We can afford a fully-funded NASA

The group Space Advocates, which I support with a few dollars monthly, has produced this cute video highlighting the broad talking points of how sad the state of funding for NASA is, and how little it would cost us to fix it. Check it out!

Here are a few ways to bring this conversation into the spotlight:

1. Share this video!
2. When space comes up in conversation, mention how pathetic it is that we spend many times more money subsidizing the already-booming oil industry than we do maintaining our slipping hold on leadership in space exploration.
3. Point out that NASA's budget is 40 times smaller than the military's budget. Build rockets, not bombs!
4. Mention that we will very soon (after 2017) have ZERO functioning spacecraft exploring the outer planets, some of which have moons that could potentially harbor life. The reason? These planets are far away and more costly to reach. That's like hearing there might be treasure buried in your backyard and complaining about how far it is from the couch.
5. "We should solve our problems here on Earth before we go mucking around in space." Sigh... You are bound to hear this. It's pretty easy to just point out that we already spend 100 times more on social programs to solve problems down here, and that we spend about as much per year on the military (which the kind of person using this excuse might say is spending money on making problems) as we have on all NASA programs in history combined.

There are a lot of other things you can do, but the best thing is to just take a moment to think about how big of an impact we can make if we just turn this into an issue that people care about. Once you've thought about how this matters for a few minutes, then it's a good idea to check out the Space Advocates "Get Involved" page. They'll give you an easy way to write to Congress.

Don't stop there, though! Ask about candidates' positions on the state of funding for space exploration when they're on the campaign trail. If you can get someone to comment on it publicly, their opponents may be forced to join in. Don't give up. It's hard to get the Leviathan moving, but once it's gained momentum we can do great things: See Apollo Program, ISS, Hubble, Cassini, Voyager, Curiosity, and on and on.

A bad reason for supporting marriage equality

A group Republicans have filed a legal brief containing their argument for rejecting prohibitions on civil marriage between partners of the same sex. While we agree in the end, I must say some of their reasons are specious. There are tons of reasons to allow everyone to marry the consenting adult of their choice; we don't need the bad ones. Let's start with their quoting of this passage from this report on marriage from the National Marriage Project:

Children who grow up with cohabiting couples tend to have more negative life outcomes compared to those growing up with married couples. Prominent reasons are that cohabiting couples have a much higher breakup rate than do married couples, a lower level of household income, and a higher level of child abuse and domestic violence.

Sounds good, right? I mean, married couples raise children with less negative life outcomes. So more marriage = better families and better lives for kids? Not necessarily. In fact, this is a perfect example of correlation not implying causation. Just because married partners do a better job of raising their kids than unmarried partners doesn't imply that getting married will make two people better parents. In fact, when you say it that way it sounds kind of crazy.

Take Alice and Bob (sorry, I know I shouldn't use these names unless I'm talking about the firewall paradox or encryption protocols), a couple of crack addicts who are madly in love with each other as long as there is enough money to stay high, but whose chemically-enhanced bliss devolves into a melee after a day without a visit from their dealer. Lately they have had to choose between buying condoms and buying more crack, and are soon to discover the consequences of their decision. How good a parenting pair will they be? What if they got married?

Take Carl and Doug (I don't know the standard names past Alice and Bob!), Carl works for a software company and Doug is a moderately successful artist (the kind that wouldn't starve even without Carl, but that isn't famous enough that anyone would recognize the name Doug). They love spending time with their nieces and nephews, whom they babysit regularly. They are thinking of adopting kids and have started combing the parenting section of Amazon books. Would they be better parents if they lived in California (and hence had gotten married) or if they lived in Texas (and hence were "just roommates")? For that matter, what if they lived in California but just didn't believe in marriage? Is that a strike against them?

Maybe the kinds of people who are interested and invested in raising their kids the right way (and would therefore be predisposed to be good parents) are also more likely to be enchanted by the romantic ideal of being married and raising a family a la the Cleavers. Maybe. Maybe not. But I doubt the actual act of getting married has much to do with how well adjusted a couple's children will be, whether it's legal or not in your state.

Think of this the next time you hear a correlation used as evidence of causation in a political debate or column. It'll save you time by letting you wave your hand dismissively at the monitor/TV screen and mutter "Cum hoc ergo propter hoc", because correlation does not imply causation!

An open letter to save Planetary Science at NASA

Please feel free to copy+paste this letter and change the names or anything you like to send to your representatives. 

Dear Mr./Ms. President/Senator/Representative,

Due to budget cutbacks, NASA may soon be forced to cut short one of its two most important planetary science missions: The Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, and the Cassini Orbiter around Saturn. Despite years of potential life remaining in both vehicles, which have given us wonderful discoveries and images which help captivate and inspire us all --like evidence of fresh, clean water on early Mars and the potential existence of a habitable ocean under the ice of Saturn's moon Enceladus-- one of these missions could soon be cut short in a foolish effort to save an effectively irrelevant sum of money. This is unacceptable, both practically and in principle.

As both of these missions are already active, they require only operational costs to continue providing invaluable data and perspective on our solar system --ending them would mean discarding functioning vehicles already delivered to distant planets at great expense. Further, replacement of these vehicles' capabilities would require an investment of many times the funding required to ensure that both continue operating as planned. If you believe, as I do, that scientific discovery, exploration, technological development, and the marshalling of our best efforts and ingenuity to solve the challenges of space flight have value, then this waste of potential discoveries already within our grasp is not worth the fraction of a fraction of a percent that could be saved from the federal budget by dismantling our crowning achievements. I believe that there are far better, more effective, and less destructive ways of lowering expenses, if that is a goal we wish to achieve.

I also find the very idea of cutting back on our most bold and exciting areas of scientific exploration foolish at a time when people need more than ever to see that the future is bright and that the greatest and most challenging problems can be solved by our best and brightest minds. When pondering the greatest challenges that lay ahead of our civilization, the ingenious systems devised by our engineers and the incredible discoveries made by our scientists are proof that, given the chance, this nation can overcome even the most daunting obstacles. These bold steps taken into the unknown are sure to inspire and energize the minds of millions of young people to dream of better futures for themselves and for all of us. If we long for improvement in our worldly station, then there is no more powerful force that can be marshalled to achieve it than to instill in this generation a dream and the belief that to see the future they have only to dare to build it.

Planetary science at NASA is about more than distant machines exploring the cold, dusty reaches of space; it is about the people who build them, those who use them to discover, and those whose lives are enriched and inspired by the knowledge of our origins. It is about all of us, who live in a world understood and improved every day by those lives. NASA needs $1.5 billion, less than one twentieth of one percent of the 2013 federal budget, for its entire planetary science program to remain funded at levels that will save these missions, most of which is already granted. I support granting them the rest, and I hope you will too.

Thank you,
Dustin Summy

Scalia makes the case for nationwide marriage equality.

Justice Scalia dissented from the Supreme Court's majority opinion on scrapping the Defense of Marriage Act in a rather interesting way today—He actually started writing the court's opinion scrapping all restrictions on marriage equality. See page 23 of his "Old man yells at cloud"-esque opinion here.

My letter to Congress in support of funding space exploration.

Dear Senator or Representative,

I strongly oppose the proposed cuts in NASA's budget. I would ideally like to see NASA's funding stay at or above 1% of the total US budget in order to properly fund the more daring and exciting human exploration missions, but I will not accept any cuts to the already low level of funding for planetary science.

My argument is simple:

Recall the landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars and the enormous amount of public interest that was generated and is maintained as more discoveries pour in. I can't recall a more exhilarating event than that moment (I'm far too young to have experienced the amazing Apollo program) when the descent program worked flawlessly and deposited a metric ton of nuclear-powered, mobile geology lab on the surface of another planet, and a good deal of that excitement comes from the knowledge that this impressive mission is partially my own. My tax dollars were spent on something bold and adventurous, yet peaceful and innocent, probing a distant world for answers to questions that could not be more important to all of us. There is no more noble endeavor than exploration, no more virtuous characteristic of a society than curiosity, and I am proud to support these ideals with the few dollars I have to spare.

The achievements of the planetary science section of NASA are incredible, but they are merely the first drops of an ocean of discovery that awaits us within our solar system. Did you know that we (the human race, not just NASA) have sent only one mission to Uranus and Neptune? Every picture you've seen of the blue and green ice giants and their moons came from a single spacecraft whizzing by in a matter of days using technology developed in the 1960's. Imagine what we could learn with a mission that stayed for years with modern equipment! As interesting a place to look for signs of long-extinct life Mars is, there are potentially entire oceans of life beneath the crusts of moons like Ganymede, Europa, Enceladus, and perhaps even Triton. To paraphrase Neil deGrasse Tyson: I want to drill down to the oceans beneath Europa's crust, stick a camera in, and see if anything licks the lens.

If this sounds more science fiction than science fact to you, please know that I have met countless exceedingly bright scientists and engineers, and I have heard them speak and read their plans at length for entirely feasible missions to accomplish all of these goals. We don't need any miracles to make these dreams come true, we need only the resources - we'll supply the hard work and the intelligence - and along the way we'll discover new technologies with applications back here on Earth. There are those that say that the government can't do anything right, and there may be some departments where that holds, but NASA is not one of them. Given the freedom to follow where the science and engineering lead, the people at this agency can accomplish anything. They have proven it again and again, and they should be rewarded and trusted for it.

Our nation is hungry for the thrill of an open frontier, and here we have dozens of worlds just waiting to be explored. Please support NASA, specifically the planetary and human exploration sectors, and give this generation a chance to be a part of a path of discovery that will literally lead us to a whole new world.

Sincerely,
Dustin Summy