Eighty years ago, the presidential science advisor Vannevar Bush presented President Harry S. Truman a remarkable report entitled “Science – The endless border. “In this report, Bush described the immense advantages of support for the government which could then, in turn, provide constantly evolving knowledge for the benefit of industrial interests, national security and social society of the research of the United States. The positive results of government investment are – as the Bush – endless report suggests.
With recent changes in administrations in Washington, the White House and the Budget Management and Budget Office have proposed massive reductions in federal support for science and engineering in almost all areas of discipline. These proposed funding discounts would have devastating impacts on a scientific support system that has provided incredible results in almost all STEM fields. By thinking about my own career in space science, I think it is not recommended to falsify something that has worked so well.
As many grew up in the 1950s and 60s, I was fascinated by scientific relationships on astronomy, medicine, chemistry and all other technical disciplines. I remember staying in our neighbor’s kitchen at 10 years old and that I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be a space physicist. I am sure that some of the adults of this birthday party knew more than what I really did with what this work implied, but I was proud of my youth determination. I could, I guess, had a successful – and relatively comfortable life – joining the members of my family in the construction sector. But even very early, science called me relentless.
I would say that there was prescience in the remark of my 10 -year -old child. After having successfully completed in a modern physics class in the second year, I was invited to join the teacher research group of Professor James Van Allen. Van Allen had discovered the belt belts of the earth – undoubtedly the first great discovery of the space era. By working with Van Allen, even as the first cycle, I was encouraged to design, build and test a subsystem of instruments which flew to Jupiter during the first exploratory mission of NASA to the external solar system – opportunities which, with proposed budget cuts, may not be offered to future science students.
After my beginning of my career with Van Allen, I had the privilege of working with Edward Stone in Caltech, who was best known for his role as project scientist for more than 50 years of missions to travel on external planets. It is difficult for me to imagine having a better launch in a scientific career than of these two giants of experimental physics. Both led programs that brought great honor and prestige to the United States
After Caltech, I was again quite privileged to participate in a leadership role in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico at an early age. As one of the young group leaders of LOS Alamos Lab, I was given the management role of an incredible team of solar and magnetospheric scientists quite senior. In this role of leadership, I learned the life lesson that could be done with incredible basic research, but also in the process of making equally important contributions to the needs of society. This “double use” philosophy is a philosophy that permeates modern research in space physics and over time in solar-terrestrial research, it has become known in today’s language under the name of “spatial time”.
After Los Alamos, several years as NASA laboratory chief, have returned to me this space, in particular solar science, magnetospheric research and planetary exploration are themes that interest and excite young people and the elderly. Who would not want to know more about the most important (undoubtedly) star of the universe, our sun? Who would not wonder what it is on neighboring planets like Mars, or Mercury, or Jupiter? Who (among those who had the chance to see them) have not wondered an Aurora dancing above his head by a moonless night?
Over the past three decades, I have been my great privilege to direct one of the most important university research institutes in the country. The Institute – The laboratory of atmospheric and spatial physics in Boulder, Colorado – has achieved remarkable things during its years which were founded in 1948. During the life of the laboratory, there has always been the motivation of the rocky substratum to understand the spatial environment to advance the prediction and the successful predictions of severe spatial time.
Given these historical contact points, it was confusing to explain why the current presidential administration proposed reducing federal support for space research and spatial applications by more than one factor of two. By any objective measure, the American – human and robotic space program – did not do what to honor and distinguish in America. The successes of American space missions were the desire for the rest of the world and dazzling space successes continue to inspire young people in the United States and in the world.
What have we done in the ranks of science and engineering to bring national leaders and political decision-makers to destroy our academic-open-industry partnership which brought such a distinction and admiration of the rest of the world? Why would we never like to dismantle a system that made our nation safer, safer and more productive than what could have been planned at the dawn of the space era almost 70 years ago?
If we want to change the scientific support system in this nation, we must do it with extreme care and providents. We should seek to understand deeply how the modification of the academic-government-industgy partnership can have catastrophic consequences. We should certainly only make changes when a viable and highly functional alternative is available and has been shown that it is more effective than what has served so well for more than three quarters of a century. Ours should not be the generation that ends the “endless border”.
Dr. Daniel Baker is eminent professor of planetary and space physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and has just been appointed director of the New Colorado Space Policy Center.
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