Quick! Before somebody else claims the Moon, let's do something to pretend we care about our American legacy there. Wait! I know! Let's create a lunar national park!
Never mind that President Obama effectively killed space travel and turned NASA into pretend climate scientists. A pair of Democratic congresswomen, Donna Edwards from Maryland and Eddie Bernice Johnson from Texas, want to create a national historic park on the surface of the Moon to commemorate the Apollo lunar landing missions that took place between 1969 and 1972.
The Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historic Park.
Long name, lofty purpose.
Mr. Speaker, in 1969, led by the late Apollo Astronaut Neil Armstrong, American ingenuity changed history as humanity took a giant leap forward on the surface of the Moon, Edwards said on the House floor Tuesday. That history, as preserved on the lunar surface, is now in danger, as space-faring commercial entities and foreign nations begin to achieve the technical capabilities necessary to land spacecraft on the surface of the Moon.
Private space flights -- precisely the things Edwards and Johnson claim worry them now.
Commercial entrepreneurs have been dogging NASA for information about how to plan their own missions to the Moon.The two congresswomen's bill is making sure the artifacts left behind are not disturbed by foreigners or privateers.
Apollo artifacts include equipment, impact markings, footprints and vehicle tracks. (NASA actually does have preservation guidelines.) The bill calls on the Secretary of the Interior and NASA to submit an application to make the new national park on the Moon a United Nations World Heritage Site.
So, if I understand correctly, we don't want to go to the Moon anymore -- that is,Obama never wavered from his decision to end NASA's Moon program, turn over space transportation to commercial companies and instead jump-start technologies needed for future human exploration of Mars. But we do want to keep anybody else from treading in our footsteps because, well, we were there first and that should be good enough.
Edwards and Johnson are willing to pay for the national park, too. That is, Edwards introduced a companion bill throwing NASA a bone. It authorizes the space agency for another three years, allowing it a 2 percent funding increase per year from $18.1 billion in fiscal 2014 to $18.87 billion in fiscal 2016. Isn't that swell? The authorization bill, said Edwards, makes absolutely double-dead-sure NASA "remains a multi-mission agency with a balanced and robust set of core missions in science, aeronautics, space technology and human space flight and exploration.
Probably we're not supposed to take the national park designation literally. But I'd like to go. The sands of time are slipping away. What if I'm ready to fill the picnic basket and pack my hiking boots? I've got a few questions for Edwards and Johnson:
-- For starters, how are we supposed to get there? In fact, how will our rangers get to the park? As I keep stressing, America doesn't go to the Moon anymore.
-- We can actually establish a national park on another celestial body? Really? When did the Moon become a U.S. territory? A protectorate? Anything that gives us the right to break the Outer Space Treaty? Oh, yes, we do have one of those, established in 1967 and ratified by 101 countries.Article II of the Treaty says this: "Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."
-- And how do we enforce park rules? Visitors to Stonehenge have been chipping stone away from the British national treasure for years, bagging irretrievable souvenirs. Unless it mans a station on the Moon -- and be honest, it's not going to do that -- what chance does the U.S. have to protect the handful of precious artifacts planted in the Moon dust?
The Daily Caller -- with better knowledge of the Park Service's foibles than I have -- had some advice for people like me who want to sign up for a Moon trip. If a national park on the Moon is signed into law, the national online newspaper said, "you better contact the Park Service quick. People wait up to 20 years for a permit to raft down the Grand Canyon; imagine how long the wait will be for a chance to sit on the lunar rover."
NASA declined comment Wednesday afternoon. Is it any wonder?
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423.
