[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 97 (Thursday, July 10, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1397]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               PATHFINDER

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                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 10, 1997

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member highly commends to his 
colleagues the following editorial supporting the Pathfinder mission 
which appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star on July 7, 1997.

             [From the Lincoln Journal Star, July 7, 1997]

         Pathfinder Mission Example of Federal Funds Well Spent

       The Web site operated by the National Aeronautics and Space 
     Administration is logging as many as 40 million hits a day as 
     the six-wheeled Sojourner rover explores the surface of Mars.
       There's a bit of irony in the statistic.
       Many of the cybersurfers hitting the site are using 
     computers with more brains than the rover itself. Sojourner 
     has a mere 8,500 transistors in its brain, compared with 
     millions in the Pentium models. The vehicle's designers were 
     on a tight budget.
       Spending for the U.S. interplanetary space program in the 
     1990s contrasts sharply with the Viking missions of the 
     1970s. Those missions cost $3 billion in today's dollars. The 
     Mars Pathfinder mission's cost is pegged at $266 million.
       It's money well spent.
       Humanity has an inherent need to push into the unknown. 
     It's biologically wired into our makeup. Evidence abounds, 
     from the migration of humans across the Bering land bridge 
     into North America to the curiosity of children exploring a 
     new campground.
       Humans have been fascinated with Mars since Cro-Magnon 
     tribes watched the movement of the night sky's only red 
     object. When the medieval invention of telescopes revealed 
     lines on the planet's surface, theories sprang that they were 
     a system of canals.
       Today, the fascination with extraterrestrial matters 
     borders on the obsessive. The popular television show`` 
     File'' is based on a premise that aliens are among us; last 
     summer's megahit movie ``Independence Day'' was about an 
     alien invasion. Roswell, N.M., has turned into a tourist 
     destination because of rumors that aliens landed there 50 
     years ago.
       The question is not whether humans will spend money because 
     of their fascination with space. They already are plunking 
     down dollars for books, movies and travel about the subject.
       Spending tax dollars in pursuit of facts on the subject is 
     a far better use of society's resources. The imagination of 
     authors and filmmakers are diverting entertainment. At a 
     deeper level, however, people want scientific fact, not 
     unsubstantiated storytelling.
       When man landed on the moon in 1969, the popularity of the 
     space program and NASA was at an all-time high. From that 
     high point, public support declined. NASA's reputation 
     plummeted because of the Challenger explosion. Pressure built 
     to reduce the program's bloated expenses.
       The low-budget, unpiloted Pathfinder mission is the result. 
     When Daniel S. Goldstein was appointed NASA director in 1992, 
     he approved a low-cost plan developed by Donna L. Shirley, 
     who now heads the Mars exploration program at NASA's Jet 
     Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
       Shirley has been a proponent of finding low-cost ways to 
     explore Mars since the 1980s, when she headed a panel that 
     said if the dream of exploration were to become a reality, 
     ways had to be found to do it on the cheap.
       Now her dreams are being realized. They are dreams shared 
     universally by people across the globe. Finally, there may be 
     answers to questions that have existed since prehistoric 
     humans watched the red planet dance across the night sky.
       Funding the Pathfinder mission to Mars is a worthwhile use 
     of tax dollars.

     

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