Some academics, including Harvard's own Professor Stephen J. Gould, contend that it's worth putting a nickel into the SETI slot machine even if the odds are immense. There might be a huge payoff, but this is a billion dollar-nickel in times when the nation can least afford it.

No one in their right mind would deny funding to Head Start and Medicare to take a one-in-trillions chance, would they? Your government and trusted academics would, clearly.

The most recent, horrendous development in this ongoing love affair is the introduction of "space-ads."

Giant streaks of reflected solar light, haunting our lives with phrases like "Still going..." until we pull down the shades at night. Even in the pristine Colorado Rockies, ten thousand feet above sea level and far from civilization, you would see the ominous grunt, "Uh-huh."

The free market is on the verge of going too far.

Americans must ask themselves which parts of the space program affect them most. Is it the occasional space-walk to repair the malfunctioning mechanical arm, or is it the film of Joe Astronaut playing with the tax-payers' little, magnetic, space-marbles?

The space program must be trimmed of its flashy, exorbitant novelties and left only with affordable, bare-bones science. Perhaps we don't really need a large, expensive, decade-late space station.

We could buy some time on the Soviet-made Mir space station, a relic of the once-flourishing program in the USSR. Unmanned probes appear to be the cheaper, better way to go for scientific data-collecting. In any case, we will always have plenty of time to absorb the budgetary blow. That is, until the sun explodes.

Daniel Altman often wishes on stars.

The space program must be trimmed of its flashy exorbitant novelties and left only with affordable barebones science. Perhaps we really don't need a space station.