Turing (computers) and Marie Curie (radioactivity) and Watson and Crick (DNA double helix) and on and on have been following their curiosity and determination to understand how our world works. Science eradicated smallpox and developed the internet, put men on the moon and at the bottom of the ocean, described the genetics of cancer and blue eyes and calico cats, explained hurricanes and gravity and snowflakes, developed antibiotics, airplanes, machines that can look inside a living body, calculate faster than a roomful of humans, drive cars, fly airplanes. Science is at the center of all that makes our lives safe and rich and interesting.
And it is being threatened. At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last month, hundreds of scientists in white lab coats filled Boston’s Copley Square in a completely unscientist-like display of resistance against the current president’s policies and personnel choices, which they believe cast doubt on the very underpinnings of the scientific method. The new president has called into question such bedrock research as the safety of vaccines, the dangers of climate change, the validity of economic data such as unemployment rates and the size of the national debt. Upon taking office, he issued a gag order on government scientists, began scrubbing federal websites of scientific information and announced plans to gut funding for a wide range of scientific programs and institutions, including for some of NASA’s projects.
This page has long been an unabashed fan of NASA, and we continue to encourage our representatives in Washington to protect its funding and its mission. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Reps. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, and Brian Babin, R-Port Arthur, have proposed legislation — the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 — that underscores the agency’s importance to Texas and Houston. The bill commits to continuing the manned exploration of deep space, supporting commercial exploitation of low Earth orbit, and expanding the use of the International Space Station to include more private-sector enterprises. We agree that space exploration is a central part of NASA’s mission, but we are wary of legislation that would gut the agency’s Earth Science Division. NASA’s satellites provide vital information on weather for storm forecasts, on water availability for farmers; help predict hurricanes and floods, track wildfires, collect data on the effects of climate change, and more.
It also isn’t clear what impact the legislation would have on the kind of pure scientific research that led us to little Trappist-1 and its family of planets. Manned exploration isn’t a likely outcome as it would take 800,000 years, give or take a few thousand years, to get there. Nor is any commercial exploitation imminent, beyond NASA’s very cool posters. The value of the Trappist-1 discovery lies in the expansion of our understanding of the universe and our place in it. When we gaze up at the stars, we can’t help wondering if we are alone here, or if there is someone out there. If there is, science — and NASA — will find it.