Matthew Yglesias (February 18, 2008) - Bloggers in Space (Politics)

Even with manned flights, the problem is there are much more efficient means than the space shuttle. The shuttle makes no sense. The Russians have a more efficient manned space program than we do.

Posted by Jake | February 18, 2008 6:27 PM

Without manned space flight, we don't get hilarious astronaut love triangles involving balpeen hammers, mace and adult diapers.

Sure, that's probably not worth billions and billions of dollars, but unless the Mars rover develops a huge crush on a coke machine, what will CNN have to report?

Posted by SoCalJustice | February 18, 2008 6:32 PM

Exactly, Matt. Bowers seemed to miss that point, and you've nailed it. Manned space flight is extremely expensive and has held back other space science initiatives.

Posted by Dan Kervick | February 18, 2008 6:32 PM

I agree, and made a similar distinction between manned and unmanned space flight over at Open Left. Another commenter looked around a bit and found evidence that the HRC-BO difference seems to be manned versus unmanned.

I intend to pursue an ambitious agenda in both space exploration and earth sciences," Clinton said. "I want to support the next generation of spacecraft for a robust human spaceflight program."
Obama agreed that NASA, which employs thousands of Houston-area voters who work at or with the Johnson Space Center, should be a tool for inspiring the nation.

But, he said, the next president needs to have "a practical sense of what investments deliver the most scientific and technological spinoffs - and not just assume that human space exploration, actually sending bodies into space, is always the best investment."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5546810.html

Posted by Jeff S. | February 18, 2008 6:38 PM

Manned space flight is the most important area of space exploration long term.

The important point is that it may cost more money than unmanned exploration missions, but there really are not any legitimate reasons why both types of missions cannot be adequately funded.

Posted by Jacob | February 18, 2008 7:01 PM

China already put a man in space onboard their own spacecraft. That was in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_5

Posted by Alex B. | February 18, 2008 7:08 PM

... if we find something out there such that there's reason to believe a manned visit would bring enormous benefits, why not send someone?

What did you have in mind here, Matt?

Posted by Still Undecided | February 18, 2008 7:16 PM

Which is to say, they're getting there, but slowely. Current plants put Chinese manned moon expeditions out past 2015 somewhere.

-Alex

Posted by Alex B, | February 18, 2008 7:18 PM

The US Government's "civilian" program for space exploration is a subterfuge for gaining militarily useful capabilities which will allow it to conquer planet Earth.

From http://www.space.com/news/050617_space_warfare.html

Some excerpts:
--------------
"The White House is now delving into U.S. military space policy and what it sees as the need to reshape current national space policy, a leftover legacy document from the Clinton Administration. "
---------
"The new policy will be more military-oriented, rather than the heavily civil-oriented predecessor," Hitchens suggested. What's ahead is a shift of terminology, she added, a "playing with the words."

As example, the term "freedom of action in space" is now a code phrase for "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack," Hitchens emphasized, drawing the distinction from recently issued U.S. Air Force Counterspace Operations Doctrine.

Tap on the shoulder to toast

Hitchens points to current U.S. Air Force documents that state the need for anti-satellite capabilities. These "knock 'em dead" ideas range from hit-to-kill devices, electromagnetic pulses to lasers. "Anything from a tap on the shoulder to toast", she said, is not ruled out, including physical destruction of a target satellite. All are part of the counterspace portion of space control.

Just how explicit will the new Bush space policy be on these matters?

None of this detail is likely to be visible within the publicly released document, Hitchens said. "What I am suggesting is that the strategy of fighting 'in, from and through' space is already codified in official military documents. Those documents could not have been published without at least the tacit approval of the Pentagon civilian leadership and the White House."

For Hitchens, what's coming is simply putting "the political chapeau on this strategy." It will support the space warfighting strategy, although probably in a rather subtle and understated way, she said.

"The reason for the coyness is also obvious. The White House knows that the idea of space weaponization is publicly controversial. Therefore, they will seek to defuse this controversy by emphasizing the 'defensive' needs and approach," Hitchens advised.
---------
"The time to weaponize and administer space for the good of global commerce is now, when the United States could do so without fear of an arms race there."

This is the view of Everett Dolman, Associate Professor of Comparative Military Studies in the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

No peer competitors are capable of challenging the United States, Dolman explained, as was the case in the Cold War, and so no "race" is possible. The longer the United States waits, however, the more opportunities for a peer competitor to show up on the scene.

Dolman argues that, in ten or twenty years, America might be confronting an active space power that could weaponize space. And they might do so in a manner that prevents the United States from competing in the space arena.

"The short answer is, if you want an arms race in space, do nothing now," Dolman said.

Maintain the status quo

For those that think space weaponization is impossible, Dolman said such belief falls into the same camp that "man will never fly". The fact that space weaponization is technically feasible is indisputable, he said, and nowhere challenged by a credible authority.

"Space weaponization can work," Dolman said. "It will be very expensive. But the rewards for the state that weaponizes first--and establishes itself at the top of the Earth's gravity well, garnering all the many advantages that the high ground has always provided in war--will find the benefits worth the costs."

What if America weaponizes space? One would think such an action would kick-start a procession of other nations to follow suit. Dolman said he takes issues with that notion.

"This argument comes from the mirror-image analogy that if another state were to weaponize space, well then, the U.S. would have to react. Of course it would! But this is an entirely different situation," Dolman responded.

"The U.S. is the world's most powerful state. The international system looks to it for order. If the U.S. were to weaponize space, it would be perceived as an attempt to maintain or extend its position, in effect, the status quo," Dolman suggested. It is likely that most states--recognizing the vast expense and effort needed to hone their space skills to where America is today--would opt not to bother competing, he said.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 7:25 PM

Re my above post, Just what does Air Force Professor Dolman mean by his reference to "garnering all the many advantages that the high ground has always provided in war"?

Well, consider this low key reorganization of two Major military Commands:

"From http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=3396
"DOD ANNOUNCES MERGER OF U.S. SPACE AND STRATEGIC COMMANDS

As part of the ongoing initiative to transform the U.S. military into a 21st century fighting force, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld today announced the intention to merge two unified commands whose missions include control of America's nuclear forces, military space operations, computer network operations, strategic warning and global planning. The intended merger of U.S. Space Command (SpaceCom) and U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) will improve combat effectiveness and speed up information collection and assessment needed for strategic decision-making.

"The missions of SpaceCom and StratCom have evolved to the point where merging the two into a single entity will eliminate redundancies in the command structure and streamline the decisionmaking process," said Rumsfeld.

U.S. Strategic Command, located at Offutt Air Force Base in Neb., is the command and control center for U.S. nuclear forces. U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colo., commands military space operations, information operations, computer network operations and space campaign planning. Both commands are charged with countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 7:32 PM

What Would Duchovny Do?

Posted by Andruw | February 18, 2008 7:33 PM

No, actually, Matt, your wrong. Manned spaceflight serves a purpose - outer space development, and space colonization. And that purpose is fundamentally different from unmanned space science flights, like Hubble.

You commented about specific things that manned flight can bring us. Well, as I said, manned spaceflight is about economic development. Manned spaceflight is creating a new industry, in the form of the NewSpace industry, from companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Scaled Composites, XCOR, and Bigelow Aerospace. This is creating jobs. Looking just a little bit further down the road (and, we are talking in the next 2-5 years here - not decades, but very soon) space manufacturing of medicine and stem cells, and a little further, space can provide a solution to the issue clean energy, in the form of Space based solar power.

All of this requires manned spaceflight, and, as I said, it serves a different purpose. We are fully ready to embrace the solar system as part of where we live. But it only happens if we choose to do so.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 7:34 PM

The manned lunar expedition is already sapping money from future unmanned expeditions to Mars, which is scientifically far more interesting. If the economic and/or scientific case could be made for going to the moon, it should be done with unmanned vehicles, too.

The unmanned space program may yield great dividends by spurring an academic revolution in autonomous robot design, disruption-tolerant networks, and so on.

Such dividends are the legacy of the space race, more than we managed to land a bunch of primates on another ball of rock.

Posted by Cipher | February 18, 2008 7:35 PM

Cipher - you cannot do large scale economic development on the moon using autonomous vehicles, and space isn't just about learning and science. There are resources we can use, to help save the earth, no less.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 7:38 PM

It's a little amusing and a little sad to see how the subject of space travel inspires irrationality in some.

Let's imagine that the president holds a press conference to announce that he's decided to dedicate hundreds of billions of tax dollars over the couple decades to an effort that will eventually create a permanent settlement five miles beneath the South Pole. He doesn't bother to provide a coherent justification for why exactly we'd want to do such a thing, or even explain why his plan would be preferable to seeking out another completely inhospitable location that's somewhat easier to reach. The vice president would probably be taking the oath within 24 hours.

But when you say something similar about a barren, useless rock that's millions of miles away, all of a sudden it becomes really inspiring?

I can understand the romance of manned space flight during the early years, when we didn't know what was out there and could speculate to our hearts' content. Since then, we've established that outer space is basically a total craphole by any reasonable human standards, and we should probably adjust our perceptions accordingly.

Posted by N | February 18, 2008 7:38 PM

Certainly, the Russians and Chinese are starting to get worried about US plans for "space exploration". From a recent NY Times article at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/world/europe/13arms.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

"GENEVA — The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Tuesday presented a Russian-Chinese draft treaty banning weapons in space to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, an idea that was quickly rejected by the United States.

Russia and China have pushed for years for a treaty to prevent an arms race in space, a threat underlined by China last year after it shot down one of its own aging satellites.

Responding to previous American assertions that there is no arms race in space and therefore no need for a treaty, Mr. Lavrov instead submitted a draft on “prevention of the placement of weapons in outer space, the threat or use of force against outer space objects.”

“Weapons deployment in space by one state will inevitably result in a chain reaction,” Mr. Lavrov warned. “And this in turn is fraught with a new spiral in the arms race, both in space and on the earth.”

The draft treaty aims to fill gaps in existing law, create conditions for further exploration and use of space, and strengthen general security and arms control, Mr. Lavrov said. It is time “to start serious practical work in this field,” he said.

The White House responded to the proposal on Tuesday afternoon, saying it opposed any treaty that sought “to prohibit or limit access to or use of space.”

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 7:38 PM

N,

When you make comments like that, you are ignoring all the evidence that it isn't "a total craphole by any reasonable human standards"
Space offers a vast amount of resources, that can help us solve and deal with the earth's problems. But we have to invest in it.

Manned spaceflight, and space development, is the future. And very soon

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 7:46 PM

Physics grad here, and I would argue against manned flight for the forseeable future. Unmanned is lower cost, less risky, a simpler engineering problem, and has very few limits to what kind of research can be done (and fewer limits all the time). Additionally, AI advances achieved in an unmanned program have greater promise for military applications.

Posted by taricha | February 18, 2008 7:46 PM

Manned space flight teaches us more about how to do manned space flight than anything else. There isn't really any reason for it except colonizing the moon.

Posted by ben | February 18, 2008 7:48 PM

taricha - Spaceflight is not inherently costly - its costly because of the way we practice it. The push for manned spaceflight is pushing for cheap access, something that will benefit unmanned spaceflight.

And, as I've said, complaining that manned spaceflight doesn't produce a lot of science is like complaining about a school lunch program not providing college tuition - thats not its purpose. Manned Spaceflight is about development, settlement, and colonization.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 7:51 PM

Ferris,

You want to provide a shred of evidence that "Space offers a vast amount of resources, that can help us solve and deal with the earth's problems"? Most of these resources are incredibly difficult to access (would take a lot of time and a huge amount of energy to collect) compared to any resources found on Earth.

Manned space flight is truly inspirational, but it won't really do any good in the near future. We can work on colonizing other planets in a couple of billion years, a little before the Sun is due to burn out.

Posted by ben | February 18, 2008 7:55 PM

There are really at least four different relevant categories of space missions: unmanned orbital (meaning missions limited to orbiting around the Earth), manned orbital, unmanned nonorbital (e.g., missions to the moon, other planets, comets, other solar systems, and so on), and manned nonorbital.

You can make a pretty decent case for funding all of the first three categories (the first is a nobrainer because it is already economically self-sufficient, and the second and third are justifiable given the unique scientific payoff). Manned nonorbital missions are pretty tough to make a case for, however, at least given the current conditions of economic scarcity and our ability to capture much of the benefit of manned nonorbital missions with either manned orbital missions or unmanned nonorbital missions.

Posted by DTM | February 18, 2008 7:57 PM

1) In my opinion, it's idiotic to embark upon manned space exploration with technology based upon Chinese rockets from circa 900 AD.

2) What we should be doing INSTEAD is pouring the money into physics -- supporting leading edge physics experiments and encouraging our young geniuses to go into physics instead of hedge funds.

3) That is the only way that we will develop the truly advanced technology needed for REAL space exploration.

4) At least the Unmanned space program provides a lot of data to physics from observations of extreme environments in spaces --black holes, etc.
Manned space exploration will consume enormous resources and will yield little to nothing in advanced technology.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 8:01 PM

By the way, "colonizing" space given current economic and technological realities is just a terrible idea, if for not other reason than because it would be much easier to "colonize" currently uninhabited places on Earth (deserts, oceans, etc.). That said, I think part of the justification for continuing manned orbital missions is to keep studying the effects of living in space, in case some day it does become feasible and desirable to put a significant population in space.

Posted by DTM | February 18, 2008 8:05 PM

ben - gladly.

You start by mentioning that spaceflight is incredibly expensive. However, its not inherently expensive. Its expensive because of how we practice it. Consider my discussion at ahttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/3/111434/0599/195/175740 about why spaceflight has been expensive. Or consider Rand Simberg's comments about cheap spaceflight at http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/simberg.htm

Yes, spaceflight is expensive, but its not because of the inherentness of the physics, or anything like that - its because its been poorly run.

But look at what companies and groups like XCOR, SpaceX, Scaled Composites are doing - all of these companies are going to cause the price to orbit to fall through the floor, in the next 5 years.

And at that point, the resources of space, like zero-g manufacturing, space based solar power, and other things open up.

We can access them now (or within the next 5-15 years), and we need to.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 8:07 PM

Well, if they shoot up enough satellites, this discussion will be over- there will be so much junk in orbit that we won't be able to get through.

And what a shame that would be, for there's lots of valuable stuff out there, like asteroids made of iron, or planets made of ammonia, that would amply repay the effort to retrieve it.

Well, at least we'll still have that wrist television.

Posted by serial catowner | February 18, 2008 8:07 PM

Unmanned is lower cost, less risky, a simpler engineering problem, and has very few limits to what kind of research can be done (and fewer limits all the time). Additionally, AI advances achieved in an unmanned program have greater promise for military applications.

I disagree. What the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have done on Mars for the past two years, a human geologist could do in a couple of days. Moreover, unmanned spacecraft have limited adaptability. They can't construct a new instrument or perform a new kind of test that they weren't designed to do.

The main reason manned spaceflight is hugely expensive is that the Apollo program, which was designed to create the infrastructure for a long-term presence in space, was used for a series of one-shot missions instead. Look at the plans von Braun had for the program -- for the cost of the shuttle, we could have had people going to the Moon every year, and gathering enormous amounts of scientific data. It's a simple equation: the first mission costs X, the tenth mission .75X, the fiftieth mission .5X, the hundredth mission .25X, and so on. If you want cheap spaceflight, you need to build the infrastructure and gain lots of experience doing it. Waiting for some magic technological breakthrough isn't going to do it -- because it's the impetus caused by constant travel that creates the breakthrough.

The payoff is worthwhile but there's no shortcut.

Posted by Scott de B. | February 18, 2008 8:11 PM

NASA has traditionally pushed manned space flight projects because they don't think that Congress will provide ever growing budgets for unmanned flights. That's why we ended up with a space station that has cost billions but provided close to nothing in terms of science. America would be better off if NASA made advancing space science its highest priority, rather than trying to increase its budget.

Posted by Spike3905 | February 18, 2008 8:15 PM

A word about the "technological spinoffs" argument that some people fall back on. While that justification usually involves the promise of vague, undefined future benefits, it's worth noting that there's one very clear and inevitable spinoff (perhaps the only inevitable one) from this kind of scientific progess: weapons. Since the stone age, research into how to move objects through the air at faster speeds has been closely linked with improved methods of killing, and our era is no different in that regard.

Consider the sci-fi scenario of a world in which space travel is routine and commonplace, and in which any sufficiently affluent person can leave the atmosphere. That world would, by definition, be one in which sending a WMD to any point on the globe at a moment's notice was equally routine. Your average deranged loner, rather than shooting up a classroom or shopping mall, would probably be able to obtain the equivalent of a few ballistic missiles and take out a town or two. Any organized and well-funded group could do a whole lot better than that. I don't see much chance we'll ever reach that point, since doing so would automatically provide incredible destructive power to innumerable destructive actors.

So, if we're going to devote massive social resources to pursuing some technological pipe dream, I'd rather go for one that doesn't also involve promoting the total destruction of human civilization. Maybe I'm just cynical and unromantic.

Posted by N | February 18, 2008 8:15 PM

Matthew,

You are a complete fucking prick

Posted by the world | February 18, 2008 8:19 PM

So, if thats case, then should we just get rid of technology, N?

Thats not a good idea, trust me.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 8:23 PM

Ferris,
Zero-g manufacturing? Space based solar power? Really? These are the "valuable resources" in space worth the cost of hundred of billions of dollars of public funding? It's not really clear that either of these would be so much better than the ground-based alternatives, but if they are, the private sector can fund the research.

Every manned mission to Mars deprives many unmanned missions of funding. Robots can do it very well now, are only getting better, and can be sent out for a tiny fraction of the cost of a manned mission. The only reason we have manned missions now is to excite the public and maintain funding for NASA's more important work.

Posted by ben | February 18, 2008 8:36 PM

As Carl Sagan pointed out, the most important reason for a human spaceflight program is to establish a permanent, self-sustaining human presence beyond the earth, in order to reduce the risk of extinction. As long as we remain trapped on a single planet we'll be at serious risk of extinction from some global catastrophe.

Posted by Mixner | February 18, 2008 8:39 PM

Scott de B.,

But putting that human geologist on Mars for two days would probably have cost somewhere around 1000 times as much as it cost to put Spirit and Opportunity on Mars.

It's the same deal with the moon: unmanned missions are going to be far cheaper. And yes, the cost of manned missions would go down the longer you did them, but so would the cost of unmanned missions, and unmanned missions would stay several orders of magnitude cheaper all along.

Posted by DTM | February 18, 2008 8:41 PM

Well, to answer your question - they are valuable resorces, and we are seeing private finanicng happening. However, I would argue that the development of new medicenes, and clean energy, falls in the spector of public welfare, since we all want to move away from power sources that pollute.

I really suggest you check out this discussion about zero-g manufacturing and look at what is happening with the newspace industry, through companies like SpaceX, XCOR, Bigelow Aerospace, Scaled Composites, and many others.

Further, you keep saying implying that any space mission is inherently expensive - and it doesn't have to be.

Posted by Feris Valyn | February 18, 2008 8:42 PM

By the way, note that things like zero g manufacturing and space based solar power are both orbital ideas, and don't require superexpensive nonorbital missions.

Posted by DTM | February 18, 2008 8:45 PM

Uh, no I'm not in favor of getting rid of technology.

This debate rests on an assumption that our collective decisions can shape the future of technological development. If that's true, I believe that devoting effort to an expensive research program which offers distant and uncertain long-term benefits - and, inconveniently, would virtually guarantee the annihilation of human society en route to those supposed benefits - is not a great idea. I don't see anything terribly controversial about that statement.

Posted by N | February 18, 2008 8:48 PM

Well, to answer your question - they are valuable resorces, and we are seeing private finanicng happening. However, I would argue that the development of new medicenes, and clean energy, falls in the spector of public welfare, since we all want to move away from power sources that pollute.

I really suggest you check out this discussion about zero-g manufacturing and look at what is happening with the newspace industry, through companies like SpaceX, XCOR, Bigelow Aerospace, Scaled Composites, and many others.

Further, you keep saying implying that any space mission is inherently expensive - and it doesn't have to be.

Posted by Feris Valyn | February 18, 2008 8:49 PM

Here is a link which contains links to a pair of current Daily Kos human spaceflight discussion threads. If anyone is inclined to visit and join in.

Posted by Bill White | February 18, 2008 8:51 PM

Ferris,

What do "new medicenes" and clean power have to do with NASA? If you want more new drugs, give the NIH more funding. If you want more clean power, fund the NSF and DOE. Manned space flight is exciting, but it doesn't really tell us how to better do manned space flight.

Posted by ben | February 18, 2008 8:55 PM

Cyborgs.

Posted by Linus | February 18, 2008 9:00 PM

Well, to answer your question - they are valuable resorces, and we are seeing private finanicng happening. However, I would argue that the development of new medicenes, and clean energy, falls in the spector of public welfare, since we all want to move away from power sources that pollute.

I really suggest you check out this discussion about zero-g manufacturing and look at what is happening with the newspace industry, through companies like SpaceX, XCOR, Bigelow Aerospace, Scaled Composites, and many others.

Further, you keep saying implying that any space mission is inherently expensive - and it doesn't have to be.

Posted by Feris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:05 PM

Well, to answer your question - they are valuable resorces, and we are seeing private finanicng happening. However, I would argue that the development of new medicenes, and clean energy, falls in the spector of public welfare, since we all want to move away from power sources that pollute.

I really suggest you check out this discussion about zero-g manufacturing and look at what is happening with the newspace industry, through companies like SpaceX, XCOR, Bigelow Aerospace, Scaled Composites, and many others.

Further, you keep saying implying that any space mission is inherently expensive - and it doesn't have to be.

Posted by Feris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:05 PM

EDIT: only really tells us how to do better manned space flight.

Posted by ben | February 18, 2008 9:06 PM

What dumbass colonist is going to volunteer to have his muscular and skeletal systems destroyed by microgravity?

Posted by Craigo | February 18, 2008 9:08 PM

I already linked to Charlie Stross, author of Accelerando and Glasshouse, but let me try again:

High Frontier, Redux

A cost/benefit analysis:

Optimistic projects suggest that it should be possible, with the low cost rockets currently under development, to maintain a Lunar presence for a transportation cost of roughly $15,000 per kilogram. Some extreme projections suggest that if the cost can be cut to roughly triple the cost of fuel and oxidizer (meaning, the spacecraft concerned will be both largely reusable and very cheap) then we might even get as low as $165/kilogram to the lunar surface. At that price, sending a 100Kg astronaut to Moon Base One looks as if it ought to cost not much more than a first-class return air fare from the UK to New Zealand ... except that such a price estimate is hogwash. We primates have certain failure modes, and one of them that must not be underestimated is our tendency to irreversibly malfunction when exposed to climactic extremes of temperature, pressure, and partial pressure of oxygen. While the amount of oxygen, water, and food a human consumes per day doesn't sound all that serious — it probably totals roughly ten kilograms, if you economize and recycle the washing-up water — the amount of parasitic weight you need to keep the monkey from blowing out is measured in tons. A Russian Orlan-M space suit (which, some would say, is better than anything NASA has come up with over the years — take heed of the pre-breathe time requirements!) weighs 112 kilograms, which pretty much puts a floor on our infrastructure requirements. An actual habitat would need to mass a whole lot more. Even at $165/kilogram, that's going to add up to a very hefty excess baggage charge on that notional first class air fare to New Zealand — and I think the $165/kg figure is in any case highly unrealistic; even the authors of the article I cited thought $2000/kg was a bit more reasonable. Whichever way you cut it, sending a single tourist to the moon is going to cost not less than $50,000 — and a more realistic figure, for a mature reusable, cheap, rocket-based lunar transport cycle is more like $1M. And that's before you factor in the price of bringing them back ...

He's goes on to write: "Colonize the Gobi desert, colonise the North Atlantic in winter — then get back to me about the rest of the solar system!"

Posted by Abe | February 18, 2008 9:10 PM

Matt, ALL manned spaceflight by ANY nation right now -- and for decades to come -- is an outrageous waste of its resources. Offering "encouragement and assistance" to developing nations to start it up is like offering encouragment and assistance to your neighbor's teenage son in the matter of becoming a junky.

For that matter -- speaking as someone who has been personally fascinated by space exploration since 1964 -- it's very hard to rationally justify most UNMANNED space exploration projects in terms of cost versus scientific benefit, as opposed to alternate uses (both in other areas of science, and in other areas altogether) for the same amount of money. (Climate-observation satellites are, of course, an exception.) If the US had a federal Dept. of Science that ladled out research funds impartially to all types of scientific research including space science, a very, very small share of the loot would ever go to the latter. We would -- at the most -- have a space agency rather like the European Space Sgency, spending at most about 1/4 as much of our GDP per year as NASA does.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | February 18, 2008 9:18 PM

Damn it - sorry about the triple post.

Okay, lets try this again

N - N, Your post read like it was an idictiment against all technology, not just spaceflight.

since you say its just about space technology - the reason its controversial is because its not true. Space technology is no more likely to create military spin-offs than any other technology. And claiming otherwise is false.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:24 PM

Ben,

Space doesn't begin and end with Nasa. Thats the first mistake. Second, Nasa can help facility space development. Things like Zero-g manufacturing and space based solar power require spaceflight, and Nasa does have a lot of experince with this.

If you want to put money into NIH, with the express purpose of developing drugs off-planet, I won't argue. But nasa can help with this. And it requires a manned pressence.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:31 PM

The 2008 budget for NASA is 20 Billion. The exploration part is 8 billion.

That is less than 30 days-of-Iraq-war.

I would rather have human spaceflight serve as a focus for nationalism and national identity than listen to conservatives talk about "throwing shitty little countries up against the wall to show we mean business".

Human spaceflight is a cheap and peaceful alternative to demonstrations of military hard power. The shuttle is soft power: an extreme symbol of American technology & strength.

Posted by Adam | February 18, 2008 9:33 PM

Craigo - zero-g doesn't destroy your muscular and skeletal system, if you exercise properly. For that matter, if it REALLY is an issue, we can easily create artifical gravity using spinning tethers.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:36 PM

Ferris, you know that's not true. Research to date indicates that exercise can mitigate tisue loss, not prevent it. And that's over short period - exposures of more than a few months are unknown. And on top of this, it's unknown whether the dmage is reversible.

And any centrifuge that's large enough to provide anything close to 1g and still spin slowly enough to prevent violent nausea would have to be several hundred feet across.

Posted by Craigo | February 18, 2008 9:41 PM

Abe - Yes, I've heard that, and, I am sorry, but I don't buy it. The implication is that 1) you have to take EVERYTHING WITH YOU for every person and 2) there aren't resources out there that we can utilize.

I admit lunar colonization is probably a little further down the road, but there is a lot we can do for colonizing earth orbit, and frankly, it won't be that big of a leap to go from earth orbit to lunar orbit.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:45 PM

And that several hundred feet can easily be handled with tethers, and tethered technology isn't that difficult.

And with the coming revolution in cheap access, we could even make it a solid structure.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:48 PM

Bruce Moomaw
Its not an outagous waste of money for years to come. Look at the creation of new industries, like zero-g manufacturing, or clean power, in the form of space based solar power. These will be best served by humans in space.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 9:52 PM

To summarize the salient points: (1) manned space is more romantic, but also way more expensive; (2) unmanned space does more for near term science per dollar; and (3) manned space also has a colonization aspect to it. So the fight is between pragmatists & dreamers. I will say that the new direction (ARES/CEV --> moon) is a better argument for manned space than the super expensive shuttle. At least the ambition, a permanent settlement on the moon, is as grand as the price tag. Another potentially desirable milestone would be permanent settlement of the moon. In this case, by permanent I mean that the same people stay, not just the infrastructure. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. Imagine a class of people born on the moon who cannot ever come to Earth (say they average 8 ft tall and have thin bones).

I disagree with Ferris Valyn about resources in space saving Earth. Earth has plenty. Those space resources will be valuable to the space people who live above the gravity well, but too expensive to matter much to Earth. This is not to say that a space culture can not or will not create trade with Earth.

It turns out that I work in the industry that Ferris Valyn is promoting. My take is that he is hyping the potential revolution a bit, but that there is real potential for significant change in launch costs. SpaceX is the frontrunner, who may lower small payload costs by 20-50% in the next 5 years or so (recent claims from them show > 2/3 savings). The real payoff for space resources, however, will be when launch costs are not a big issue, because the inertia/infrastructure is sufficient to use them above Earth's gravity well. Could be 100 yrs from now, or perhaps 1000. If N's cynical future arrives, it may well be 10,000 years off. Launch cost will probably be a big determining factor in creating sufficient space infrastructure to get us there.

Posted by Keith | February 18, 2008 10:05 PM

FIFTY percent of the US households have an annual income less than $40,000.

Among those 150 MILLION people, there are probably tens of THOUSANDS of geniuses equal to Einstein -- but they will never contribute to the advancement of our civilization because they will die from poor infant care, from violence , or from lack of hope.

Our inner city schools don't have adequate teachers or textbooks --much less science labs and computers -- yet you guys want to want hundreds of $Billions on boondoggles in space!

In spite of our great wealth, the US places badly in international Olympics in Math and Science --because our young geniuses know that only a moron would make physics a career.

This stupidity is what made the great civilization of China into the bitch of the Western Powers. Because all progress halted -- just as it is slowing down and halting down here.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 10:05 PM

Correction: Above should have said "yet you guys want to WASTE hundreds of $Billions on boondoggles in space!"

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 10:07 PM

Thank you, Adam. The most expensive and foolish manned spaceflight plan -- and the Administration's current plan is a strong contender for this dubious honor -- isn't remotely as expensive, dangerous, or foolish as occupying an large Middle Eastern country for even one year, let alone for the indefinite future. We could have built a damned space elevator by now.

Posted by mark | February 18, 2008 10:11 PM

Keith,

While I agree that VSE had some potential, the current plan which includes CEV and Ares needs to be totally revisited. ESAS has really hurt us.

As for being overblown, well, maybe, but I honestly don't think so. Actually, I don't think SpaceX is the necassary front runner, but they are among the most well known, and best funded.
BTW, I'd love to know - who do you work for, if you don't mind? Also, feel free to shoot me an email, at ferris.valy@gmail.com - I'd love to hear from you.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 10:13 PM

Ferris Valyn writes:

"Space technology is no more likely to create military spin-offs than any other technology"

I disagree. I mean, why were the Soviets so good at space flight, anyway? Perhaps it might have had something to do with their concurrent efforts to develop ways of rapidly killing hundreds of millions of people?

Or, let's take this quote from the Simberg manifesto that you linked to earlier:

QUOTE: "Imagine, instead of launching a few government employees once every few months, daily trips into space by hundreds or thousands of private citizens by multiple vehicle types, just as our airline industry today uses Boeings and Airbuses."

Now... on the one hand, the most powerful country in the world is currently (and justifiably) very concerned that North Korea might put together just one missile that can reliably reach the US West Coast.

On the other hand, we're all supposed to be enthused about an imaginary scenario where THOUSANDS of ordinary people, every day, can take jaunts into space on a whim. Bit of a contradiction, I think.

Establishing the connection between space flight capacity and mass destruction capacity seems pretty simple to me - it's not exactly rocket science (har har). If we make it easy for anyone to move an object from nearby point A to distant point B extremely quickly, there's no reason to assume that the object is always going to be friendly (and plenty of reason to fear the contrary).

Posted by N | February 18, 2008 10:14 PM

Okay, let's suppose that in 2000 you got to choose between a President Bush who was going to throw $600 billion at a wild-eyed mission to Mars, versus the president Bush we got instead.

How many of you would choose the former today?

How many would have chosen it at the time?

What continues to baffle me is the unflinching contempt people like Matt have for the manned space program (complete waste of money), despite the fact that they thought the Iraq war just might be a good idea (Could be a great investment!) - and then thought that throwing good money after bad was a sensible plan "now that we're already in Iraq".

We have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars. But it hasn't been on the space program.

Posted by Jinchi | February 18, 2008 10:18 PM

Don,

Your sentiment for the poor, and outline of the opportunity cost is well said. However some of the systemic problems resist simple solutions like more schools, or better teachers. There is real educational value in creating dreams that are based upon technology.

Posted by Keith | February 18, 2008 10:19 PM

We KNOW what the road to the future is: major advances in physics which allow us to create major , hugely powerful sources of energy. If we want space flight, we need NUCLEAR based rockets at a minimum --not primitive chemical rockets.

To reach the future, we can travel very slowly or fast. Fast travel consists of INTENSE research -- relentless probing of reality to expand our knowledge deeper and deeper. That's a function of budget and personnel. The atomic bomb was not developed as an aimless spinoff from unfocused drifting.

Pure research costs very little and yields huge benefits. By contrast, stupid space programs are hideously expensive DEVELOPMENT based on primitive knowledge which yield very little --as the APOLLO Program showed. We went to the moon -- so WHAT? What did it yield to the citizens of the USA?

The vague talk of "spinoffs" from a DEVELOPMENT project shows a lack of thought. The Pharoahs of Egypt built the Pyramids -- at the end of the day did they have anything other than a big fucking pile of rocks and a bankrupt Treasury??

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 10:20 PM

Don Willaims - they are only boondoggles if we let people like GWB manage them.

Properly managed, manned spaceflight can help with those problems you cite.

How is that a boondoogle?

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 10:24 PM

The US Government's "civilian" program for space exploration is a subterfuge for gaining militarily useful capabilities which will allow it to conquer planet Earth.

Nonsense.

Our military budget is at least 35 times NASA's budget. That's not including our current wars. And the military has it's own space weapons budget.

If you cancel the manned space program, even if you canceled the entire NASA program, it would have no effect on our military program.

In fact, they'd probably just shift all the savings from the civilian program straight into weapons research.

Posted by Jinchi | February 18, 2008 10:27 PM

N,
It was airline technology that caused the destruction of 2 buildings in NYC. Genetics and bio-tech has the potential to be world ending.

Yet I suspect you aren't calling for an end to airline flights, or to stopping genetics and bio-tech research.

This is no contradiction. Yes, space technology can be used as a weapon, but its not inherently a weapon based system. That the mistake your making. Much as explosives have good uses for mining, they also have bad uses for blowing people up.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 18, 2008 10:34 PM

Obviously, human beings are all too easy to tempt into starting wars, despite the fact that starting wars has usually ended up being a very bad idea.

I don't see how that helps make the case for manned nonorbital space missions or colonization efforts, however, even if it would cost us a bit less. Just because we were foolish with our resources on a grand scale doesn't mean we should also be foolish with our resources on a slightly smaller scale.

Posted by DTM | February 18, 2008 10:38 PM

RE Ferris Valyn's comment "How is that a boondoogle?"
-------------
It's a boondoogle if you're plan on going into space with chemical rockets.

I would have no problem with an enormous push to develop new space transport methods as a DRIVER /Motivator for intense physics research. We currently spend practically nothing on physics -- the Hadron Supercollider is being built in Europe.

Something like a followon to Project Orion would be a great idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 10:40 PM

It's the same deal with the moon: unmanned missions are going to be far cheaper.

Unmanned missions are only cheaper at doing what unmanned missions are designed to do.

Humans are far more versatile and capable of adapting research to results as they find them. It's why modern geology isn't done by robots and modern physics isn't being done by computer AIs.

Posted by Jinchi | February 18, 2008 10:40 PM

my heart is in favor of manned space explorations, but my head says that it ain't practical in the near future. however, in 50 years, things will change. In that time, we will probably figure out space elevators, fusion power, and better launch vehicles.Then, it will look feasible

Posted by stonetools | February 18, 2008 10:42 PM

Jinchi,

Well, actually, that isn't entirely true. We don't, for example, send our physicists into the middle of high energy particle accelerators to directly observe what is going on. Rather, they observe what is going on inside high energy particle accelerators at a remove, with the help of machines.

Partially that is because the machines are helpful. But it is also because the inside of a high energy particle accelerator is a very inhospitable place for a human being to be.

And that happens to be true of space as well: it is extremely inhospitable to human beings. So, actually, it makes perfect sense for human beings to explore space at a remove, through machines, just as we do in other places inhospitable to human life.

Which, by the way, doesn't mean we are actually incapable of adapting research to our results as we explore space. It just takes a bit more time for us to do that if humans stay on or near Earth as we explore space. The good news is that space isn't going anywhere, so we have a lot of time.

Posted by DTM | February 18, 2008 10:52 PM

As Carl Sagan pointed out, the most important reason for a human spaceflight program is to establish a permanent, self-sustaining human presence beyond the earth, in order to reduce the risk of extinction. As long as we remain trapped on a single planet we'll be at serious risk of extinction from some global catastrophe.
Posted by Mixner

Unfortunately, Sagan as schlockmeister and populizer of "easy' energy solutions encourages the belief that we can wreck Earth's local and regional ecosystems with too many people - then simply pack off for new virgin lands in outer space. As if "space colonies" are a solution.

They appear not to be.

If we go out as traditional biological humans, sans the mechanization of human mind (no longer needing food, water, missing elements like nitrogen) of Kurzweil's Singularity moment - we will need things we do not have any reasonable expectation of now - Mars is almost absent of water except in Polar regions, under a 35 Rem radiation flux a month, devoid of nitrogen. Other planets are worse. Many far worse...even with NASA's inanely deceitful meme that "water = life" and we can live anywhere water exists.

Even the Moon is out of the question as a self-sustaining colony because of the enormous expense of escaping the tyranny of the gravity well has any "essential" - water, a pound of human tissue, air costing 18K to boost into low Earth orbit and no space raw material usable on Earth worth the cost of retrieving it. And we have yet to make an ecosystem that recyles wastes for men in space. Even the hype about mining helium 3 ignores that it's use in a fusion reaction is more difficult to achieve than the H2-H3 reaction.

It's a long-term dream dependent on acquiring new technology, and some of that technology may never arrive. Energy to cheap to meter, then take into space. Overcoming the lethal ionizing radiation flux of the Sun and around large planets that bathes their moons. Travelling the vast distances. Getting essential elements life is based on, common on Earth, but absent elsewhere. Our experience, in 50 years of space flight - being outside the Earth's shield against lethal solar flares, is limited to 7 week-long expeditions. The last of which was 35 years ago.

For now, we should keep our space ambitions modest and go where the scientific payoff is. Unmanned space missions. Maybe a return to the Moon if economics/military need warrants it. Meanwhile hope for unlimited free energy to be developed, a way to cure cancer from the ionizing radiation of space. A turnaround in America's
debtor status before we think of blowing a trillion more just to go to Mars, plant a flag on that lifeless dead husk and return home.

Our big concern is Earth, Not even the global warming stuff is as urgent as human population wiping out ecosystems and then travelling from collapsed overpopulated collapsed ecologies to show up on n America, Europes, and Russia's borders in the next 40-50 years.

We have gone from 160 million in WWII, to 225 in 1973, to 300 million today, to US Census now saying we will have 438 million by 2050. With the world going from 1 billion in 1900 to 6.7 billion in 2000, to 12.8 billion in 2050 barring the mass dieoff of overpopulated lands starting before then from wars of exterminating competing human surplus populations or Superflu or mass drought with no nations left with adequate food resources after their own numbers are fed to provide aid..

Many may disagree with my Malthusian take on things, but I think few would disagree that space is not how we escape grave problems too much mankind is causing to the ability of Earth to sustain rich, diverse life and keep what men do live in a good standard of living....

Posted by chris ford | February 18, 2008 10:54 PM

however, in 50 years, things will change.

Strangely put, considering Sputnik was launched just over 50 years ago.

Waiting 50 years for everything to change means waiting forever. The initial work always takes effort. It's always cheaper to do something less significant.

Nobody's going to be studying space-elevators and better launch vehicles as long as we're simply sending out the occasional lightweight probe.

Posted by Jinchi | February 18, 2008 10:54 PM

Hell, we ought to be teaching physics to our huge population of convicts -- and pay them a stipend if they pass exams ,develop new theories or publish papers.

There are some damm clever people in the pen -- just look at lockpicking and how security systems are bypassed. 1000 cons might turn out to generate nothing useful --but if just one turned out to have a gift for developing new theories in physics, the program would be worth it.

After all, you're already paying roughly $100,000 /year to imprison them (It costs more to imprison a young man than to send that young man to Harvard -- but guess what program the Republicans prefer to fund?

Why not give the convicts something to do and get a possible return. They don't have much to distract them. Put it to them this way: We want to bust out of planet Earth and if they develop the plan they can come with us.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 10:59 PM

Re Chris Ford's comment "Many may disagree with my Malthusian take on things "
----------
I'm going to do something so --so incredibly bizarre that I get a pulsing migraine just from contemplating it.

I'm going to say that I totally agree with a Chris Ford post.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 11:06 PM

We don't, for example, send our physicists into the middle of high energy particle accelerators to directly observe what is going on.

True, but then space isn't nearly as hostile an environment as the inside of a particle accelerator.

And the instruments physicists do use are typically readily accessible upgraded and modified as discoveries are made. You can't do that with an unmanned space probe millions of miles from Earth.

Most of the objections to the manned space program seem to be that it's too expensive and the money would be better spent on unmanned space science.

But there isn't a big pot of money marked "SPACE ONLY". Canceling the manned space program wouldn't add money to the unmanned program. It would be shunted off to whatever priorities politicians had at the time (These days, that's the war).

In fact when the manned program was effectively suspended post-Apollo, the unmanned program suffered as well. Space science rebounded with the shuttle era. One is tied to the other, whether people want to see it or not.

Posted by Jinchi | February 18, 2008 11:11 PM

Our experience, in 50 years of space flight - being outside the Earth's shield against lethal solar flares, is limited to 7 week-long expeditions. The last of which was 35 years ago.

As you sort-of admit, we don't have 50 years of experience in interplanetary manned spaceflight. We have 4 years (1968-1972). Yet the assertion, by you and others, is that we can't solve the problems of human space travel because we haven't solved it in 50 years.

Wait another 50 years without doing the ground work and we'll still have only 4 years of deep space experience.

Posted by Jinchi | February 18, 2008 11:20 PM

Er.. there is ONE space project that I would strongly like to support : Project MOOSE (Man Out of Space Easiest). Kinda a secret obsession.

Developed here in Philadelphia back in the 1960s by some good ole boys at GE's Reentry Systems -- which ..uh ..built other things. (Hint: They were long, cone-shaped, and with 300 kilotons)

MOOSE basically was a system whereby an astronaut in difficulty abandoned his space station, strapped an ablation shield to his ass, fired a small retro-rocket and SKY-DIVED to Earth from about 400 miles up -- which meant he hit the atmosphere like a bat out of hell!!!

I'VE ALWAYS wanted to try that.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOSE

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 11:23 PM

Naturally, those pussies at the Air Force wouldn't fund MOOSE.

Too bad space isn't run by the Marines -- they would have had a fistfight over who got to go first.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 11:27 PM

SKY-DIVED to Earth from about 400 miles up

Yeah, I was always impressed with this image.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Kittinger-jump.jpg/472px-Kittinger-jump.jpg

A bit shy of 400 miles, but still pretty cool.

Posted by Jinchi | February 18, 2008 11:34 PM

I'm going to say that I totally agree with a Chris Ford post.

Chris Ford is an interesting cat in that he has some pretty reasonable views on what is wrong with the world, but he also has some pretty unreasonable views as to the best paths of fixing them. It is like there is a set of severe (and wrong) fixations in an otherwise reasonably functioning intellect.

Posted by mpowell | February 18, 2008 11:36 PM

F. Valyn writes:

It was airline technology that caused the destruction of 2 buildings in NYC. Genetics and bio-tech has the potential to be world ending.

Yet I suspect you aren't calling for an end to airline flights, or to stopping genetics and bio-tech research.
-----------------------------------------
Those are two very different examples. In the case of airlines, the 9/11 attacks were devastating, but the overall threat from jetliners is small - those particular attacks could (and probably should)have been prevented; future attacks by the same means seem almost out of the question. I see no reason to worry about an airline menace.

In contrast, it seems to me that if a variety of bad guys can gain ready access to flying vehicles that can cross oceans at 15,000+ mph, along with sufficient energy to fuel them, civilization will be in for a rough time - even if the bad guys don't manage to scrounge up any nukes.

Now, long term biotech threats are truly scary. Honestly, if I thought there was a way to decisively clamp down on that research at some point before we reach a future DIY-doomsday-plague situation, I'd strongly consider it. I don't think that's practical, though - and at least there are immediate and clear benefits in the meantime. Anyway, the fact that there's one imminent apocalypse lurking out there doesn't mean we should be going out of our way to create additional ones.

Posted by N | February 18, 2008 11:49 PM

"It was airline technology that caused the destruction of 2 buildings in NYC."

Because two buildings is the equivalent of delivering a nuclear weapon to any point in the world.

"Genetics and bio-tech has the potential to be world ending."

I honestly fail to see how genetics would be world ending or even have the potential. Bio-Tech has some capacity, but more than likely the damage could be contained. It's not that space technology could be used as a weapon, it's that it currently is used as a weapon. One that is far more dangerous than any other we have created.

Posted by JordanT | February 18, 2008 11:59 PM

Finally, an Internet TV Channel 100% dedicated to spiritual growth, prosperity consciousness, the Law of Attraction and raising the world’s vibration! Worlwide free access, 24/7!

Posted by holistichealing | February 19, 2008 12:03 AM

I'll support manned space exploration if we can launch Bill Kristol into an Earth-trailing orbit.

Posted by Another Ben | February 19, 2008 12:35 AM

FYI Jinchi. The image you refer to of the guy who "SKY-DIVED to Earth from about 400 miles up" is actually a photo of Joseph Kittinger, who as a part of Project Excelsior broke the record for longest parachute free-fall at an altitude of 31,300 metres. This is just over 19 miles, certainly not 400 miles, which is higher than your average GPS satellite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excelsior

Oh, and the record still stands.

Posted by Satan | February 19, 2008 12:39 AM

""The U.S. is the world's most powerful state. The international system looks to it for order. If the U.S. were to weaponize space, it would be perceived as an attempt to maintain or extend its position, in effect, the status quo," Dolman suggested. It is likely that most states--recognizing the vast expense and effort needed to hone their space skills to where America is today--would opt not to bother competing, he said."

Dolman is a major idiot.

1) First of all, anything the US does militarily is considered a threat to the rest of the world BY the rest of the world, at this point. So they will take steps to counteract it.

2) While it is true that practically all other states can't do much to militarize space, they probably CAN do some things to make said militarization less effective for the US. Which ends up meaning that the US effort being an expensive boondoggle.

The reality is that this is just another attempt to keep siphoning US tax dollars to the military-industrial complex. As Chalmers Johnson has pointed out, this has been the deliberate policy of the US state since after WWII. The goal is to build an economy entirely built on the military - and then use that military to dominate the resources of the world for the benefit of the wealthy in the US.

It's imperialism.

It's that simple, that over-riding, and nothing more needs to be said.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 19, 2008 12:44 AM

I knew it was Kipplinger (it's how I found the photo). And I knew the altitude.

"SKY-DIVED to Earth from about 400 miles up" was a reference to Don William's post.

Posted by Jinchi | February 19, 2008 12:48 AM

The rest of this thread is pathetically ill-informed.

The key to the solution to all of this is, of course, nanotech.

Nanotech can enable the sort of technologies you need to get into space cheaply. Nanotech can enable the sort of technologies you need to do cheap Solar System resource acquisition (one lousy metal asteroid can supply more metal than the entire world has consumed in centuries. Some asteroids have been estimated to be worth a trillion dollars in raw materials.)

More importantly, nanotech can obsolete the need to do any of that.

The money spent on NASA is peanuts. We need a couple hundred billion a year (from all countries combined) devoted to nanotech over the next two or three decades.

You want to solve the energy problem? As Dr. Richard Smalley pointed out, you need nanotech.

You want to solve health care costs? You need nanotech.

You want to solve just about any other problem? You need nanotech.

Nanotech is BASIC technology. It subsumes and obsoletes most other technologies - including biotechnology (biological molecules are just physical molecules like everything else.) The technologies it can enable - such as massively parallel computer hardware, and thus AI - can enable further basic research into physics and all other sciences.

If you want to solve human problems, you need nanotech above all else.

Putting space flight - manned or unmanned - before nanotech research is simply ignorance about technological priorities.

But again, cut the US defense budget in half, and you can do it all. It's not an either/or situation when you're spending a TRILLION DOLLARS a year on defense and security. That's simply ridiculous.

This country alone could put two hundred billion into nanotech and another hundred billion into space research and never miss it - IF you cut the stupid defense budget.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 19, 2008 1:05 AM

Re Satan: "This is just over 19 miles, certainly not 400 miles, which is higher than your average GPS satellite."
----------
Negative. GPS sats are roughly 12,600 miles up.

Posted by Don Williams | February 19, 2008 1:09 AM

Thank you for the correction Don. I actually meant the HST not GPS.

Posted by Satan | February 19, 2008 1:42 AM

"SKY-DIVED to Earth from about 400 miles up" was a reference to Don William's post.

My apologies Jinchi. Its a little hard to keep track with all the hair-brained ideas floating around.

I'VE ALWAYS wanted to try that.

400 miles up Don? Well that's the last of em. You're all crazy.

Posted by Satan | February 19, 2008 1:49 AM

N,
and do you really think there won't be any sort of security that is involved in space travel? For non-state actors, the method by which you deal with this - you use security and good planning to deal with this.

As for state actors - spaceplane type vehicles will be worth too much to use as a disposable bomb.

Further, you've talked about bio-tech, and you mentioned that it does have clear and immediate benefits - the same thing applies to space tech, and space development. Don't overlook things like space based solar power, and zero-g manufacturing.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 2:09 AM

Jordant,
Don't kid yourself - had a nuclear bomb been on either of those flights, NYC would be a hole in the ground. Nuclear bombs have nothing to do with spaceflight tech

Further, Space tech is not being used as a weapon, and the vehicles I am talking about could only be used as a weapon by suicide bombers.

First, to the specific issue of space tech being a weapon - thats not true. Right now, there are no direct weapons in space - there is militarization in space, but, at least publicly, there are no actual weapons in space.

Now, it is true that nuclear weapons are carried by rockets, and some are used as a weapon. But the relation that those rockets have with the vehicles I am talking about, like SpaceX's Falcon rocket, or SpaceshipTwo, is about like the relation that the Tank has with the tractor - both started from a somewhat similar point, but we don't ban the tractor because people could, with a little work, turn it into a crude tank.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 2:23 AM

Richard Steven Hack - its interesting you talk about Nano-tech - Tim Pickens III, CEO of Spacehab, talked about zero-g manufacturing of nano-tech in zero-g. This is, I suspect, one thing that will help the growth of manned spaceflight, a lot.
Anyway, I just found it interesting.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 2:30 AM

"Nanotech is BASIC technology. It subsumes and obsoletes most other technologies - including biotechnology (biological molecules are just physical molecules like everything else.) The technologies it can enable - such as massively parallel computer hardware, and thus AI - can enable further basic research into physics and all other sciences."

That's not really true. "Nanotech" isn't some monolithic technology base that will give us new tools for every scientific discipline with a breakthrough or two. Some nanomaterials and nanoelectronics are looking pretty promising but the type of nanotechnology that was envisioned in the mid-90s as nanorobots doing things like repairing DNA and resetting telomere clocks are extremely unlikely to ever be developed. That type of technology, and for that matter the "molecular assemblers" that nanotech fetishists have raging hardons for, are far more likely to be developed THROUGH biotechnology, mother nature having already solved many of the problems of molecular synthesis, cheaply and elegantly. Biotechnology is far more likely to obsolete the concept of nanorobotics and molecular nanotechnology than the other way around.

Posted by Paper Mac | February 19, 2008 3:12 AM

This stuff has been just around the corner for fifty years, according to the people who expected to make money out of it.

It hasn't been.

But, nevertheless, many of them did.

There's another sucker born every minute, and nothing sucks like vacuum.

Posted by MFB | February 19, 2008 5:19 AM

In discussions of technology, I've come to believe that the public needs an objective body that investigates technology-based claims and weighs in if a project is possible, plus economical, or otherwise valuable given current technology. The public now just gets unvarnished claims from outlier "experts" usually with some personal, political, or financial interest in their claims - and the media feeds on sensationist new solutions or problems - and that leaves the public believing a lot of scientific bunk and voting on it. Worse, some of the unfounded crap makes it into influencing textbooks, national decisions, market decisions.

IMO, The National Academy of the Sciences and the American engineering associations should for that board, be federally and privately funded and seek to answer questions of scientific and technological feasability pose to them by national planners.

1. We just found ourselves in a complete mess with ethanol. Tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies for more expensive gas, milk, eggs and less habitat, more CO2 it turns out - because
no one rigorously questioned the science and the hype.

2. Basic physics and cost of boosting up initial consruction material & continued replenishment of reaction mass to keep a giant solar mirror in place against the solar wind make that project unfeasible, and this was well established back in the 60s when the force of solar wind, light pressure was verified.

3. The unsolvable problem of radioactive waste has been solved in France, Russia, S Korea. Long-lived waste is recycled and reused in new fuel, along with plutonium and unused uranium. Only fission products are treated as waste, they amount to 0.2% of a reactor cycle's mass, and they decay away in 200-300 years. Physics doesn't change at America's edge. Nuclear power's waste problem is a political one, not a scientific one, but voters have been propagandized to believe it is a real issue.

4. Since California banned offshore drilling in the late 60s, the public has been told to believe that massive spills are inevitable if we ever allow domestic oil production in new places and all the caribou & gay baby whales would die...but truth is two new generations of safety technology developed since then has shown drilling in the stormy N Sea is safe.

(Schlock health claims are the same thing. Like the 2-3 dozen "miracle" diet additions uncovered every year that block all cancer. Or 6-8 "new" pollutants that "cause" autism. A national health board should assess such claims.)

Posted by chris ford | February 19, 2008 5:19 AM

The comments here provide an interesting anecdote regarding the attitude of the Left towards manned space exploration. And the overwhelming majority are hostile.

Sorry Ferris, but progressives don't want manned space exploration. Can't say I am surprised.

Posted by Brad | February 19, 2008 7:05 AM

I refer everyone to the recent study done by the British Royal Astronomical Society that suggested that human space explorers are after all required.

Posted by Mark R. Whittington | February 19, 2008 7:15 AM

Brad,

Yea, sure, progressives like Chris Bowers, who caused this post to be created, or Al Gore, who spoke at last year's X Prize Cup's executive summit, really don't like manned space flight.

Just keep telling yourself that.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 9:37 AM

The romantic pull of the stars and the moon pre-dates NASA, the USA, Galileo, christianity, etc.

The modern version of the sky's allure -- the high tech, sci-fi mixed with a heaping tablespoon of Arthurian legend rapture is fascinating to observe.

I feel it myself. In terms of achievement as a species, is there anything cooler than the moon landing way back in '69?

I read too much Asimov and plenty of other SF not to dream of life, and of living, far from Earth.

And yet, from what I have observed of the problem-plagued space bus known as the shuttle, and from what I have read about cost and physical limits against manned space flight, the pragmatist in me prevails.

I wonder what drives some apparent manned-space fanatics like Ferris? Did he take his Asimov even more seriously than I did? Or, ick, could he have personal commercial interests in space pork?

Given all the waste in the defense budget, if we could commit to cutting some of the fat (such as the nearly $10 billion a year that goes to "missile defense") to increase the NASA budget, I'd be in favor. The emphasis needs to be on unmanned space exploration, though I do believe that manned space flight research needs to be kept alive.

Posted by Bragan | February 19, 2008 9:40 AM

Jinchi,

Two quick points.

First, space really is an extremely hostile environment for human beings--maybe not quite as bad as the inside of a particle accelerator, but far worse than anything human beings evolved to handle. People tend to fixate on the airlessness, but the temperature extremes, radiation, lack of gravity, lack of food and water, extremely fast moving and difficult to see objects, and so on all conspire to make it a really, really awful environment. Unfortunately, I think fans of manned nonorbital missions tend to underplay how exactly awful an environment space really is, certainly in relation to anything human explorers had to deal with back in the days we were only exploring the surface of the Earth.

Second, you wrote:

"And the instruments physicists do use are typically readily accessible upgraded and modified as discoveries are made. You can't do that with an unmanned space probe millions of miles from Earth."

No, but you can send a new probe, suitably upgraded and modified in light of your discovery. And you can do that over and over again as things develop.

Of course, I am willing to concede exploring space that way is going to cost us some time. But transporting the scientists, labs, and so on we need millions of miles away from Earth through and to places so incredibly hostile to human life is going to cost us a LOT more money. And doing that still won't fix all the problems of distance--for example, if it turns out a scientist discovers something that really requires a piece of equipment the scientist didn't happen to bring, we are right back to needing to send something from Earth.

So, to put it bluntly: the equation above was that a human geologist on Mars could have done what Spirit and Opportunity did in two days rather than two years. Would getting that information a little less than two years earlier have been worth multiplying the costs of the mission by a factor of around 1000? Probably not, and that is an illustration of why the considerably slower but also far more cost-effective way of exploring space--unmanned missions--will remain dominant.

Posted by DTM | February 19, 2008 10:13 AM

If we stick with the current plans for replacing the Shuttle with Ares 1 & Ares V NASA will need MORE money than Bush as proposed. If we desire to return to the Moon, NASA will need more money than Bush has proposed.

Are Clinton and/or McCain now proposing to increase NASA's budget from ~$17.5 billion to say $20 billion per year? If not then to reduce NASA budget, cancel Ares 1 & Ares V, and purchase less expensive alternatives for reaching ISS is what makes sense.

Me? I favor NASA getting a full ONE PERCENT of the federal budget compared with about six-tenths of a percent as proposed by Bush. But, to set the budget a few billion too short to actually return to the Moon is the worst option of all.

Set NASA's budget at $24 billion or so and get back to the Moon and on to Mars.

But, if that is not feasible and President Obama cancels ESAS (Ares 1 & Ares V) that would open the door for Congress to purchase much cheaper alternatives for ISS access.

Ares 1 is also known as "The Stick" or "The Shaft" as Jon Goff calls it. Thus, here is a campaign slogan:

Stick with the Stick -- vote McCain!

Posted by Bill White | February 19, 2008 10:21 AM

One last general thought:

Fans of manned nonorbital missions also tend to talk in terms of technology improving and making this feasible. But what they are overlooking is that improvements in technology are also making the alternative--unmanned nonorbital missions--better.

And so you don't even need to go outside of the space discussion to see the tradeoff. What if, for example, for the cost of sending a manned mission to Mars for a couple weeks, we could send a high quality AI mission to another star system, with the expectation it would explore and report back for years? The point, of course, is just that the money you save on not having to move around and keep human beings alive in such a hostile environment can be used to fund projects that humans could not realistically do at all.

And that is because unmanned missions are not just crappy versions of manned missions. Outside of the Moon and maybe Mars, they also have a potential reach far greater than anything live human beings could match. And improving technology is likely to preserve and even increase that gap over time, not close it.

Posted by DTM | February 19, 2008 10:26 AM

Ooookay...interesting thread.

Getting back to a response to the OP, you can't look at spaceflight through the lens of utilitarianism, whether it be for scientific research (where it isn't all THAT useful anyway outside of astronomy and such) or for playing with satellites to a greater or lesser degree.

It's about exploration, and there's simply no instinct more important to the past, [b]or future[/b], of humanity than that. In many respects it's more important that even warfare, because even when we weren't fighting, we were always [i]spreading[/i].

And no, unmanned isn't the same, not by a long shot. There is a difference between having man accomplish something, and having man's creations accomplish something. An AI (if such a beast can exist within any living human's lifetime, which is unlikely) might be able to go to another star system, but an AI going to another star system is not humanity's triumph, not really. Humanity didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything. We just shot a machine at the sky and waited. Not that that isn't valuable and should be funded, but the important stuff is the manned stuff, because it's [i]us[/i].

And besides, every dollar spent on learning how to keep humans alive in hostile environments is money well spent. Unless you think that humanity will just spend the remainder of its time in the Universe sitting on this rock, the learning needs to happen sooner or later. Why not sooner? Because you're wedded to a false dilemma that your parents wouldn't have given a second thought?

Posted by Demosthenes | February 19, 2008 11:06 AM

Demosthenes,

First, past "exploration" was usually humans going to places that were at least marginally fit for human habitation (and often already inhabited by humans--just not the same kind of humans as the "explorers"). Exploring space is just fundamentally different.

Second, I don't really understand your man versus man's creations distinction. For example, no one has ever laid a naked eye on many of the things we humans have studied through telescopes, microscopes, and so on, many of which already incorporate considerable computer processing before we see any results. Does that mean all of those discoveries somehow don't count as ours, but instead belong to our machines? And the only real difference with unmanned space exploration is that you necessarily add a time lag to these machine-mediated observations, but in the greater scheme, what is the big deal about adding a time lag?

Third, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect humanity will never live in substantial numbers anywhere but Earth. Some descendents of ours may someday live somewhere else--provided they are very different from us in several important respects--but humans as a species simply are not suited to living anywhere else (at least not anywhere else within a reasonable distance). And in light of that, it could indeed be a waste of resources to develop the technology that would be necessary for a hypothetical human "colonization" of space that is unlikely to ever occur.

Again, though, maybe that "colonization" will make sense for some descendents of ours. But in that case, it will likely be more efficient to wait to develop the technology appropriate for them, and in the meantime to use our limited resources on more productive projects.

Posted by DTM | February 19, 2008 12:51 PM

Bragan - to answer your question, right now, no, I don't really have a personal commerical interest in space. I will at some point, because I am studying aerospace engineering, but the reason I chose to go into the field is because I see its potential. I will say that if I had money, I would invest it in the NewSpace companies (like XCOR, or Armadillo, or Orbital outfitters), because the coming revolution in cheap access will have a major impact.

Now, as for the issue of the problem plagued space shuttle - any scientist will tell you that you can't tell anything about trends from a single data point. And, basing your assumptions about the cost of space travel on the single data point that is by no means fair. It would be a bit like basing the capabilities of powered air travel (ie airplanes) on the Langley Aerodrome. For those that don't know - at the same time that the Wright brothers were working on their 1903 Write Flyer, Samuel Langley, who was then the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was also working on airplanes. He built and had test flown 2 times, the Langely Aerodrome. Both times, it fell apart, and crashed. And yet, today airplanes are everywhere. So you can't base your cost estimates on a single data point.

Thats why I talk so much about the NewSpace companies - when you look at the work that companies like XCOR, SpaceX, SpaceDev, Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space System, Scaled composites, Rocketplane - these companies and programs will actually give us multiple data points, and will either prove me true (that launch costs can actually come down), or else will prove me false. I have no doubt that it will prove me true.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 1:03 PM

DTM,

First, space is "marginally fit for human habitation - in fact, I'd argue that they are much more than just "marginlly". Yes, its true, you can't live there without advanced technology, but you can't live most places with advance technology anyway, so why should space be different.

First, to the issue of radiation - no, its not - living in space is not nearly as harsh as you claim. You mention the issue of temperature - thats why you have good radiators in space. Yes, its true that you'll need power, but solar power in space is unsurpassed, at least for things in the inner solar system. As to the issue of radiation - I've dedicated a whole diary/blogpost to the myths that are associated with it. Read that.

As to the issue of gravity - we don't have good data to assume that it is inherently debilitating long term, and, much more importantly, if it really is, there are easy ways to deal with it - use tethers, and rotate your station. With cheap access, solid structure would be fine as well (and yes, cheap access is coming).

As to the issue of food and water - first, water reclamation is a well proven technology - why do people think its that big a deal? Concerning food - greenhouses can be successfully built in space, to grow food. However, and more to the point - why do people think that they have to be completely indepedent of earth? The truth is, much like how place like NYC don't produce their own food, there isn't necassarily any reason why habitats close to the earth have to produce all of their own food. They can simply pay for and import foodstuffs as required. Further out, to places like Mars - as I said, greenhouses are proven technology, and the soil is known to be pretty good (you'd need a little fertilizer).

Yes, its is true - compared to what exploreres and colonists had to face in the last centuary, space is a much more hostile enviroment. But, then, we have the technology to deal with that hostility.

Space development and space colonization is productive and practical, now.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 1:33 PM

Ugh. My apologies for the brackets.

Posted by Demosthenes | February 19, 2008 2:21 PM

So, to put it bluntly: the equation above was that a human geologist on Mars could have done what Spirit and Opportunity did in two days rather than two years. Would getting that information a little less than two years earlier have been worth multiplying the costs of the mission by a factor of around 1000?

The point isn't whether a human geologist could do what Spirit did in 2 days, it's that Spirit and Opportunity could never do many of the things a human geologist could do.

I also don't agree with your cost estimate. The Spirit/Opportunity mission cost about $800 million.

Posted by Jinchi | February 19, 2008 2:45 PM

Oops - minor screwup - ignore the first line in that response to DTM - the line that says

First, to the issue of radiation - no, its not - living in space is not nearly as harsh as you claim.

My bad - that line makes no sense. Just ignore it.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 3:03 PM

Ferris Valyn: " but, at least publicly, there are no actual weapons in space. "
-----------
hee hee hee

Posted by Don Williams | February 19, 2008 3:07 PM

Whether or not we ever reach agreement on whether humans or robots are "better" there are certain political realities involving American prestige and Florida jobs.

If our Democratic POTUS #44 ends America's ability to put humans in space and causes the layoff of tens of thousands of Florida workers the political repercussions will NOT be good in 2010, 2012 or maybe 2014.

If we are going to be spending taxpayer money anyway maybe we should look to maximize what we get for that money.

Posted by Bill White | February 19, 2008 3:18 PM

Re DTM's comment "Unfortunately, I think fans of manned nonorbital missions tend to underplay how exactly awful an environment space really is, certainly in relation to anything human explorers had to deal with back in the days we were only exploring the surface of the Earth."
-----------
I gather that DTM has never captained a sailboat. Much less Gone blue water sailing.

Whether something's safe or not depends upon knowledge and discipline.

Whether you live or die on the ocean is usually determined at the moment you cast off from the dock. AT THAT POINT, you had better chosen an adequate craft, gone over every inch of the boat and made sure it was well built/maintained, and that you have adequate provisions on board for EVERY contingency.

I'm not against manned space exploration -- I'm just opposed to a massive poorly conceived effort based upon the equivalent of a dugout canoe trying to cross the Atlantic. Once we have the technology to build adequate craft, the government won't have to support space travel -- corporations will be straining at the least.

What the government needs to do is fund the fundamental research in physics needed to develop that technology. Especially since much of the technology will be useful here on earth (e.g., massive new sources of cheap energy.)

Posted by Don Williams | February 19, 2008 3:26 PM

Don Willaims - care to actually cite a weapon or weapons platform that is in space? Understand, I mean a weapon. I don't deny that space has been militarized, but thats not the same as weaponized. So, can you actually point to a weapon that is in space?

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 3:28 PM

Re Demosthenes "whether it be for scientific research (where it isn't all THAT useful anyway outside of astronomy and such)"
-----------
I disagree. I think that a lot of the data that drives advances in physics comes from unmanned space observations (Hubble,etc) in addition to the accelerators we have for doing physics experiments here on earth.

Newton and Einstein pretty well milked what you can develop based on observations of common reality -- although a non-genius like myself is really not qualified to make that opinion.

But it seems to me that advances in our models of reality depend upon looking at conditions NOT found here on Earth -- other than inside the particle accelerators. That means we have to look outward into the universe. E.g., at stars being sucked into black holes.

Posted by Don Williams | February 19, 2008 3:42 PM

Ferris Valyn: "care to actually cite a weapon or weapons platform that is in space?"
---------
Care to give me your security clearances?

Posted by Don Williams | February 19, 2008 3:44 PM

Don Williams - current chemical rockets are very likely going to be the only thing practical for getting to space in the near future, and they can be made to operate substantially cheaper than they have historically been operated at. I would love to see something like the space elevator, but we don't need the space elevator to begin colonizing LEO and even cis-lunar space.

We have the techology now.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 3:51 PM

Re Bill White "Whether or not we ever reach agreement on whether humans or robots are "better" there are certain political realities involving American prestige and Florida jobs.

If our Democratic POTUS #44 ends America's ability to put humans in space and causes the layoff of tens of thousands of Florida workers the political repercussions will NOT be good in 2010, 2012 or maybe 2014. "
-----------
Oh -- so we're talking about an unproductive , Middle Class, Vote-buying Welfare project -- versus a productive effort that actually generates value.

Sorry --I misunderstand. Well, in this case, you don't need to actually REACH space. Just put out PR releases saying that you're TRYING to reach space.

That way, you can do like NASA: give defense contractor Lockheed Martin $1 Billion to develop the successor to the Space Shuttle --only to end up with a BIG fiberglass tank that leaks rocket fuel.

By the way, that's the X-35 fiasco -- a different tank from the one that Lockheed builds for the CURRENT space shuttle.

You know -- the External Fuel Tank that sheds insulation during launch and knocks tiles off the shuttle so that schoolteachers become crispy critters during reentry.

Posted by Don Williams | February 19, 2008 3:55 PM

Not that I think that it really has anything to do with the issue of whether you can back up your statement, but...

given that I am merely a student, and just observing from the peanut gallery, the phrase non-existance comes to mind. If you've got more data than I have, please feel free to let us know.

Posted by Ferris Valyn | February 19, 2008 3:58 PM

"the type of nanotechnology that was envisioned in the mid-90s as nanorobots doing things like repairing DNA and resetting telomere clocks are extremely unlikely to ever be developed. That type of technology, and for that matter the "molecular assemblers" that nanotech fetishists have raging hardons for, are far more likely to be developed THROUGH biotechnology, mother nature having already solved many of the problems of molecular synthesis, cheaply and elegantly. Biotechnology is far more likely to obsolete the concept of nanorobotics and molecular nanotechnology than the other way around."

This is completely incorrect.

While general purpose assemblers are definitely a HARD technology to do, targeted purpose assemblers will be much easier and will have all the functionality needed to provide the benefits I cited.

Also, biotech will never obsolete nanotech because of the simple fact that nanotech can handle by definition ANY molecular engineering whereas biotech by definition cannot.

This is not to say that "bionano", as it's called, won't be extremely valuable and may indeed be the enabler of early development of nanotech applications. But there's no way it can be as general as general nanotech.

The basic reason why nanotech is considered a doable technology is precisely that it already works in real life, in biology and elsewhere in nature. The only technology needed is how to control it with precision. This is not an easy task, but it is definitely doable.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 19, 2008 9:19 PM

Ford: Vis-a-vis the National Academy of Sciences, the following:

21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act; Public Law 108-153 Passed by 108th Congress (1st Session); A bill to authorize appropriations for nanoscience, nanoengineering, and nanotechnology research, and for other purposes;

(a) IN GENERAL.—The President shall establish or designate a National Nanotechnology Advisory Panel.

(b) QUALIFICATIONS.—The Advisory Panel established or designated by the President under subsection (a) shall consist primarily of members from academic institutions and industry. Members of the Advisory Panel shall be qualified to provide advice and information on nanotechnology research, development, demonstrations, education, technology transfer, commercial application, or societal and ethical concerns. In selecting or designating an Advisory Panel, the President may also seek and give consideration to recommendations from the Congress, industry, the scientific community (including the National Academy of Sciences, scientific professional societies, and academia), the defense community, State and local governments, regional nanotechnology programs, and other appropriate organizations.

SEC. 5. TRIENNIAL EXTERNAL REVIEW OF THE NATIONAL NANOTECHNOLOGY PROGRAM.

(a) IN GENERAL.—The Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office shall enter into an arrangement with the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a triennial evaluation of the Program,

(b) STUDY ON MOLECULAR SELF-ASSEMBLY.—As part of the first triennial review conducted in accordance with subsection (a), the National Research Council shall conduct a one-time study to determine the technical feasibility of molecular self-assembly for the manufacture of materials and devices at the molecular scale.

(c) STUDY ON THE RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT OF NANOTECHNOLOGY.—As part of the first triennial review conducted in accordance with subsection (a), the National Research Council shall conduct a one-time study to assess the need for standards, guidelines, or strategies for ensuring the responsible development of nanotechnology, including, but not limited to—

(1) self-replicating nanoscale machines or devices;

(2) the release of such machines in natural environments;

(3) encryption;

(4) the development of defensive technologies;

(5) the use of nanotechnology in the enhancement of human intelligence; and

(6) the use of nanotechnology in developing artificial intelligence.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 19, 2008 9:32 PM

:An AI (if such a beast can exist within any living human's lifetime, which is unlikely)"

Completely incorrect.

Nanotech and biotech will permit much deeper exploration of how the brain functions over the next few decades. The result will be the ability to construct that capability in a machine and/or software.

Whether that leads to an "AI" per se or merely "merchanical" enhancements to the human brain is an interesting question. I don't see any advantage to an "AI" per se, except as a purely experimental quest. I would much prefer to see the technology directly applied to enhancing human intelligence.

"Third, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect humanity will never live in substantial numbers anywhere but Earth. Some descendents of ours may someday live somewhere else--provided they are very different from us in several important respects--but humans as a species simply are not suited to living anywhere else (at least not anywhere else within a reasonable distance). And in light of that, it could indeed be a waste of resources to develop the technology that would be necessary for a hypothetical human "colonization" of space that is unlikely to ever occur."

This is precisely correct - which of course makes the entire argument irrelevant. Since the result of nanotech will be the transformation of the human species into something not even remotely "human" as humans view it now, the issue is moot, as I've said repeatedly.

Look, there's no stopping the intent of the species to transcend its limitations. It's going to happen one way or the other. The primary issue of this century is how to deal with the "di-morphic" split of humans into Transhumans in a manner that minimizes the amount of human extermination that is going to take place if neo-Luddites and religionists control the state and society and try to stop Transhumans from evolving.

Unlike the "Matrix", "Star Trek", and the "Terminator" movies - humans are going to lose that conflict badly. So it would behoove humans not to start it.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 19, 2008 9:43 PM

Re Richard's comment "The primary issue of this century is how to deal with the "di-morphic" split of humans into Transhumans in a manner that minimizes the amount of human extermination that is going to take place if neo-Luddites and religionists control the state and society and try to stop Transhumans from evolving."

------------
Neocon Francis Fukuyama thinks you should be put to sleep, Richard. OR at least spayed. Heh heh
http://www.mywire.com/pubs/ForeignPolicy/2004/09/01/564801?page=4

Posted by Don Williams | February 19, 2008 10:50 PM

Bloggers in Space

Comments (126)

Search

Books by Matthew Yglesias

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Weekly Archives

Categories