Amid the non-stop news coverage of the dangerous global pandemic caused by a novel virus and more recently the peaceful protests of George Floyd’s tragic death hijacked by those who would foment violence, a bipartisan team of legislators advanced a proposal to remake the National Science Foundation to better address the long-term global competitiveness of the United States.
And a public-private partnership between NASA and a private-sector company, SpaceX, successfully sent a pair of American astronauts to the Space Station – the first such all-American mission since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011.
Both should give us optimism for the future of the American experiment and the potential to overcome the senseless divisiveness that permeates our national discourse today.
The Endless Frontiers Act – sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Sen. Todd Young (R-Nevada) – would add a technology mission to the National Science Foundation (NSF), blending its outstanding programs in basic science research with a focus on critical technologies where other nations are making bold progress that threatens our preeminence.
Jeffrey Mervis of Science Magazine called it the “Stay Ahead of China Act” for good reasons too numerous for me to list in this column today, but suffice it to say that China’s dramatic progress in technology, our nation’s faltering and inconsistent strategies, and our mindless partisan gridlock have been eroding our global leadership for years.
Some argue that this broadened mission threatens the core basic research mission of the NSF. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is a bold proposal designed to ensure the long-term competitiveness of a great nation that we all too often take for granted. This proposal should not die a lonely death due to partisanship or gridlock or comfort with the status quo. Instead, there should be a rich bipartisan discussion about bold national initiatives and continued leadership in both science and technology that leads to a good policy outcome.
The term public-private partnership gets thrown around so often that it has become a cliché. But good public-private partnerships can bring the very best minds together to do big things in a cost-effective way.
Elon Musk, the visionary founder of SpaceX, is probably better known than the company itself. But SpaceX, founded in 2002, had as its original mission to reduce the costs of space transportation. There was no shortage of boldness in how it was going to make it a reality. And it is delivering.
This weekend, a SpaceX and NASA partnership successfully launched the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and flawlessly docked with the International Space Station. But SpaceX’s lesser-known private-sector firsts date back more than a decade: the first liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit, the first company to privately launch and recover a spacecraft, the first company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station, the first private company to vertically land a reusable rocket on an autonomous drone ship, and this week the first private company – in a public-private partnership with NASA – to send American astronauts back to the space station.
What an American triumph!
As someone who attended numerous Space Shuttle launches in the 1980s and was present at the Challenger disaster in 1986, I knew that many Americans had come to take these complex endeavors for granted. But despite precautions and redundant systems, the risk is always high, and NASA deserves great credit for a stellar track record as well as embarking on this public-private partnership.
On Saturday, I held my breath and prayed as the 12:22 pm PDT launch of Falcon 9 hurtled Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, veteran astronauts and good friends, into low-earth orbit and a rendezvous with the International Space Station. And then, to build on that breathtaking launch, the first-stage reusable rocket landed flawlessly on a postage-stamp-sized landing site in the ocean, and Doug and Bob entered the space station to do their work.
The bonus – aside from the well-earned pride of every American – is that, even with the inevitable delays in such big, complex programs, NASA estimates that this public-private partnership will save $20- to $30-billion for taxpayers, a real win-win.
As a non-scientist, I have been privileged to be part of some of the most amazing science-driven events of recent decades. Having spent over four decades focused on U.S. competitiveness in science and technology policy and now a senior fellow of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, I am thrilled that science is being recognized as not just incredibly valuable, but vitally important to our future as a country. It will be science and technology, whether through the ambitious proposal of Sens. Schumer and Young or a derivative thereof, that helps to ensure our global leadership long into the future. It will be public-private partnerships that prevail over parochial thinking that will allow us to do more bold things cost-effectively.
And, because the pandemic is on the minds of most Americans today, it will be sound science that provides us the therapeutics and ultimately a vaccine to conquer COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The question on my mind is: Are our political leaders up to the job? I hope so.
