LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: PORK-FOR-VOTES SPACE PROGRAM

To the Editor:

I hadn't thought about our space program damaging the ozone layer until I read Davida Douglas' letter (April 19), but the observation adds another good reason for opposing this congressional and scientific folly.

There are many others. Originally the space effort made sense: The Soviets were up there first, and we feared they were developing the technology to rain nuclear bombs upon our heads from outer space. Never mind that in truth the Soviets never had the technology to develop a functional washing machine. They were reasonably adept at manufacturing weapons of war -- or so the CIA told us.

So Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson were right in accelerating our space program -- at a cost of untold trillions of taxpayer dollars. Militarily, it was justifiable -- or so most of us believed in that more innocent era (even if LBJ, first in the Senate and later in the White House, did have ulterior motives, chiefly a massive number of jobs and capital expenditure of tax dollars in his home state).

But the Cold War is over. We're now busily giving members of the old Soviet bloc billions of tax dollars to dismantle their nuclear warheads (as well as aid in general). What is the justification for the continued expenditures of billions of tax dollars for the space program?

Besides all those well-paying jobs (in tax dollars) in Texas (which provides a hefty vote in the electoral college in presidential elections), the excuse we usually hear is that astronauts are studying the effect of space travel on the human body. And on white rats and spiders and whatever other junk they take up there.

You'd think they would already have a decent understanding of the impact of space travel on the body by now. I mean, we've been in space for the last 30 years or so. Now the latest justification is that our beloved astronauts were able to utilize $350 million worth of new equipment to provide 3d photos of ancient rivers in the Sahara and other esoteric items of interest to archaeologists and other small elitist groups.

I understand the NASA budget also includes funding for certain college professors to spend their summers in Houston doing nebulous research with NASA scientists. Let's see if I've got this straight: We give Congress our tax dollars so they can appropriate a massive budget for NASA. We give the state tax dollars to pay the salaries of college professors. NASA in turn uses a portion of their tax-generated budget to pay college professors already paid from taxes to do some sort of vague research, the benefits of which will always remain a mystery to most of us.

Sure, that makes a lot of sense. I suppose the chief benefit is providing the professors with summer jobs.

The only real justification for the continued funding of NASA, besides those jobs in Texas and all that valuable research, is for the work the agency does with private enterprise in launching commercial satellites, which probably do provide various public benefit. But since private enterprise is footing most of that bill, as it should, NASA's budget could be shrunk, and shrunk and shrunk some more....

Broke nations, nations that waste 25 cents of every tax dollar -- or has the figure grown higher? -- on interest payments that produce no tangible goods cannot afford frivolous expenditures of this nature. Cut NASA, use the money for something deserving. I would suggest cutting the deficit but we have to go forward, always, with new expenditures, so why not use the savings to fund at least a microscopic portion of the anticipated cost of health care, if we must have a national plan?

But the only way this kind of waste is going to stop in this era of pork-for-votes is to flood our congressmen with letters voicing our concerns .

BILL ZELLMER

Cape Girardeau