Friday, May 11, 2007

1. MISSILE DEFENSE BUDGET: CONGRESS BALKS AT SILOS IN POLAND.

The Bush administration wants to install 10 interceptors in Poland and tracking radar in the Czech Republic – like the type of system that doesn't work in Alaska. Congress is unlikely to provide the money. The Safeguard ABM system was abandoned, the Strategic Defense Initiative was stillborn, and Bush's National Missile Defense is turned off. Ballistic missiles are easier to make than to stop. The only meaningful defense has always been the threat of retaliation. But a chilling article in today's NY Times asks “retaliation against whom?” Missiles carry a return address. Bombs carried in by terrorists do not.

2. SCIENCE BUDGET: MAYBE WE COULD PRIVATIZE THE WAR IN IRAQ.

At the annual AAAS Science and Technology Forum last week, one-time physicist Jack Marburger, told science policy wonks that prospects for increased science funding are poor. Marburger observed that science has been held to a constant slice of the federal pie for the past 40 years, and he says it's not going to change now. He cited “competing societal priorities,” by which he must mean the war in Iraq. “New researchers will either find new ways to fund their work, or they will leave the field.”

3. NASA BUDGET: CLIMATE EXPERTS WARN THAT EARTH IS GOING BLIND.

Seventeen years ago, Dan Goldin, then head of NASA, pushed hard for a major effort, called Mission to Planet Earth, to monitor changes in Earth's environment from space. The head of the Space Subcommittee, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), hated the idea, and transferred funding to the Space Station (WN 14 Nov 97) . I recalled the episode when I read an op-ed in Wednesday's Washington Post in which the heads of the three top climate/oceanographic labs warn that the shift of NASA funding to Moon/Mars is threatening observations of our own planet at a very critical time.

4. BELIEFS: SCIENTIFIC ILLITERACY REACHES CLEAR TO THE TOP.

Last week at the Republican presidential debate, moderator Chris Matthews asked whether any of the wannabes did not believe in evolution. Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo raised their hands. John McCain waffled: “I believe in evolution, “he said, “but I also believe when I hike the Grand Canyon that the hand of God is there also.” The Sunday Washington Post pointed out that they weren't that far from mainstream. In an ABC poll a year ago, 61% thought Genesis is literally true.

Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.