Let me play among the stars... Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars...

Hold on a minute... that's not Frank Sinatra singing! It's President Bush!

Tomorrow, the President will unveil his plan to return to the Moon and build a permanent Lunar research station and settlement. His plan also includes sending astronauts to Mars as the next natural step in the exploration and expansion of humans into space.

Once again, President Bush proves he's a man after my own heart.  Not only will his push for space exploration redeem NASA, create jobs, spur scientific research and give America a vision for the future, but it's sure to anger many Liberals while, at the same time, keeping the USA ahead of the ambitious Chinese.  A winning situation, six different ways.

Since the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded in its final minutes of re-entry a year ago, killing all aboard, America's space exploration has been in a holding pattern. There's been widespread doubt that the agency could even survive.  Challenging NASA to meet a definite goal will revitalise not only the organisation itself, but all the dependent firms with aerospace ties. Handing NASA a mandate for this kind of effort will create a trickle-down positive effect in the tech sector as well. 

Few people could disagree with the fact that space exploration has brought huge research and development advances in every field of human endeavor. From health care to sports to communication and other technologies, nearly every industry has benefitted in some way from the development of space. Research into such problems as the bone loss all long-term astronauts experience, for instance, could be a huge boon to America's aging population.  And more than that, we Americans need a common goal that could lift us out of the media quagmire muddying our achievements in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries (fifty million people freed from oppression and counting...), as well as the constant petty political attacks on the President by the Democrats.  Returning to space could give all Americans a sense of common pride and accomplishment. We belong at the forefront of science. We belong at the forefront of technology. We belong at the forefront of exploration.  We belong in space.  In every possible way, space exploration is worth the cost.

Naturally, some people will disagree, and in the most vitriolic ways. 

Mark my words, the coming weeks and months will hear fevered objections to President Bush's determination to return to space.  We'll hear over and over about how the government's money (your money, my money) should be spent on more social programs, which (as we all know) might alleviate the problems of a few, for the short term only.  One of the main problems with these people, mostly Liberals, is their inablility to see anything but the short term -- witness their impatience with the slowly-but-steadily improving Iraq situation. The kind of people who could whine that nine months has already been too long to rebuild an entire country and acclimate its people to a democratic form of government will be unable to understand the kind of sustained national effort space exploration takes.  The people who had the same opinion in the 1960's wasted no time taking advantage of the benefits it brought, nor will today's objectors.

I can just hear the cries of objection now, from people who want to sacrifice the advance of science and technology to their own ideological agendas. Perhaps they'll say, "No blood for science!" or "It's all about the helium-3!"  What kind of people protest the advance of science and the general betterment of the human condition?  A few more years of Liberal cultural domination will see us all living in caves, instead of reaching for the stars.