Nasa needs more than Curiosity

Nasa’s space missions have a record of triumph against the odds. They have challenged science, technology and the potential of human endeavour. However, Nasa’s biggest challenge yet comes in the form of the US deficit. On 13 February, President Obama submits his 2013 federal budget to Congress and Nasa’s planetary science budget is set to be a casualty, probably marking Nasa’s terminal decline.

Nasa was once America’s proudest achievement and the language they used to describe their dauntless programs reflected their courage. Mercury, Apollo, Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS). These Herculean projects required names that described in a phrase the enormity of their objectives. When attempting to land humans on the moon for the first time Nasa officials opted for Apollo, which took the name of the Greek and Roman god who stood for light and truth. Mercury, the god of speed but also of trade and pursuit, perfectly captured the achievement and the possible technological and commercial consequences of man circling the entire globe in a matter of minutes.

The titles of some of the space shuttles that launched in the 80s and in the early 90s gave an impression of a daring acceleration into the unknown: Discovery, Endeavour and Challenger were named after pioneering British ships that explored somewhere seemingly insurmountable and unreachable.

Curiosity, the name of Nasa’s most recent land-rover to Mars that is due to land in August, was proposed by a twelve-year-old competition winner.

The three previous Mars rovers’ names—Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity—had not been grandiose symbols like the names of the space shuttles, but remained ambitious. Curiosity, however, gives an impression that our ventures into space are akin to a child’s persistence with a casual hobby. Surely it is not an incidental interest that has driven us to explore our universe but a fundamental yearning to understand why we exist and why we exist seemingly alone.

So why the titular step backwards in Nasa’s ambitious sequence?

Curiosity’s initial costs stand at $2.5bn. That’s three times the amount of the Spirit and Opportunity budget combined. Spending $2.5bn on a scientific project, while the American economy slowly recovers from a recession, is brave. And neither is it enough in what is now a competitive market.

The space shuttle missions and previous Mars rovers were launched at a time when the US was the supreme power. Today, the Chinese are thought to spend up to $3bn a year on their space program and the China National Space Administration have hinted at intentions to launch a manned mission to Mars in the next 20 years. All this while the US, in addition to the Nasa budget cut, looks certain to withdraw from the ExoMars mission, a collaboration with the European Space Agency, because of budgetary concerns.

In the Curiosity project, the US has gambled a huge sum of money into the modern-day quintessential outward sign of power, the ability to transcend even our own planet. It is an “I’m still here” statement in a world that is ebbing east. But Nasa’s guarded and timid naming of the Mars rover is a tell-tale admission that America must hand over the world’s cosmic ambitions to a new and more well-heeled suitor.