Matthew Yglesias (January 03, 2007) - The Space-Industrial Complex (Domestic Policy)

Three problems:

1) Liability. Sovereign nations get quite nervous about private entites launching large heavy objects over their heads. Who pays if something goes wrong? The host government can provide insurance, of course, but when governments provide something they want control. And then you are back where you started.

2) Sovereignity. Private entity launches satellite that crosses Elbonia 6x/day. Elbonis shoots down private satellite, claiming it was spying. Freedom-of-space treaties apply to nations, not individuals. Now what?

3) Technology. Rocket launch and satellite control technologies are essentially the same as those needed to build offensive ballistic missiles and other high-tech weapons. Nation-states aren't real excited about parties not under direct national control possessing those technologies.

Also, I think you underestimate the amount of money a significant space effort costs. The superrich can't liquidate their wealth into cash, but even if billg could realize $20 billion of his wealth as cash that wouldn't really place much of a dent in a significant effort.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | January 3, 2007 10:37 AM

"After all, I'm curious -- what advantages were there to having been the first country to reach the moon? In what way are Americans better-off than Canadians or Belgians in virtue of Armstrong's voyage?"

Well, there were pretty obvious brand advantages for America in going to the moon.

But, of course, the main reason for America to reach the moon was that Canada or Belgium didn't have the resources to accomplish the task. Sometimes, the leading economic power on the planet needs to do things for the common good just because it can.

If America were to undertake a massive effort to find a cheap non-carbon source of energy to mitigate global warming, how would that make Americans better-off than Canadians or Belgians?

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 10:39 AM

Why do you have to be eccentric to want to go into space? If you're super rich, it's better than buying a yacht, surely.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2007 10:40 AM

"A general public-sector pullback from outer space in favor of NGOs and business enterprises would be a natural corollary to the principle of outer space as international ad demilitarized. The Bush administration, in keeping with longstanding Air Force priorities, seems more inclined in the opposite direction."

So we should dismantle NASA as a means towards demilitarizing outer space?

Dude, sometimes I really think you're writing parody.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 10:41 AM

I'm tellin' ya:

CASINOS. ON. THE. MOON.

What happens on the moon stays on the moon. Because it's the FREAKING MOON!

Posted by Royko | January 3, 2007 10:42 AM

Demilitarization of space, while it may be a worthy goal, is probably doomed.

However, it is completely feasible to prevent wasteful spending on MANNED space exploration, such as the proposed Mars idiocy. I don't think most people understand exactly how much cheaper it is to do unmanned exploration. We are talking orders of magnitude.

Finally, I do think unmanned missions are worthwhile for two reasons: 1) scientific discovery; 2) it will provide funding and motivation for robotics research, which is really cool.

Posted by Jim W | January 3, 2007 10:53 AM

We've gotten a pretty good return on the space program, from the technologies developed for it to all the benefits of satellite communications. A world without our push to go into space would be very different.

Posted by Matthew C | January 3, 2007 11:10 AM

But where would we be if the supply of TANG was limited only to wealthy eccentrics? Keep Space democratized!

Posted by Ethel to Tilly | January 3, 2007 11:10 AM

Check out this excellent anti-war video, and please help to spread it;

Guernica Iraq
http://911blogger.com/node/5219

Posted by Chewbacca | January 3, 2007 11:12 AM

Not that I can claim to speak for the entire astronomy community, but as an astronomy researcher, I can safely say that while there is strong support for NASA to keep sending up science-based satellites (Hubble Space Telescope and the like), there is little support for the Mission to the moon (perceived as a boondoggle for the aerospace industry), and virtually none at all for the International Space Station. Most of us would be happy to see NASA focus more on actual science and private industry on the exploration side. There is disagreement, however; as an example, the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait (who's actually a very good astronomer), supprts the mission to the moon in principle from what I can tell:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/01/01/bart-gordon-gets-it/

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 3, 2007 11:15 AM

Jim W is right, the manned/unmanned question is the important one when it comes to the efficacy of space exploration.

Having orbital launch capability is already something woven heavily into most americans' daily lives, whether due to communications satellites, digital TV or satellite radio, or even just Google maps. Exploration of the outer solar system and deep space viewing through the Hubble telescope are both important scientific developments that would have been impossible without a space program. And of course neither required hideously expensive manned space programs in order to be launched. (Hubble was repaired in orbit by astronauts, albeit at greater cost than it would have taken to just relaunch a new telescope.)

Posted by jimBOB | January 3, 2007 11:18 AM

What Jim said. Some of the most interesting space science in the last two decades has been of the unmanned variety. From the Hubble to the Mars probes (at least the ones that actually didn't just ram head first into the planet) we've gotten a lot out of those dollars. Don't confuse the boondoggle that is Space Station Freedom and "Mars, Bitch" with wotrthwhile NASA programs.

Posted by Sharon | January 3, 2007 11:22 AM

"I don't think most people understand exactly how much cheaper it is to do unmanned exploration."

I think people do understand this. However, I am beginning to wonder if people understand the rationale behind sensible manned exploration...

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 11:25 AM

jimBOB, where did you get your numbers? Hubble cost $2 billion to build, give or take, and a servicing mission runs a couple hundred million. It will cost more now, but that is because they stopped planning for a refurbishing mission in lieu of Columbia. It would be just as costly to launch another, were that possible.

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 3, 2007 11:26 AM

While many satellites represent the pinnacle of unmanned space science, Hubble does not qualify. It was always designed to be refurbished in space by the shuttle. I would qualify that as "sensible manned exploration", and the Space Station as "a waste of billions of taxpayer dollars using outdated technology to meet some tiny fraction of its original goals".

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 3, 2007 11:29 AM

"I would qualify ... the Space Station as "a waste of billions of taxpayer dollars using outdated technology to meet some tiny fraction of its original goals"

But, of course, the true goal of the Space Station is merely to provide further experience with manned space exploration...

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 11:46 AM

Matt- you have to understand two simple issues in space exploration: Manned vs. unmanned, and outer space vs. low earth orbit.

1) Manned vs. unmanned. Manned spaceflight is entirely useless and grotesquesly expensive. There is nothing a human being can do or see in space that can't be done by a person on the ground working through a computer link. That wasn't true in 1962. Nowadays people go into space for one reason- the entertainment value. It's bread and circuses, pure and simple.

Why are people so disfunctional in space? (1) We are big and heavy; (2) we breathe, eat and shit - that means we have to carry big, heavy toilets into space; (3) we have to come back; and most importantly (4) we die. In earlier times, the death of explorers was routine. No more. Today, manned spacecraft have to be extremely redundant- every system has to be 100 or more times safer than it would be for unmanned craft. That means no cutting-edge technology. Everything has to be tried and true. And redundancy means weight, and every pound of payload weight requires 20 pounds of fuel.

So manned space travel means hurling obsolete, heavy objects into low earth orbit in order to get some video film of people floating around with stars as a backdrop.

2) Low earth orbit vs. outer space. The Moon is far away. Mars is much, much farther away. If the moon is downtown from your house in DC, Mars is New York and the International Space Station is on the mat outside your front door. Low earth orbit is great for satellites and space telescopes but there is nothing for people to do there. The Space Station is a joke. It's reason for existing is to have a place to send the shuttle.

Video from space, though, is important - important enough to cut real space exploration, unmanned exploration, to the bone. But what would you expect? You think the government cares about science or about pictures?

Posted by JR | January 3, 2007 11:48 AM

Sharon is right -- we ened to distinguish between science and (manned) exploration.

Science is the original public good, and absolutely appropriate for public spending -- and is cheap as well. Sending human beings beyond Earth orbit, on the oteher hand, is fabulously expensive and (almost?) entirely pointless, and so better left to the rich eccentrics -- tho I doubt if any are rich enough.

To be honest, even sending people into earth orbit is pretty questionable. Yes, they can e.g. repair existing satellites better than machines can, but for the cost of a manned space infrastructure, you could just send up a bunch of Hubbles and not worry about repairs.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | January 3, 2007 11:50 AM

" Some of the most interesting space science in the last two decades has been of the unmanned variety. "

Some? More like 95%-99% of it. SoHo, COBE, Stardust, Cassini-Huygens, Deep Impact, the Mars probes, I could go on.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2007 11:52 AM

JR beat me to it, and made my points better.

Just to amplify on his second point -- low Earth orbit is very valuable real estate because of its privileged access to the Earth's surface, and, for astrononomy, because of the lack of atmosphere. But after that, space is pretty worthless.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | January 3, 2007 11:54 AM

There is certainly a case to be made for leaving all manned exploration to rich tourists, and confining the government role to unmanned science. But I don't think that case is nearly as compelling as many commenters here seem to think.

Why not, Petey? I'm genuinely curious what arguments there are for manned space exploration beyond the coolness factor...

Posted by lemuel pitkin | January 3, 2007 11:56 AM

Sorry Ginger Yellow, you are correct, but the Space Shuttle did launch Hubble and Chandra, so I'd probably put it more like 90% or so (did Chandra need the shuttle, though, or was that a choice?). Still, you are correct on the emphasis.

I'm not so sold on the "bunch of Hubbles" argument, though maybe I should be. It's certainly not possible now under standard grants to make a bunch of your favorite space telescope, but I've always wondered why not. Economies of scale are a useful thing, and NASA doesn't take advantage by building redundant systems (no one at the time consdered bulding a copy of Hubble in case the first one didn't work, and it nearly didn't). If we traded government-run human spaceflight for a better space telescope plan (designed around building multiple copies when possible, to alleviate repairs; it would require the telescope unit cost+launch cost be less than the total costs of a refurbishing mission, or about half a billion) and privately-led spaceflight, that could work out very well.

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 3, 2007 12:07 PM

Biologically, we've developed testosterone which has a "Go Look" side rather than a "Be Safe" side. Go Look", I think, has real advantages or we wouldn't be programmed that way.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 3, 2007 12:09 PM

"Why not, Petey? I'm genuinely curious what arguments there are for manned space exploration beyond the coolness factor..."

Didn't Steven Hawking give the best justification for manned space exploration ever? Namely, that mankind has got to get off the planet before we destroy it. If Man isn't is space 500 years from now, I don't have much confidence in Man being around at all.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | January 3, 2007 12:11 PM

For a fraction of what NASA spends now, we have the option of offering large cash prices (like the X-prize) to private individuals for meeting certain goals in manned spaceflight. That way, Hawking is happy, there's an incentive for further exploration, and NASA can concentrate on science, rather than handouts for the aerospace industry...

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 3, 2007 12:19 PM

> There is nothing a human being can do or see
> in space that can't be done by a person on
> the ground working through a computer link.

First, try ordering the Hubble to repair itself. Oops, can't do that. Remote control _might_ work with an average 1.0 second communications lag time.

Next, tell the Mars Rover to pick up its right front wheel and brush the dust out of transmission. Oops, can't do that either, and the rovers (which without question are outstanding machines that have done great science) are lifetime-limited as a result. You cannot do remote-controlled repairs with multihour communications lag time.

Probably the 2nd time I have ever agreed with petey, but he is correct: it is not surprising that the astronomy community is opposed to manned space flight. I think astronomy is a good thing that should receive more funding, but that the conventional wisdom (groupthink?) in that "community" has abandoned its 1950s dreams of building super-large telescopes at the L5 point (or farther out) in favor of sitting in university cubicles crunching satellite-produced numbers is not in itself a sufficient argument against manned exploration.

Not that NASA or the US Government will ever do any significant amount of manned exploration ever again. If it happens it will be done by China.
Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | January 3, 2007 12:20 PM

"Why do you have to be eccentric to want to go into space? If you're super rich, it's better than buying a yacht, surely."

There is about a 2% mortality rate in space trips. Anyone paying to expose themselves to that risk just for the thrill is eccentric.

Posted by Njorl | January 3, 2007 12:24 PM

"Why not, Petey? I'm genuinely curious what arguments there are for manned space exploration beyond the coolness factor..."

Eventual colonization. Whether it comes through terraforming Mars, or through some other means, I'd say we're likely to have a non-trivial number of humans living off the Earth's surface within a couple of centuries.

The goal of having humans in space today is to better learn how to have humans in space.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 12:29 PM

But why the government taking the lead role? They don't control travel by air, so why do they inherently need to control space travel. Some of the private groups working on it are really vastly more efficient. Heck, even in the 16th century exploration was contracted out rather than centrally controlled, so why not now?

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 3, 2007 12:35 PM

"Why do you have to be eccentric to want to go into space? If you're super rich, it's better than buying a yacht, surely."

You can buy a really nice yacht for $20 million.

Or a semi-nice Manhattan apartment...

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 12:39 PM

Yup, just the coolnes factor. I enjoy sci-fi as much as anyone, but I'm not anxious to see billions of tax dollars spent to realize my adolescent fantasies -- especially since it ain't going to happen anyway.

And Cranky, compare the costs of the ISS and e.g. Galileo, and the returns, and you'll see that "groupthink" is not the reason that everyone in the serious scinence world prefers unmanned to manned space exploration.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | January 3, 2007 12:42 PM

"Heck, even in the 16th century exploration was contracted out rather than centrally controlled, so why not now?"

Because there needs to be an economic payoff to have privately financed manned space exploration, and other than the possibility of space tourism, that payoff doesn't exist yet.

Don't forget that Columbus was financed by the Spanish government, and even in the 16th century, most exploration was still a government enterprise.

Heck, even in the 18th century, James Cook was being financed by Parliament, not by a joint stock company.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 12:45 PM

> ompare the costs of the ISS and e.g. Galileo,
> and the returns, and you'll see that "groupthink"
> is not the reason that everyone in the serious
> scinence world prefers unmanned to manned space
> exploration.

I understand that when it appears that there is a fixed pot of money that one would prefer that one's own field receive as much of that money as possible. That is not a fundemental argument against manned space exploration, however much the astronomers would like it to be.

Personally I would like to see the US spend about 10x the current budget on unmanned exploration, including regular launches of smaller, standardized, limited-task craft so that (1) some economy of scale is realized (2) there is a continual flow of new information (3) loss of a single craft does not set back an entire field for 15 years.

But besides the budget constraints, would you say there might be some social constraints within the unmanned community that would work against such a process? If the missions were no longer "big events"? The unmanned community is not as pure is it would like to appear IMHO.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | January 3, 2007 12:49 PM

Petey, that's why I suggest the X-prize system, where you offer prizes for space exploration goals, but at a tiny fraction of the cost. Remember, there were competing groups for the X-prize, and they are continuing to work on spaceflight today. I'm not saying no government involvement, I'm just saying that the government role might be better off being more limited.

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 3, 2007 12:50 PM

In any case this is a meaningless discussion. The US will continue to shovel dozens (or hundreds) of billions of dollars per year to favored aerospace contractors to develop the "next phase" of manned exploration as long as it can possibly do so.

And that "next phase" will never happen, leading to yet another "next phase"...

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | January 3, 2007 12:51 PM

"Petey, that's why I suggest the X-prize system, where you offer prizes for space exploration goals, but at a tiny fraction of the cost."

I guess I'm somewhat dubious that such a system would be able to accomplish as much at the same cost, let alone at a tiny fraction of the cost.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 1:47 PM

I'm going to show my ignorance here but...isn't the key issue here whether there is a learning curve which will gradually lower the costs of manned space flight as we gain more experience with it? If there isn't (and it doesn't seem there has been), then doing it more is pretty useless, as any large-scale effort will remain cost prohibitive. Our money would be better spent on searching for a research breakthrough that would change the fundamental physics.

Posted by MQ | January 3, 2007 2:09 PM

I'd say we're likely to have a non-trivial number of humans living off the Earth's surface within a couple of centuries.

I'd say that's highly unlikely. A colony in space or on another planet requires a robust and self sustaining ecosystem for food and life support, a manufacturing infrastructure to provide for maintenance and repair of all systems, radiation shielding, etc. You can't just special order anything you're missing from earth because the costs are, um, astronomical. Building a robust self sufficient space colony is, to put it mildly, a very large task.

Besides, why go somewhere else when you can breathe the air here, are mostly protected from cosmic rays by that same air and our magnetic field (thanks to plate tectonics that don't exist on Mars or the moon), fresh water falls from the sky, and the food just grows on trees, all for a whole lot less money than colonizing outer space? We probably could do it if we invested a significant portion of gross global product (I won't get into the likelihood of that happening) over the course of decades, but, again, why?

Posted by DMonteith | January 3, 2007 2:18 PM

Copy of my post made on the Technology Liberation Front webpage.

I am very frustrated about our (non-existent) space program. Putting the focus of the debate in the context of "opening" space to the private is simplistic and wrong since it overlooks certain sociological trends. Please don't view this as any defense of NASA. Accidents happen, it is inexcusable that NASA was not prepared to deal with accidents, has failed to replace the shuttles that have been lost, and has failed to build the next generation of shuttle.

In simplistic terms, the private sector has failed to take the initiative in "opening" space. For example, Boeing (in theory) would be expected take the lead in opening space for the private sector. Despite Boeing's pet jingle of "Forever New Frontiers", I believe Boeing is simply living off easy to get Government contracts and has lost the initiative to undertake risky projects. Despite, my negative comments, the behavior of Boeing is quite natural from the sociological perspective. Many companies that were technological leaders fail to adapt or appreciate new technologies that arise. Sony would seem to be falling into this trend as an innovator breaking the rules with the VCR but now seeking to "freeze" technological innovation.

Also in terms of the failure of corporate America to take the initiative in developing a private space program, where are the "Robber Barons"? The reason I ask this, is that excessive executive compensation is getting a lot of bad press. While I believe that executive pay is outrageous, the point of my question is: What are they doing with the money? Are they making productive investments promoting economic growth or simply building ego boosting trophy houses? A productive investment could be made into a privately funded space program, such as Bert Rutan’s Space Ship One. Since the new robber barons don’t seem to have space fever, I assume that our corporate leadership simply does not have an interest in pursuing a private space program. To "open" space, private industry needs to step up to the plate and assume the leadership role.

Posted by Steve R. | January 3, 2007 2:19 PM

Why did we go to the moon? The Russians spent lots of public money to develop missile technology. We were focusing most of our energies in the 50's on strategic bombers, while the Russians spent their time developing missile technology. ICBMs had a huge strategic advantage over bombers. The US needed massive financing -- and public support for it -- to catch up. The missile technology we developed for the manned missions to the moon was poured back into our military without public objections. By the early 70s, we had surpassed the Russians by a large margin.

Posted by Charles | January 3, 2007 2:31 PM

MQ writes: I'm going to show my ignorance here but...isn't the key issue here whether there is a learning curve which will gradually lower the costs of manned space flight as we gain more experience with it? If there isn't (and it doesn't seem there has been), then doing it more is pretty useless, as any large-scale effort will remain cost prohibitive. Our money would be better spent on searching for a research breakthrough that would change the fundamental physics.

I think that's a pretty good summary of the issue.

I don't think that anyone doubts that there are efficiencies in manned spaceflight that are achievable, but have not yet been achieved. Others on this thread have mentioned economies of scale, and how they largely do not exist. And obviously long-term space missions are still in their infancy -- it's almost a foregone conclusion that we could apply technology better to the job of keeping humans alive in space for longer, cheaper.

But the big question is "how much cheaper"? I think that the biggest inefficiency in space travel is rocketry. Rocketry is just very expensive, and to some degree wasteful. It doesn't seem likely to me that rocketry will be economically feasible on any grand scale in the forseeable future, unless our economy goes through some kind of radical change (for example, "magical" nanotechnology increases the world's real wealth by four orders of magnitude or something).

There are some currently technologically plausible ways to cut rocketry out of parts of the space equation. On the simple end of things, you see next-gen space vehicles being launched from scramjets and the like, instead of from the ground. On the grandest scale that currently seems like it might just be possible without a breakthrough in physics, we have a beanstalk/skyhook/space elevator. In between there, we maybe have space-based railguns for interplanetary acceleration.

Posted by Michael Sullivan | January 3, 2007 2:34 PM

"Why do you have to be eccentric to want to go into space? If you're super rich, it's better than buying a yacht, surely."

There is about a 2% mortality rate in space trips. Anyone paying to expose themselves to that risk just for the thrill is eccentric.

Well call me eccentric then. It's space, man. What about all the mountaineers, the equestrians, the submariners and so on? Are all of them eccentric? More to the point, do any of them get to be in space?

Steve R - what about Branson's venture, or does he not count because he's not American?

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2007 2:43 PM

"We probably could do it if we invested a significant portion of gross global product ... over the course of decades, but, again, why?"

Because it's better to have two planets at our disposal rather than just one.

Beyond the benefits of having extra real estate, there are very real benefits for the survival of the species in having two planets.

I think the terraforming of Mars is a virtual inevitability, barring the collapse of modern civilization. We're going to learn a great deal about the matter, due to the fact that we're going to be forced to terraform Earth to deal with the catastrophic carbon event already underway.

I have no idea if terraforming Mars is going to take 200 years or 800 years, but making modest investments now to learn the baby steps of manned space exploration seems like a relative no-brainer to me.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 2:59 PM

After all, I'm curious -- what advantages were there to having been the first country to reach the moon?

In the particular scenario that developed, the point of the exercise was military: to demonstrate (peacefully) that the United States had the biggest thermonuclear dick. (Since the technology that involves sending a man to the moon on top of a giant Saturn V is exactly the same as sending a missle to Moscow.)(That's the actual message the Chinese were sending by putting a man in orbit; it means they could now hit NYC with a ballistic missle.) There were serious advances from the research involved (as there always are) but the way the US went about accomplishing the feat precluded it being useful in other sense. If we were to move out into space, it wouldn't be via Saturn V's, which are totally the wrong way to go about things.

A general public-sector pullback from outer space in favor of NGOs and business enterprises would be a natural corollary to the principle of outer space as international ad demilitarized.

The problem is, Matthew, is that the 1967 treaty that banned nuclear weapons in space and the like, also pretty much eliminates commercial possibilities in space. But people also want the demilitarization, so there is no reason of military competition to do any of those things. So in essence, there's 'no reason' to go. Just like there was no reason to go and find the Americas in 1100, in spite of the fact that the Vikings knowing it was there.

As for a reason to go (not Saturn V-style) there are no specifics. There was no reason to go to California before the gold rush and moreover, the gold rush in reality didn't make it worthwhile for most people who went. But the going helped create the California we know and love, and its existence has been quite beneficial over all. I don't know what would specifically pay off if we (say) founded a lunar colony, only that eventually there would be one, because the track record on that sort of thing demonstrates that there is always a huge payoff. (The argument is, of course, that the unmanned stuff is better. In the short run that's correct; in the long run, you get a lot more science done on site when the guy who is doing it can build his own instruments from spare parts, instead having to wait years on the building of single-use ultrareliable probes.)

The basic problem is that no one can get into orbit reliably and quickly, because development on those kinds of systems never goes quick enough because contractors are more interesting in building huge gold-plated systems instead of the disposible research projects necessary to get that step figured out. NASA, of course, exist to hire and pay beaureaucrats so they're fine with this situation. (The X-prizes wouldn't hurt, but they're not offering near large enough prizes.)

m, bah. I hate this topic.

Posted by max | January 3, 2007 3:12 PM

Charles at 2:31 is the *only* one who got it right? It was all about booster rockets, ICBMs, electronic guidance and communications, etc and when it reached a point of dimishing military returns, it died.

The interesting and important point is how JFK, as a hawkish Democrat, used a military program for jobs, morale, and other liberal goals.

Posted by bob mcmanus | January 3, 2007 3:14 PM

It's important not to confuse the specific ways that the US has conducted its space program, with the general possible values of
*any* kind of space program. The big aerospace companies in this country are very risk-averse after decades of government payrolls. We've always gone about this in the stupidest fashion possible. The reason you see better science and better results from the unmanned side is precisely because fewer people pay attention to it and there is less money and political power involved.

At this point, the best thing that we could do is boot the ISS, retain only an emergency Shuttle capacity, and focus research and funding into breaking the cost-to-orbit bottleneck. A combination of substantial prizes and research.

Humans do need to get into space and live there, I think. There's the multiple-basket reason that people have mentioned. But also, we need to move industrial development off-planet. It's too dirty, and we will need the raw materials and energy that are available up there.

Posted by tatere | January 3, 2007 3:55 PM

Eventual colonization. Whether it comes through terraforming Mars, or through some other means, I'd say we're likely to have a non-trivial number of humans living off the Earth's surface within a couple of centuries.

The goal of having humans in space today is to better learn how to have humans in space.

More of that oh-so-informed petey commentary.

An analogous statement 100 or 150 years ago might have been, "We need to need to build special maternity railroad cars, so that we can prepare people to live in the steam train society of tomorrow". The point being that much of what we "learn" about how people might live in space will almost certainly be undone by the technological developments that allow them to actually live there, and those developments are going to stem from terrestrial basic research. If you think that anything we do in orbit now is teaching us anything about terraforming Mars, you're hallucinating. That work is strictly earthbound, and will remain so for the forseeable future.

The big obstacle to getting a permanent human presence in space hasn't changed since Goddard's day -- it's the logistical burden of hauling everything one might need. If you want to see people actually living off-planet, it probably makes sense to get the off-planet infrastructure ready first, but to do it in a way that doesn't require humans.

While NASA gets most of its publicity from big projects, it also does interesting work on innovative autonomous robots. It seems to me that instead of lurching from one technological circus to the next, with essentially no constructive relationship between them, NASA and all of us would benefit from a low-key but sustainable strategy of robotic lunar infrastructure development. They might start by landing, say, autonmous bulldozers and dump trucks, for gathering raw materials. While those are scraping the moon's surface, NASA could build the next generation of robots -- maybe refineries for extracting useful materials from the gathered ore. While that generation is doing its thing, NASA could develop its follow-on -- and so on.

After 10 or 20 or 30 years of this iterative approach we'd have a nice, relatively cheap lunar facility fit for supporting permanent human residence and operations in lunar space, and once you've got the latter, the rest of the solar system is pretty much wide open. The whole process would take a lot longer than a one-off like Apollo or SkyLab or the ISS, and the video drama would be decidedly lacking. But it'd probably be a lot cheaper overall, and most important, done right it'd probably be a lot cheaper year to year, so that progress wouldn't be hostage to this season's political winds.

To top it all off, NASA would really be living up to its charter mission of technology development. Until somebody gets the space elevator going, advances in autonomous robots hold a lot more potential for enhancing our quality of life than yet another variation on the single-stage-to-orbit pipe dream, or a rerun of the Apollo Project.

Posted by sglover | January 3, 2007 4:03 PM

In any case this is a meaningless discussion. The US will continue to shovel dozens (or hundreds) of billions of dollars per year to favored aerospace contractors to develop the "next phase" of manned exploration as long as it can possibly do so.

Sadly, true. On the other hand, since there are lots of ways to get payloads launched and lots of clever people capable of designing robots, schemes like the one I described at 4:03 could be undertaken by national or academic consortia -- though it really does fall within NASA's mission statement.

Which reminds me -- although the manned mission to Mars would be the most grotesque kind of white elephant (if it ever got off the drawing boards, which it won't), NASA's "prepatory" program of sending successive generations of low-cost orbiters and landers to Mars is very much in line with what I'm advocating, and is by most accounts one of the agency's most successful.

Posted by sglover | January 3, 2007 4:19 PM

tatere -- Precisely! Well said!

Posted by sglover | January 3, 2007 4:20 PM

> If you think that anything we do in orbit
> now is teaching us anything about
> terraforming Mars, you're hallucinating. That
> work is strictly earthbound, and will remain
> so for the forseeable future.

Your point is valid, but you also have to consider Kelly Johnson's maxim that no Skunk Works engineer have his desk more than 5 steps from the machine shop. You learn a tremendous amount by doing something even if that something is not exactly what you end up with. Too much theorizing leads to Mitch Kapor syndrome.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | January 3, 2007 4:30 PM

JFK asked: "Why does Rice play Texas?"

When I was a Rice student, the answer, as far as I could tell, seemed to be: "To lose."

Eventually, Rice wised up and has largely stopped playing Texas.

That may offer a lesson for the space program.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 3, 2007 4:54 PM

"You learn a tremendous amount by doing something even if that something is not exactly what you end up with."

Yup. The Space Shuttle is a total failure in one sense. But going through the process of that failure taught a bunch of lessons about how to proceed the next time around.

Everyone wants a magic bullet, but this is going to be a decades long process of trial and error. The mistakes and dead ends are a feature, not a bug.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 4:55 PM

To Cuomo's (and Kennedy's) larger point. Whether it is a colony on the moon or totally new energy infrastructure, getting out on the edge with an ambitious, worthy, vision and goal does more than inspire.

Imagine if John Kennedy had argued that we should go to the moon because it will make it possible for millions to self-publish through blogs on the internet, using incredibly powerful computers that they can carry over their shoulder.

Yet the need for computers to navigate to the moon and the drive to reduce weight wherever possible drive engineers to envision whole circuits and eventually whole computers on a chip, and voila! And of course the technology also was driven by the need for ever more accurate nuclear missiles, as well, but given the times, that probably was inevitable.

The point, it seems to me is that big ideas spawn more big ideas. Little ideas spur more little ideas.

Posted by Tom Goldsmith | January 3, 2007 5:10 PM

Tom,

Sending robots to explore outer space is a bigger idea than sending people, and much much less expensive.

Posted by Jim W | January 3, 2007 5:13 PM

I'm kind of with Freeman Dyson here. Manned space exploration is good insofar as it helps us figure out how to make getting people into space cheaper by two or three orders of magnitude, so we can then give the world's cranks, eccentrics, and dreamers places to go colonize that don't involve displacing/exterminating the existing inhabitants. Wouldn't it have been better for everyone if the Branch Davidians had settled on a nice asteroid somewhere? And won't the Earth be an infinitely more pleasant place when Glenn Reynolds and his readers are able to put their libertarian ideas into practice somewhere in the Oort cloud?

Posted by Hank Scorpio | January 3, 2007 5:33 PM

It seems to me that Glenn Reynolds could shut up using existing technology....

Posted by lemuel pitkin | January 3, 2007 5:59 PM

"It seems to me that Glenn Reynolds could shut up using existing technology...."

There's a problem with the heat resistant tiles used to cover his mouth. One proposed solution would be to keep him super-cooled.

But, as stated previously, all this technology is cutting edge enough to make trial and error the only way to see it through.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 6:15 PM

Michael Sullivan and sglover both seem to me to have put their finger on the problem (and Sullivan also gets extra points for complimenting my earlier post). To wit:

rocketry is the problem. So long as we are dependent on rocketing large amounts of weight the whole distance, the costs of doing any kind of large-scale activity any real distance from earth will be prohibitive. The only two solutions are a technological breakthrough that replaces rocketry or some kind of way to massively reduce the weight of the stuff we need to send up to do useful work.

The implication is that new manned missions that just use the old paradigm of putting some people on top of a really big rocket are just teaching us more about a hopelessly inefficient technology. Crossing the Atlantic by sailing ship wasn't useful in teaching us how to cross it by airplane. If we are serious about getting lots of us off the planet, let's fund some serious research here to get us a technological model that might work.

Posted by MQ | January 3, 2007 6:38 PM

"rocketry is the problem."

I think there are a huge number of problems, some of which we know, and some of which we haven't really figured out the implications of yet. Rocketry is merely one of the known problems.

May of these problems will only be discovered through the actual trial and error of very primitive manned space exploration.

"The only two solutions are a technological breakthrough that replaces rocketry or some kind of way to massively reduce the weight of the stuff we need to send up to do useful work."

I'm in favor of magic bullets. I'll sign your petition to discover magic bullets. But life goes on until the magic bullets are summoned into existence.

"Crossing the Atlantic by sailing ship wasn't useful in teaching us how to cross it by airplane."

No, but...

By crossing the Atlantic on sailing ships, we figured out there'd be land to fly to across the Atlantic.

By crossing the Atlantic on sailing ships, we had airports all ready for the first arrival of trans-Atlantic aircraft. Without the ships coming first, the initial airplanes would've had to land on herds of buffalo and screaming native Americans.

By crossing the Atlantic on sailing ships, we got the Wright brothers to the new world where they actually invented airplanes.

By crossing the Atlantic on sailing ships, we speeded up economic and technological growth, almost definitely leading to earlier development of airplanes.

And finally...

By crossing the Atlantic on sailing ships, we learned about the necessity to stock limes on long voyages to prevent scurvy, which is the only reason you can order a vodka and lime on a trans-Atlantic flight.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 6:51 PM

"Crossing the Atlantic by sailing ship wasn't useful in teaching us how to cross it by airplane."

The better analogy for what you're proposing is that we shouldn't have proceeded with the development of un-pressurized propeller planes, and should have instead spent 50 years on the ground waiting to fully develop the technologies behind pressurized jet planes.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 6:59 PM

Cranky Observer- your only examples of what people can do in space is that people can fix the machines that can actually do something useful in space. But we don't fix things anymore- have you ever had your toaster fixed? It's much cheaper and safer to send two Mars Rovers than to send one with a human minder.

As for arguments from history- 150 years ago, if you wanted to send a one-word message from London to New York, a human being had to carry it. It was considered an advance when the trans-Atlantic cable was laid. The history of technology is the history of machines doing things cheaper and better than human beings. The fact that we can see and touch the surface of Mars with unmanned craft is an advance, not a failing.

The reason for sending people, though, is this bizarre notion that some day people will live on Mars- or someplace. Maybe. But not in our lifetimes, and not with the ridiculous technology that we have now for traveling into space and supporting life there.

Our manned space travel is like the search for the Northwest Passage. A lot of people in sailing ships got killed trying to find it. Today it's traversed routinely - by nuclear-powered submarine. If people ever live away from the earth, it's going to be with technology that's as different from rocketry as nuclear subs are from three-masted schooners. This silly nonsense that we're doing today is just a distraction from what we really can do with current technology- exploration with unmanned craft.

Posted by JR | January 3, 2007 7:23 PM

"The reason you see better science and better results from the unmanned side is precisely because fewer people pay attention to it and there is less money and political power involved."

Not really. It's more that we humans can't spend years sitting in close orbit around the sun or crashlanding on comets.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2007 7:46 PM

Ginger Yellow: Richard Branson counts. I simply overlooked mentioning him, thanks for reminding me. My response though is that his effort is not yet operational. One person taking action is a positive step in the right direction, but does establish private companies as having assumed a leadership role.

Posted by Steve R. | January 3, 2007 8:34 PM

There really isn't any manned/unmanned question. Cancel the manned program tomorrow, and the money wouldn't go straight to more unmanned probes. It would just go back to the general fund.

Posted by AlanC9 | January 4, 2007 9:25 AM

Not really. It's more that we humans can't spend years sitting in close orbit around the sun or crashlanding on comets.

Oh for pete's sakes. Obviously you do different things with unmanned probes than you do with manned flights. My point is that we are doing better, smarter things with unmanned probes than we are with the manned flight program, because nobody has a financial or political incentive to do stupid things with unmanned missions. In the big picture from DC's point of view it's a marginal activity.

Posted by tatere | January 4, 2007 4:42 PM

And my point is that there just isn't all that much non-stupid stuff to do with a manned mission, at least without consuming a vastly disproportionate amount of GDP. You either go whole hog with the base on Mars route, or you repair satellites. There's not that much you can learn about the nature of the universe by tinkering around on a space station, whereas there's a hell of a lot you can learn by sending up satellites and probes.Yes we'd do more stupid stuff with unmanned missions if there were political or military gains to be had, but we wouldn't be doing more clever stuff with manned missions if there weren't the incentives to do stupid stuff.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 4, 2007 6:21 PM

kzvhobdqw bxefqhzku deay qxbsjulo sqpahokfb gowm zilfr

Posted by nmzr fzaboc | June 11, 2007 9:58 PM

kzvhobdqw bxefqhzku deay qxbsjulo sqpahokfb gowm zilfr

Posted by nmzr fzaboc | June 11, 2007 9:59 PM

kzvhobdqw bxefqhzku deay qxbsjulo sqpahokfb gowm zilfr

Posted by nmzr fzaboc | June 11, 2007 10:00 PM

The Space-Industrial Complex

Comments (69)

Search

Books by Matthew Yglesias

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Weekly Archives

Categories