EARLIER this month, NASA had something to celebrate. Independence Day, 4 July, marked the fifth anniversary of Pathfinder, the plucky little spacecraft that didn鈥檛 so much land on Mars as bounce-down on it. The spacecraft used a new air-bag cushioning system to protect it after retro-rockets and parachutes had slowed its descent.
The mission was a stunning success. Not only did all the hardware work as planned, but NASA brass could brag that Pathfinder was one of the least expensive planetary missions ever, costing less that $200 million.
But after Pathfinder, the space agency turned away from the air bag approach and went back to gentler ways to the surface. And it might still be using that approach today but for one problem. Two of NASA鈥檚 last three missions to Mars have failed, and the agency needs a winner. So two years ago, with little fanfare, the agency switched back to airbags for the 2003 lander missions.
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The strange thing about these missions is that they have a low profile outside the agency. Usually, when a new mission is in the final planning and building stages, NASA puts up elaborate websites describing the mission in detail. But for the new missions, called MER, there is a one-page cursory description buried on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory home page.
NASA seems to be operating on the principle that nothing breeds success more effectively than lowered expectations.
CONGRESS is having a fine old time constructing the new Department of Homeland Security. That鈥檚 the new Cabinet agency that will protect Americans from both internal and external terrorist threats. And since some of these threats are bound to be extremely high-tech 鈥� or at least so some members of Congress believe 鈥� at least one version of the legislation that will create the new agency calls for an Under-Secretary for Science and Technology.
鈥淭he idea of such an under-secretary is gaining more favour with every passing day,鈥� said Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican from New York who chairs the House of Representatives Science Committee, 鈥渁nd we will work tirelessly to ensure that in the final bill, the department has a focused, clear and central research and develop mission, headed up by someone whose primary concern is science and technology.鈥�
If the terrorist threat ever goes away, the spin-offs will at least help in our lives. Isn鈥檛 that what science and technology are all about?
THERE鈥橲 always the danger that when you assemble an independent panel of experts to consider a topic that it will actually think independently. To prove that he wasn鈥檛 slavishly devoted to the 鈥渘ot now, not ever鈥� conservative point of view on human cloning, George W. Bush set up the President鈥檚 Council on Bioethics. But to be certain the panel would give him opinions he could embrace, Bush peopled it with conservative thinkers, including chairman, Leon Kass, a bioethicist who had privately advised him on embryonic stem-cell policy. Kass has loudly and publicly echoed the 鈥渘ot now, not ever鈥� line.
But darn those pesky independent panels. Oh sure, in its report on cloning, released this month, the panel bought the 鈥渘ot now鈥� argument. But a majority argued it was too soon for 鈥渘ot ever鈥�. They recommended a four-year moratorium rather than an outright ban on therapeutic human cloning to produce stem cells. Some favoured the delay to allow time to figure out how to regulate such activities so they could be done as ethically as possible, while others said time was needed to reach a national consensus on the 鈥渘ot ever鈥� concept.
With Congress unable to agree on legislation to ban all forms of human cloning, and the President鈥檚 Council waffling, the debate will continue for a while.
By the way. The panel did say not- now, not-ever to making a baby via cloning. At least it got that right.
