While the shuttle astronauts get ready to make a monumental effort to sew a torn blanket, the International Space Station is struggling with potentially fatal computer breakdowns. Time magazine asks: Is the Space Station a Money Pit?

There are bad ideas, and then there are true historic stinkers. Put the International Space Station in that second category.

Today, the most underachieving machine NASA ever dreamed up got into trouble again, when computers that control the station’s oxygen, water supply and orientation failed. With the three-man station crew just joined by the seven visiting astronauts of the space shuttle Atlantis, the specter of Apollo 13 on a grand scale — with 10 astronauts in danger this time instead of merely three — immediately arose. The good news is, the shuttle and station astronauts are in nowhere near the danger the 1970 lunar crew was; in fact, they’re not in much danger at all. The bad news is, the station has once again proven itself unworthy of all of the time, money and attention that has been lavished on it over the last two decades.

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These days, as critics rightly point out, the space shuttles exist principally to build and service the station, and the station exists merely to give the shuttles a place to go. The shuttles, meantime, which have already claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, continue to accumulate wear as they limp toward the 2010 deadline when the station is set to be completed and they’ll be allowed to retire. In the next several days, Atlantis astronauts will undertake a risky spacewalk to repair a thermal blanket that pulled up from a small section of one of the shuttle’s engines — possibly exposing it to damage during reentry. Their first-line tools for this important work? Staples scrounged from the shuttle’s medical kit. If ever a pair of government programs cried out to be mothballed, it’s these.

When was the last time ordinary people were excited about the space program? It does seem that it only gets exciting these days when things go wrong, and that’s not exactly a great business plan.

A few pictures of Jupiter and its moons, taken by an unmanned probe, it seems to me, are worth more than ten years of tinkering around by cosmonauts and astronauts up there where no one sees them or cares about their activities. Doubtless they are doing research that is intended to achieve something or other, but, since we’re not hearing about all the spectacular discoveries they’re making regarding the behavior of ants in zero gravity, I must assume that the discoveries are not so spectacular.

Space exploration costs big money, and it ought to be thrilling and inspiring for the taxpayers to witness. There’s a lot to explore. This shuttle/space station situation is equivalent to parking your Rolls Royce at the curb and making a big deal of walking back and forth to it every few weeks, and getting in and out, but never actually driving it anywhere. That’s not to denigrate the bravery and skill of the astronauts in any way — the risks they take are just as serious as the ones they would take in exploring further afield. And that’s the point: there should be something great being earned through their risk-taking.

Of-course this is why President Bush gave NASA the objectives of returning men to the moon, and using it as a launching point to “Mars and to worlds beyond.” It was a good idea, three and a half years ago. It would be nice to get on with it already.

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