Life on Mars? Funding to find answers fades
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/national-international/article/Life-on-Mars-Funding-to-find-answers-fades-3401227.php
I am always a bit on the fence regarding big ticket research projects funded by tax payer dollars (I am not, however, against broad-based support for science via the doling out of research dollar via grants administered by organizations like NIH, DOE, etc., I firmly believe that the cost to society is vastly outweighed by its benefit). Nixon’s “war on cancer” probably set back cancer research by at least a generation, largely because it turned out that cancer was a lot more complex than originally thought and it took the better part of a generation before the few gatekeepers of the money Nixon doled out to accept that fact. A lot of scientists refuse to accept the notion that science research, at least as funded by tax payers, is a zero sum game and when one project soaks up a huge fraction of that money other projects get canceled or put on hold indefinitely. I am quite curious about the possibility of life on Mars, but you know what? If I were making decisions I would rather put that money into the exploration of life under the frozen surface of Eurpoa. While there is a very good chance that Mars once supported life, the evidence that it currently supports life is rather thin. However, the chances that Europa currently supports life has to be considered much higher than the chance of Mars and I would rather study actual living extraterrestrial organisms than something long dead.
I also suspect that if scientists were forced to make do with less that research would still be done because scientists are a very inventive lot and they would probably invent something to make their research possible even without any taxpayer dollars.
Now, what if tax payers don’t want to fund this sort of stuff at all? Would that mean no research gets done? I suspect that if science was marketed properly that there would be a huge amount of interest in donating to fund projects. While cable channels like Science and Discovery seem to quickly devolve into a grab at the lowest common denominator (some of the shows are embarrassing to me due to their pandering to the ignorant louts who should be getting their entertainment elsewhere), they have proven that there is a market for science-based TV shows (the Mythbusters is a favorite of mine and while they don’t always get everything right, they are very good about making the effort to be scientific). What if, for instance, someone were to produce a science show where micro robots were to explore the surface of the moon. The robots could be scattered in groups all over the surface of the moon and the groups could act cooperatively to explore the surface. The viewing public could participate by suggesting specific places to explore and voting (perhaps with donation dollars determining the number of votes?) on which to prioritize. I suspect that even very expensive projects could be funded this way, though clearly there would have to be different personalities involved and the focus would likely have to shift away from pure research to try to increase the entertainment level.
Perhaps even with this approach no Superconducting Super Collider would get funded, though I could see that if, say, 40% of the proposed budget were to be supplied by donations that governments might see it worth picking up the other 60% as a way to stimulate the economy. There would still be uncertainty in funding as the whims of the donating public will be influenced by the economy, world events, competing interests, etc., but coupled with the focus to do more with less there might be substantial improvements in basic science as a consequence.
If anyone is interested in the idea of donation funding of robot moon exploration let me know and I can outline what I have in mind.
Every time I think about the SSC it gaks my gazeetus. Even Bill Clinton, who was originally unsupportive, wound up stating, “abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science.”
Now we have the LHC, a smaller, less powerful machine, lying underneath France and Switzerland, providing jobs over there, while the US provides part of the funding (and 1700 or so scientists) through the government and through “private” funding (taxpayer dollars via grants).
As you say, science will get done. Unfortunately, our “representatives” will choose to let the rest of the world do it while they siphon off money from wars and “terrorist” organizations (MEK scandal, anyone?) and relegate our young people to sitting in front of TVs and game consoles.