Space challenge brings out best in top individuals

Accused of moving the country toward socialism through enactment of health care reform, President Obama's administration is taking exactly the opposite tack when it comes to space exploration.

Dropping the Bush Administration's plans for developing a new system to return astronauts to the moon and send them to Mars, the current administration is dangling a $6 billion carrot in front of private firms willing to create a space taxi system -- a role now carried out by Russia using 40-year-old technology at $51 million a seat.

SpaceX, founded by an Internet multimillionaire, plans to launch its Falcon 9 rocket soon on a demonstration flight, and other traditional aerospace firms Boeing and Lockheed Martin are in the game as well, using NASA grants.

Space shuttle Discovery blasted off early this morning on the first of only four more flights of the fragile shuttle system, which will be retired this fall after 30 years in operation and two flights which ended in disaster.

Aboard is Nebraska hero Clayton Anderson, who spent five months aboard the International Space Station in 2007.

We've all heard the litany of benefits that have resulted from space flight, from felt-tipped pens to more accurate weather forecasting and the Global Positioning System navigation in our cars.

But the costs of potential spinoffs seem pretty high in the light of trillion-dollar deficits in our national budgets.

Yes, space exploration is a dangerous, expensive proposition. Yet it is worth it if it spotlights the abilities of our best and brightest, people like Anderson, who spent decades toiling at NASA preparing for his first chance to spend time in space and the encore flight he embarked upon today.

President John F. Kennedy made the case in 1962, when he announced the program that resulted in a landing on the moon, July 20, 1969: "We choose to go to the moon ... in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win ..."

While America is now partners with Russia in the International Space Station, China and other nations are building space programs as well, another reason the United States needs to stay involved.

If private industry needs to play a central role in keeping us there, however, so much the better.