Correspondence

...He seems to believe that all we're lacking is collective will and desire to visit the moon and Mars...

...Perhaps the problem is that Americans these days want nothing more than to be entertained, and that the media, educators, and politicians have capitulated to that desire...

...Then, via executive order, he could declare American sovereignty on the moon, by right of first manned exploration...

...A heavy price was paid for our present peace and prosperity, but who would have guessed we would keep on paying it after peace and prosperity had been achieved...

...There may, perhaps, be adequate justification for an unmanned solar system exploration program—which would cost only 1 percent or 2 percent of the cost of a manned program—but until such a program discovers something a lot more interesting in the solar system than anything that has been found so far, it is the height of both idiocy and moral irresponsibility to start spending tens of billions on it...

...Many scientists, including Hawking and Crick, believe that the limits placed on technology by the laws of physics disallow the possibility of significant extraterrestrial space excursions...

...Then again, perhaps the problem lies in American leadership, after all...

...REP...

...In fact, we're missing something much more important: military or economic incentives...

...With the weight of planet earth's most powerful and transparent legal system guaranteeing property rights (and the rewards for the risk of getting there), our 30-plus-year wait for serious action in space would be quickly over...

...If it's a bold vision for America in space Krauthammer truly seeks, we must return to the immutable laws of risk and reward...

...BRUCE MOOMAW Cameron Park, CA CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER'S "On To Mars" misses the mark...

...Rather, there has always been an unwillingness to pursue this objective based on rational cost/benefit analysis...

...president should do immediately...

...Yet there will still be those who defend the loopholes that allow unlimited, unregulated contributions from corporations and labor unions to the political parties...

...Article 16 of the original Outer Space Treaty of 1967 allows for unilateral treaty withdrawal, which the next U.S...

...WILLIAM T. SELLERS Overland Park, KS MY THANKS TO Charles Krauthammer for giving us some compelling reasons to continue and expand our exploration and settling of space...

...He rails against "gross factual errors" and "glaring inaccuracies," but ignores Novak's most basic premise: Republicans risk more than they gain by opposing efforts to protect our political system from corruption...

...It opened the most abundant physical and spiritual frontier in human history to date: the American West...

...NASA focuses on near-orbit missions because it can perform many more commercially useful experiments there, but more importantly because almost every shuttle launch is heavily financed by commercial satellite payloads...

...Given our new scientific understanding of the dangers of earth-crossing asteroids and comets, and remembering the awesome destructive power we witnessed when one of these objects struck Jupiter not so long ago, and realizing that sooner or later one will come our way, all of us should be keenly aware that the age-old saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket" applies to the entire human race...

...JOHN BARTON Manchester, CT CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER'S advocacy of manned space exploration strikes me as somewhat naive...

...Numerous historians maintain we owe much of our character, wealth, and what we became in the 20th century to this one piece of legislation...

...While many find enough motivation in knowledge and discovery for scientific research, society at large, for good or bad, has never been willing to finance research for its own sake at the massive levels needed for planetary exploration...

...On To Mars" isn't so much about going to Mars, as it is about the loss of national ambition and national will in a time of unprecedented success and prosperity...

...Liberals look silly when they can't bring themselves to acknowledge that some social problems might actually fall outside the purview of the federal government...

...People investing in big-budget science projects want more in return than the limited (though admittedly fascinating) scientific data and warm-fuzzy feelings manned planetary exploration provides...

...Similarly, the great European explorations of the 16th and 17th centuries were not undertaken out of the goodness of people's hearts...

...rather, fortunes were to be had from the spice trade, mining, trapping, plundering of natives, slavery, and other unsavory enterprises...

...instead, his passions are unleashed in defense of the broken and corrupt status quo...

...24), and urges the Republican presidential candidate to set a "new national goal" of reducing the crime rates down to where they were in the 1950s...

...Fortunately, this one died a quiet death in the Senate...

...Conservatives should be mocking that stance—not embracing it...

...And perhaps the problem goes back yet one more step...

...As far as Mars or the moon is concerned, America might as well hang it up...

...JIM BURTON Helena, MT SHAYS'S REBELLION SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL'S critique of Robert Novak's article on campaign finance reform unfortunately misses its most important point (Correspondence, Feb...

...It's great that people like Krauthammer dream of manned planetary exploration, but unless economic realities change I don't see any of it happening in our lifetimes...

...The only reason the trip to the moon was accomplished during the 1960s was the need to develop a reliable ICBM capability, with the space program as political cover to popularize Cold War missile development...

...Without leaders to hold up visions for citizens to follow and believe in, there will be no visions...

...Without a test of will which challenges the entire nation—a depression, a world war, a space race— leaders with vision may have no voice...

...After all, we did get there first, and in every lunar picture I see, there are lots of flags, all of one design...

...In fact, we have a profoundly successful public-private sector model by way of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862...

...But he offers no alternative proposal...

...Five years later, after we'd landed on the moon in 1969, the same U.N...

...Krauthammer's two prime examples of big 20th-century American science— the Manhattan Project and the moon landings—were both of extreme military importance...

...This year, the Court is expected to invalidate the "Violence Against Women Act...

...CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R-CT) Washington, DC CRIMINAL THEORY ANDREW PEYTON THOMAS laments the fact that the crime issue has left the "national stage" ("Completing the War on Crime," Jan...

...So let us visit and settle on the moon, Mars, and beyond—for all the reasons Krauthammer gives, and for our very survival...

...There is not a new disinterest in space exploration, as expressed in the current unwillingness to expend scarce resources to achieve interplanetary space travel...

...Krauthammer's point that President Kennedy's words motivated a nation with courage instead of greed cannot be emphasized too much or made too often...

...EDWARD ELLIOTT San Diego, CA ACCORDING TO Charles Krauthammer, we should immediately begin spending tens of billions of dollars to send men to other worlds in the solar system—even if they are ugly, boring deserts—simply "because they are there," rather than spending it on such silliness as helping the poor (apparently government assistance can't do anything to help them at all, which presumably means private charity can't either), or carrying out scientific and technical research that actually has some bearing on improving the human condition...

...Article 2 of this treaty forbids any form of national sovereignty whatsoever—the absolute precursor to property rights...

...If the Republican party decides to address this issue constructively, we can debate the other party with confidence in our ideals...

...gang that undermined our space efforts in '67 came back with an even more prohibitive encyclical, the Moon Treaty of 1972...

...The common question is: What's in it for X, Y, or Z? Certainly not a stirring sentiment able to touch one's soul in the same way as words such as, "We choose to do these things because they are hard...

...They certainly came to invest in our railroads...

...The Rehnquist Court is in the process of setting some landmark precedents in the area of federalism...

...Cannot America do the same on the moon and invite the rest of the world to invest...

...HARRY S. HILL Jackson, MI I AGREE WITH Charles Krauthammer that America has been without a bold vision in space far too long...

...Because it's there" is a platitude, not a justification...

...It may be that America is the victim of its own success...

...If our party stands for expediency and not principle, we will suffer at the polls come Election Day...

...From this starting point, firmly grounded in the legal principles of capitalist property ownership, a successful plan can be developed...

...In 1995, the Court blew the dust off the Tenth Amendment by invalidating the federal "Gun-Free School Zones Act...

...In an utter Cold War sop to the Soviets, the Johnson administration signed and then had the Senate ratify the Outer Space Treaty of 1967...

...But if the GoP continues to cast itself as the defender of corruption, we provide Democrats with a powerful issue for the upcoming elections...

...Especially when a serious return to the moon could easily restore America's sense of pioneering purpose...

...However, for all the practical and philosophical reasons he mentions, he neglected perhaps the most important one...

...Senator McConnell has been a staunch and passionate opponent of reforming campaign finance laws...

...Instead of helping to restore the idea that the Constitution created a federal government of limited and enumerated powers, Thomas would have conservative politicians undermine that principle...

...Thomas's tactical "statecraft" is terribly misguided because it undermines the strategic objective of reducing the size and scope of the federal government...

...TIMOTHY LYNCH Director, Project on Criminal Justice Cato Institute Washington, DC...

...But why Mars...

...America gave incentives to private capital, vis-avis the powers of national sovereignty, to guarantee reward for risks taken...

...But Krauthammer missed a very big legal point concerning the bureaucratic gang at the united Nations...

...The Supreme Court ruled last week that limits on campaign donations are constitutional because unlimited gifts invite corruption into the political process...

...As a supporter of the space program, I join Krauthammer in calling for a renewed sense of purpose, vision, and yes, romance on the part of the American people and their government...

...In special-interest, me-first America, vision and dreams amount to contemptible wastes of money...

...Just prior to Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon, we gave away our single most precious advantage in space exploration: the right to declare national sovereignty...