Where Are The Space Advocates?

QuantumG writes "Greg Zsidisin appeared on The Space Show today to ask Where Are The Space Advocates?. For the first time in decades Space is once again a political issue with all four major presidential candidates having something to say about space policy and yet nothing is being heard from space advocates. As we enter a new "Space Nexus" like we did after Apollo, now is a critical time to let your representatives know how you feel about space exploration, and yet no-one has anything to say." The show itself is a podcast if you want to give it a listen. Personally I'm hoping that this election puts space exploration back in the public consciousness- Apollo inspired a generation to learn math and science. I want my kid to be inspired by something bigger than that. And as some readers have noted- there are 3 candidates left (and really only two) so the submitter is probably high.

Conversly, where are the space critics?

As someone who is extremely skeptical myself of the value of space exploration, I think it would be just as important to ask conversely "Where are the space critics?" The whole idea of space exploration seems to elicit and great big "ho hum" from the American people now (not sure about the rest of the world). Politicians are neither willing to adequately support it nor actively oppose it. So NASA limps along with neither the funding boost to actually go to the moon/Mars nor the funding cut necessary to move the space program entirely into the private domain.

Personally, I would love nothing better than the abolish NASA and move this whole thing over to the private sector. If the work is truly as important as NASA supporters assert, they should have no problem getting private funding (as companies like Scaled Composites [wikipedia.org] did). If it isn't that important, and it's just some baby-boomer pipe dream, than the market will reflect that too.

Either way, the leaders of this country need to make up their mind whether they ACTUALLY want to do what they claim and send men to the moon/Mars (in which case they need to seriously boost NASA's funding) or whether they need to just scrap the whole thing altogether and stop bullshitting us about lofty goals that they have no intention of funding adequately.

Re:Conversly, where are the space critics?

More likely, NASA will always be around to provide infrastructure and pure exploration. Unmanned private missions, for instance, would almost certainly be focused on searching for specific economically viable resources rather than pure science. NASA will still be useful for missions like the mars rovers.

Likewise, it's unlikely that a private body would be willing or able to invest in an advanced launch system, such as a space elevator or launch loop. OTOH, like the interstate hiway system, that's exactly the sort of infrastructure that the government could invest in to promote private ventures.

Re:Conversly, where are the space critics?

> you aren't looking at what we could have done with those dollars instead.

What would you have done with those dollars, instead? I suspect the common libertarian answer would have been to reduce taxes and allow people to keep the money. Then the free market would have stepped someone up to the plate to begin building a nationwide network of toll roads that though not free, would have provided better road service at no taxpayer expense.

A countering Carnegie-type argument would have been, "Why let the workers have more than minimal wage, when they're just going to spend it on booze and gambling?" Then the counter-Carnegie argument is that if your were really restricting workers' pay on principle, you should have educated their children, instead of simply increasing your own wealth. It's telling that Carnegie worked hard to give away his fortune before he died, but IMHO educating the workers' kids might have been a better legacy for at least part of the money.

Back to topic... One could argue that the highway example you mention has been done recently, with broadband. The government has not done any sort of broadband deployment the way they did highway or rural electrification or even regulated telephone deployments. As a result, it's perfectly obvious that US industry has stepped up to the plate and provided the US with the BEST broadband in the world, at the lowest prices.

Government may be incredibly stupid, but they have no monopoly on the attribute.

Re:Conversly, where are the space critics?

Don't think for a minute that NASA exists purely for humanitarian reasons. The reason it's becoming such a focus of political attention now is the same reason it did back in the during the Cold War - because of Space's importance in national security.

With the other developing superpowers quickly approaching the same level of access as the shuttle currently has, and some with ambitions to reach even further, the US Government can't afford to fall behind and lose the advantage of it's head start. China and India have both announced plans to revisit the moon -- something the US doesn't even currently have the capacity to do again. With Mars being the next great frontier, who will be the first to develop the technologies that will take us there? In a hundred years, what will be the ramifications of ceding the first foothold there?

Aside from the political aspect of being the dominant space power, there are also tremendous military technologies that come from developing for the space program, not to mention tactical advantages that can result from dominating space. From "innocuous" threats like shutting down enemy sattelites, to the real potential for MWDs parked in LEO over your enemies, there is a very real necessity for the space program to remain part of the government.

Private technology companies should have greater access and receive more funding, and further research into the depths of space will always require international cooperation and support. However, the US has reached the deadline of being the "Sole superpower" in the world, and once again must make the effort to compete in a global technology race. Anything less than a total commitment to being the leader in space technology would be irresponsible and dangerous.

Re:Conversly, where are the space critics?

There are additional critics that have watched NASA burn money furiously, put lots of expensive equipment into the ocean instead of space, have engineering standards and production practices that killed astronauts, while performing lots of military work that additionally invades privacy and puts weapons into the sky that have dubious value and effectiveness.

They've also made themselves a political football at a time when there's an unbelievable amount of money being spent on three different wars-- all but one of them dubious in origin. Add this to asset deflation (the housing crisis), inflation of the currency (790 billion dollars in new money printed by the Fed), high transport costs and deflation of the value of the US currency, and there's litte wonder why NASA's on the back burner.

Re:Conversly, where are the space critics?

The market reflects what is near-term profitable. Don't conflate near-term profitability with importance.

Regardless, lets suppose we privatize space exploration, and a handful of entrepreneurs, with the gifts of great foresight and deep pockets, step forward. They make great strides. They drive the R&D for space-related tech, so they end up owning the spin-offs. They control the orbital research, so maybe they start amassing patents from that.

Now years down the road, space travel becomes really important, and they're poised to make a huge profit. Are we (as a society) prepared to let them profit for their decades of investment, or will we claim that this undeserving elite is trying to exploit our need from a position of unfair advantage?

Re:Conversly, where are the space critics?

Ah, yes, the holy and ineffable market. This is what would happen if NASA was abolished and moved over to the private sector: The private sector would seek out the cheapest options and outsource to India and China. I'm not saying this would be bad, just that is what they would most likely do.

To me, space exploration is not about what is profitable or what would be profitable for a private company - that would be far too limited and shortsighted. It is about basic research, expanding our knowledge into unknown territory. If the onlyresearch that was allowed was what you could see immediate profit in, we wouldn't know anything about electricity, quantum mechanics, mathematics etc etc. The internet that is now considered so hugely important for our economy wouldn't be here - no quantum mechanics => no semiconductors, no maths => no digital computers, no electricity, well need I say more?

Electricity was nothing more than a curiousity for centuries - first described by the Greeks, as far as I remember. Most of the maths essential for modern technology was no more than intellectual games for a bunch of nerds; a sort of very esoteric philosophy with scarcely any practical relevance. If we don't do basic research, we will end up stagnating sooner or later. I don't think we can afford to be so myopic.

Well, I ADVOCATE Space!

X and Y are fine, but must stand up and speak for the inclusion of a Z-Axis!

Re:Conversly, where are the space critics?

the billions going into space would be better spent stopping world war 3 down here.

I'd rather spend the TRILLIONS that go into the wars and the weapons R&D. When will people learn that NASA isn't even in the top 100 of the US' tax money sinks?

Easier to be Against Things

It's a lot easier to be against things than for them. That's politics. If you are "FOR" something you have to be willign to defend and justify it, repeatedly.

Key Difference

As we enter a new "Space Nexus" like we did after Apollo, now is a critical time to let your representatives know how you feel about space exploration, and yet no-one has anything to say.

I can't listen to the podcast as I'm at work but I think the key difference now is that people are, on average, more informed about how difficult the logistics are of space travel ... and also about the risks that come with that. On top of that most of us have witnessed the Challenger and Colombia incidents.

That's not to say that early flight didn't have its fair share of mishaps and deaths but I think it's getting to the point where the only advocates I see for space are those who want it turned over to the private sector. The private sector is a good answer when it's too complicated/expensive/morally questionable for a government.

It's become pretty clear that travel or tourism has been given to the private sector (as I believe the Russians have given that up) while 'exploration' and 'colonization' are probably still the government's responsibility.

I'm all for exploration and research-y type things in space but I'm not so sure about colonization or travel yet. I used to be very pro-colonizing other planets after reading a lot of Carl Sagan but now if I were to write my representatives it would be asking them to save Earth first then think about colonization and travel.

canidates stances

Hillary: enhance American leadership in space, including:
Pursuing an ambitious 21st century Space Exploration Program, by implementing a balanced strategy of robust human spaceflight, expanded robotic spaceflight, and enhanced space science activities.
Developing a comprehensive space-based Earth Sciences agenda, Promoting American leadership in aeronautics by reversing funding cuts to NASA's and FAA's aeronautics R&D budget.

Barack: Obama's early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year. He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years

McCain: When asked about their candidates' positions on the moon-Mars project, a spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) did not respond.

All of this can be found at Space dot com [space.com].

Re:canidates stances

Hillary Clinton would promise chocolate milk the in the water fountains if it got her elected. Whether she has any intention of actually ever delivering on such bold promises is HIGHLY suspect. And it's a moot point anyway, now. Her campaign is already floating dead in space.

The Planetary Society

There is an advocacy group for space exploration.

http://www.planetary.org/home/ [planetary.org]

The Planetary Society has excellent programs and pushes for further exploration of space.

If you are really interested, join. I really had an interest in the solar sail to propel probes into deep space.

Big science - don't have to go to space.

I can think of 2 big science issues.

1) Fusion.
    1a) The unintended effects of fusion on the biosphere and how to fix 'em.
2) The study of biology.
    2a) What man does not know about the the effects of what your grandparents/parents did and how you became a human is only being hinted at. What we do not know about the chemistry from conception to birth is only, again, hinted at with what research has been done.

Fusion would be the next 'energy source upgrade' (that or the theorized zero point) and being able to 'upgrade' or 'fix' humans sure sounds a whole heck of a lot bigger than a rocket.

Maybe we should declare war on it.

That seems to be the way to get lots of funding these days. At least if we declared The War on Space we'd be sure to find weapons of mass destruction. There are nuclear fusion reactions all over the place in space, they don't even try to hide em!

Me, I'm to busy worrying about if I can find another job, if I can ever afford a place to live, if I'll ever have the "special" right to marry my husband like we did in his country, if riots will break out when gas hits $10/gal next year...

Yes, the four major presidential candidates!

(1) Barack Obama
(2) Hillary Clinton
(3) John Mccain
(4) Cowboy Neil

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Pointless. Why bother?

Cancel NASA, and stop space exploration. It's a big waste of time/money. Military needs can be handled by military budgets.

NASA, the U.S. populace, and the world in general have no real interest in propulsion systems capable of realistically lifting large payloads into space economically. We've done everything we can in space with the toy payloads we currently lift, and the only real economic sectors which benefit from continued exploration is orbital satellites, something which NASA handles very poorly (i.e. expensively).

Until someone has the balls to restart Project Orion [wikipedia.org], I don't see why we should even bother. The technology to put cities in orbit, not to mention on other planets, is readily available and understood. And cheap (on a per kilo basis). So why are we still playing chemical rockets?

It's a waste of time. The silly little experiments done on the ISS are pointless. Until someone invents a drive that can lift 100s (or thousands, or millions) of tons into orbit (or beyond) economically, we should stop bothering and try and let private enterprise come up with something.

The turn away from Project Orion in 1963 represented the end of man's technological development when it came to interplanetary space travel, and commercial space utilization. We dropped the reigns, and walked away (as a race). The current efforts at space travel are a gimmick and a waste of taxpayer dollars, and will continue to be unless we are willing to switch from chemical to nuclear propulsion. That's the truth of the matter.

Prioritizing Near-Term Benefits

As much as I would love the idea of Space Exploration, I'd trade away the budget for serious efforts on Climate Change, since a number of the things we might learn in Space will be irrelevant if we don't solve Climate Change so that we survive at all.

Then again, if we were going to make a near-term intensive effort to establish a permanent self-sustaining base off-planet, I'd be all for it even with Climate Change dollars. It would seem prudent both as a backup/insurance plan in case we mess up this planet (eliminating some of the "single point of failure" problem we have looming now) and also as a way of gaining data about how to live in inhospitable places (like the Earth is on track to be). Just about any dollars spent on how to manage atmospheres, grow food in artificially controlled ways, etc. seems money well spent. I think the key to making Space palatable for the nearterm is to keep the expenses targeted to those with direct applicability.

I've recently started to shift my views on the ethics of Terraforming Mars, as Earth's habitability hangs in the balance, and to start to question the ethics of not doing so. It would be fun to discover Life there, but if the price is preserving a few potential microbes there at the expense of possibly losing valuable data that could help to preserve our own planet, that seems a steep and selfish price. Mars is a resource, not to be exploited commercially (which is somewhat how we got into the Climate Change mess), but that might be used strategically. So is the Moon, for that matter, to the extent we can make anything useful of that.

Sadly, I doubt that either Space or Climate will get attention. Instead, we'll get gas tax holidays so we can keep burning oil until we're like Venus and can't even see the sky.

the Candidates are facing Bigger Problems.

Oil production peaked in 2005. [photobucket.com] The USA decided stealing oil was a better idea than buying it, so they invaded Iraq, [pulitzer.org] and that took 112 billion barrels off the market [bbc.co.uk], so as it comes on tap, the plateau of production would remain longer.

In the meantime, the current administration let the nutty banking policies developed under Clinton's watch to http://www.usa-foreclosure.com/">fester and metasticise, and now the country's technically insolvent. [federalreserve.gov]

As a consequence, I think putting people in space is going to be seriously backburnered, and I would humbly submit that the majority of people who will ever be in space have already gone.

I'm not happy about that - I would love to go put bases on the moon to harvest He3 [technologyreview.com] and do all that kind of groovy stuff, but I think we shot our wad, and pissed away the resources on crap like highways for Cadillac Escalades [netcarshow.com] and useless cities like Las Vegas [bigfoto.com]. We had our chance, and we blew it.

RS

space, the final frontier

as a nerd, space exploration really excites me.

But the rational part of my brain tells me that manned space exploration is of little value, scientifically. We can send probes and rovers to all kids of places that humans can't really get to. it also helps that with robots, there is no moral dilemma when you send them on a one way trip.

I don't understand why there are only a small number of probes heading into space, I would love to see experiments with different kinds of propulsion, send probes out with ion drives, solar sales, try out the eventually catch up to, and pass voyager.

how many moons does Saturn have? we should have probes orbiting each of them by now.

of course, data from probes don't inspire children as much as watching grainy footage of people stepping onto extraterrestrial soil, which is why we need to have a manned space program.

but manned space flight is pitiful.

the ISS is a joke. we should have a huge, rotating '2001 a space odyssey' style station up there by now.

last time i checked, the replacement for the shuttle is a step back to the Apollo style capsule.

make space a place people want to go to, and put a system in place where the best and brightest, (rather than the richest) get to go.

A human backup plan

I'd like to see some questions asked, and some answers. I think that humans need some form of contingency plan that does not consist purely of holes drilled in mountains. As such, we should be moving in this direction in a long-term fashion - the end goal being a self-sufficient and growing colony somewhere that is not earth. So here are some questions.

Given budgets of different sizes, what can realistically be achieved? Hence, what brings us the best bang for buck? What are the most likely approaches?

Is it possible to turn space exploration, colonization and the like into a positive feedback loop that generates more of the same? (i.e. is there a valid business model somewhere? What are the best chances for building some sort of self-sufficient colony up there somewhere, even if populated by self-replicating robots?)

What type of government is most likely to fund this for as long as it takes? If not, what sort is necessary? As much as possible should be open-sourced to prevent research being wasted forever.

What necessary technologies can we anticipate that make it much cheaper to just wait a while longer (e.g. computer hardware, robotics, solar panels, etc)?

Is there any utility in being able to put something city-sized into space via Project Orion? Ten people dead due to cancer is nothing compared to most yearly road deaths. But again, only if there is utility in that approach. Maybe self-replicating robots can do the same thing for less cost but just taking longer to ramp up.

In the end, I think that there are two issues:
1. How do we build a self-sufficient system (at first, probably sans humans) capable of growing - i.e. net energy positive, net resource positive, growing at some sort of exponential rate, even if slowly?
2. What are the minimum requirements in terms of energy/unit time and resources/human, radiation shielding etc for humans to survive and reproduce in some sort of closed-loop system bar energy?

The key is the self-sufficiency. We have finite energy on this earth, but a lot of time and brainpower to do basic research. If we can set something up such that we only have to get it working once and after that it takes care of itself, we have won. If we can figure out how to do everything completely closed-loop bar energy (which can be gotten from solar), we have won. (Water and oxygen should be able to be transported in one big shot via Project Orion provided that it is fully recycled after it arrives.)

Somewhere there needs to be a checklist and someone going down the list until all those bugs are squashed. I suspect that with a lot of it, we don't even need to go to space, it can be done cheaply on earth. Not too glamorous, extremely hard, but all necessary. It probably needs a good movie or two to convince the public though.

Where? We are busy.

The root of the issue is that us space advocates are busy. Many of us are involved in aerospace or technology companies and don't have as much time for advocacy. Others have given up, retired or are still establishing their networks. There is an amazing generation coming up right now that is passionate about space. One thing however: NASA is increasingly irrelevant even to those that work there. Private and military space are where the action is. SpaceX, SpaceDev, Virgin, etc and AFRL have so much more going on. NASA is a politically-correct football that gets kicked around. Not to diss to much, they do the impossible and make it look easy. It's just that what NASA does best (Robot probes, basic research) has been superseded by what they do mediocre: operations.

Space is not just about "exploration" - and NASA is not going to do any colonizing - that is the venue of private activity.

Personally, I'm to busy working and keeping my wife in grad school to worry about March Storm and ISDC.

Adam Curtis provides an answer

Watch the Adam Curtis documentary 'The Century of Self' - it can be easily found on your favorite video sharing site.

Modern society is so deeply invested in stoking peoples unconscious desires for profit that it is no longer possible for us to engage in large scale rational action, like a space program.

Re:Space is unimportant

Studying blackholes takes away billions that could be used on finding new eco-friendly energy sources. The billions wasted on finding water on Mars could be spent on purifying water in Africa.

Throwing money at a problem doesn't necessarily fix it faster or even fix it at all. Africa's problems haven't been fixed by throwing money at it. Their problems are mostly political and somewhat aggravated by our trade and economic policies in the first world. I haven't seen any evidence or reasoning that throwing NASA's budget at the problem would help.

Eco-friendly energy had been traditionally killed by the NIMBY problem, politics, and cost-effective technology. Now that the technology has improved and the environment is being put in greater focus, we're starting to see more of a push towards greener technology. I don't see how applying NASA's budget towards this could have helped, especially since NASA is one of the very few organizations left with blue-skies research programs, which are needed for more forward-thinking developments.

Again, more money does not mean more improvement. Look up the "Law of Diminishing Returns," or maybe take a course in economics.

Space exploration is a waste of real resources that are needed here. What does having a better understanding of the universe get us, nothing.

A better understanding of the universe is what drives scientific and technological development. I personally think GPS and satellite communication is pretty darn useful. The problem with blue-skies research is that you never know if you're going to run into dead-ends or come across the next big breakthrough. I'm guessing there were plenty of people who didn't see the value in quantum physics research, but its certainly been a great boon to mankind.

By the way, you are the only person I have heard of who thinks that we cannot get two people to agree on feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or trying to spread peace.

Yeah people agree if you simplify the question to the point of ridiculousness. Now ask those two people how they would like to go about feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or spreading peace. I'm pretty sure they'll have very different opinions on the matter. You have some people who like to focus on handouts, and other people who would rather focus on "teach a man to fish" methods like the OLPC.

But then hey, everyone has the right to an opinion. Just so we sure on that, that right did not come from space exploration, but an exploration here on earth.

I don't see how the two are mutually exclusive. Well, I guess it is if you have an overly simplistic, zero-sum view of the world. Luckily a lot of people don't have that problem.

Or would you like to provide evidence that the few billion we put into space research would make a real dent at any of the worlds problems (which are, again, mostly political)? As it is now, your argument is entirely emotion-based.