Forget the bridge to Mars; invest in U.S. bridges

Resources would be better spent rebuilding U.S. bridges than investing in a figurative bridge to Mars.

NASA is a place where man routinely thinks about life beyond this earthly existence. So it makes sense that people might get excited when visiting Kennedy Space Center. Elected officials, I guess, are no different.

In early July Vice President Mike Pence vowed to send the U.S. back to the stars. “Here from this ‘bridge to space,’ our nation will return to the moon, and we will put American boots on the face of Mars,” he told the crowd.

Of course, statements like this aren’t that unusual. In 2016 President Barack Obama declared his ambition for the U.S. to send humans to Mars by the 2030s. In 2004 former President George W. Bush announced his intention to have U.S. astronauts back on the moon by 2020, with the ultimate goal of reaching Mars.

President Donald Trump has gone so far as to resurrect the National Space Council, which was formed by former President George H.W. Bush in 1989 but discontinued in 1993. Pence, chair of the newly re-formed council, pledged to have a meeting before the summer ends.

Meanwhile, the last resident of Mars forgot to put out the welcome mat. The planet is cold and miserable, hardly desirable for a weekend visit, much less an extended stay. There is very, very little liquid water, which matters a little bit to human visitors. Also, the combination of hydrogen peroxide, rust, and perchlorates—which are chemicals often used in rocket fuels, according to Popular Mechanics—in the soil and UV light makes it almost impossible for the red planet to support any sort of bacteria life on its surface.

So as some people think about the funds and preparation needed to travel the approximate eight months to Mars, let me offer up one suggestion: Forget space travel, and focus on rising commuting times on this country’s crumbling highway system. Instead of reliving the past, let’s rebuild America for the future.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gives America a D+ in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card. Here are some highlights from that less-than-stellar report:

• Lack of highway development has led to about 6.9 billion hours delayed in traffic, which is about 42 hours per U.S. driver.
• 9.1 percent of bridges are rated structurally deficient.
• 15,498 dams are identified as having high-hazard potential.
• 6 billion gallons of treated water is lost every day because of substandard setups.

ASCE’s 2016 study, “Failure to Act: Closing the Infrastructure Investment Gap for America’s Economic Future,” suggests that $2 trillion is needed to get the country’s infrastructure to the point where it is in a good state of repair. The report actually calls for an additional $206 billion from the federal and state governments to boost the quality of infrastructure and make it globally competitive with the world. Those aren’t small numbers.

Plenty of support exists in the industrial ranks and in Congress to push forward with a small sort of funding package to get this effort going. It certainly means more to U.S. economic vitality than an ultra-expensive trip to find John Carter.

Trump actually held an “Infrastructure Week” in early June in an attempt to generate support for the idea of improving the nation’s infrastructure. But he led off with the idea of privatizing the nation’s air-traffic control system, which has the support of some companies, but not really the public in general. The whole effort has since been scrapped. It was an inauspicious start to what should be a game-changing movement.

Of course, certain voices will complain about the likelihood of adding to the deficit at the federal level. But a Republican-controlled Congress that is ready to trim Medicare should have enough political backbone to find some funds elsewhere. Congress authorized the U.S. Interstate Highway System with the passage of the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, of which former President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a big supporter. He recognized the importance of being able to transport supplies and troops during a domestic emergency or even a foreign invasion. Congress should have no problem recognizing the importance of a strong infrastructure and subsequently earmarking defense dollars as an investment to boost national security.

Are you comfortable with the idea of water treatment systems that can’t deliver clean water or lose thousands of gallons a day? Do you really want to be traveling across a bridge wondering if it is about to collapse? Do you have enough time that you are OK wasting several hours per year because of traffic or airport congestion? Have you considered what life could be like without power if the nation’s power grid failed or came under a cyberattack, which is no longer just a plot gimmick for a spy thriller?

Infrastructure spending is good for the U.S. and good for fabricators. Whether U.S. infrastructure updates are publicly or privately funded, or some combination of both, elected officials need to make it happen. Leave the space travel for another day. A lot more bridges need to be rebuilt in the U.S. before Pence gets his bridge to Mars.