Mars failure echoes Mt. Graham fiasco
Letter to the Editor
Many at Notre Dame who are perplexed at the NASA/Mars failure and the Mt. Graham telescope controversy, which their school is involved in, may have wondered whether these events resulted from mismanagement at the agency or the congressional level.
History shows it was some of both. Tucson Congressman Jim Kolbe inserted clandestine language in a 1997 bill designating $10 million in NASA funds for a University of Arizona Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mt. Graham. This would have taken money from ongoing NASA research on two clearly superior telescopes in Hawaii. LBT was years from completion whereas the NASA research in Hawaii used two existing telescopes. Clinton vetoed this waste but Congress revoked the line-item veto.
Was it also agency mismanagement? Scientists are in advertising wars with each other for federal grants, even when it means bad science. Look again at Mt. Graham. University of Arizona scientists advertised this as a science breakthrough to Congress to get exemptions from environmental and native American religious protection laws.
In reality, Graham had been rejected by 20 key U.S. universities because of bad cloud cover, snowstorms and bad optical clarity caused by Graham's bad topography and dense forestation. Furthermore, this science blunder was based on a highly advertised University of Arizona mirror technology prone to construction failures and delays. University of Arizona languishes in either 11th or last place in the world race to build gigantic 8-meter telescopes.
Like the Mt. Graham fiasco, the Mars failure was probably mismanagement by both Congress and the scientists.
Elise Lauster
Phoenix, Ariz.
December 12, 1999
All Viewpoint Stories for Friday, January 21, 2000
