Why Does the US Have a Civil Space Program? 308
BDew writes "The Presidents of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering have commissioned a study on the Rationale and Goals of the US Civil Space Program. In short, the Academies are asking why the nation has a civil space program (including human, robotic, commercial, and personal spaceflight). The study is intended to provide a strategic framework for the nation's activities in space that can provide consistent guidance in an increasingly interconnected world. The members of the study committee are interested in the views (positive or negative) of the general public, particularly those people with a scientific and/or technological interest."
Something I would ask (Score:2, Interesting)
What is the real use of getting a man to Mars or another planet other thean bragging about it for the next 70 years? Somehow, some people are in favor of a manned space program. The question is, what is the tangible benifit of sending people to the moon/Mars/Jupiter/Proxima Centauri?
I feel that there is a lack of a concrete goal, something to stand behind. Something that has a good probability of pay-off in the future. Is "finding out things about other planets" a goal that convinces people to support (manned or unmanned) spaceflight? What do we really want?
Re:Let's rephrase : scientists say, kill manned sp (Score:5, Interesting)
And fund our research instead.
That would have been my first guess, given that there's a very vocal cadre who look for every opportunity to quash manned spaceflight, but TFA doesn't seem slanted in that direction. Could just be lip service, but I'm hoping it is what it says it is: A study to re-examine what we want to do, cross-index that with what we think we can do, and use that to create some concrete plans.
Then again, if the Obama administration turns NASA into the US Space Force, civil space pursuits at the national level may dry up entirely, leaving only military and private space efforts. Not sure I like the sound of that.
BECAUSE (Score:5, Interesting)
Because we can.
That should be more than enough reason. We as a species have proven ourselves significant. We are the only know organism that has ever had the ability to leave the immediate confines of this planet. If we stop now then this monumental acheviement was not more than a cheap stunt.
Re:SpaceX (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems that private companies such as SpaceX are going to be the future rather then government funded such as NASA which has become counter productive the older it has gotten.
I largely agree with the sentiment, but only as it regards focus. NASA has become counter-productive because it's doing the same thing now it was doing forty years ago, which never quite motivates people to be inventive or innovative - just structured and regulatory. NASA should be almost exclusively focused on things like deep space exploration, manned interplanetary travel, etc., which don't have an immediate commercial benefit. If we wait on a commercial reason for manned interplanetary travel (read: 4. Profit!!!), we'll probably never get out there (unless "out there" finds us first...). Like any other industry, let the private companies and universities handle all the near-Earth and aeronautical stuff since they can and will find a way to make a profit (and some already have) without the waste of government bureaucracy and Congressional oversight.
Re:We need a national science and engineering agen (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do you think that saving the species is a good idea?
Why do you think UP is the answer, when DOWN provides a much more affordable, immediate and suitable environment? (Subterranean living) Sure DIRT is boring. But its cheap!
My submission (Score:4, Interesting)
Space exploration, intended to lead to significant off-planet industry and settlement in the long term, is essential for the future progress of humanity as a whole. Exactly what the benifits will be isn't something that can be usefully predicted, but simply ignoring the resources of almost all of our solar system is clearly not a reasonable plan.
Currently only major governments have the resources to mount any sort of space exploration efforts. Since it's essential, and only major governments can do it, major governments must do it. That will remain true until it becomes viable for smaller organizations to take up the burden.
In order for government funded exploration to effectively lead towards future off-planet industry and settlement, the exploration effort must contribute towards lowering the price of and broadening access to space exploration technology. Meaningful off-planet industry and settlement won't occur at major-government-only price points, and it won't occur with major governments as the gatekeepers.
A military space program would be unlikely to meet these requirements. Technology would be kept secret rather than being shared, which would fail to contribute to advances by private sector entities and smaller governments. Flashy exploration spectacles would likely still occur - perhaps even more efficiently - but the main benefit to a government run space program would be lost.
A government funded space program's primary task should be to provide seed knowledge and technology for future private space exploration. It will have succeeded when there are multiple separately owned private sector moonbases, asteroid mines, orbital power stations, and long term research habitats. A military space program would subvert this goal through misallocation of resources and refusal to publicly disclose publicly funded developments.
Re:Why has already been answered (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. I think if we started running our scientific (or, more broadly, non-military) exploration of space via the DoD, it would surely be mis-construed by other nations. That's apart from the high potential for the objectives to shift away from science and general technology to military-specific goals.
Honestly, NASA, for all its flaws, is probably one of the *less* bureaucratic outfits in the Federal government. The DoD has, from what I've seen, a much worse track record at poor choices in spending. And in the end, NASA is an agency we can all be proud of, both as Americans and as a planet. (While the achievements are generally primarily American work, NASA definitely works with other nations. And even in the Apollo era when it was a more American-specific endevour, I think we as a species took communal pride in NASA's work because it wasn't done to materially benefit the US as much as to show what humans could do.)
ObBab5 quote (Score:4, Interesting)
We may or may not find a role for men in space this generation, but space travel and investigation is absolutely fundamental for our survival as a species. And no corporation will EVER do what needs to be done, because it's not profitable except indirectly.
I can think of no better time to quote J. Michael Straczynski, using the voice of Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, talking about why humans go to space:
Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and - all of this - all of this - was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.
I can't improve on that.
Re:We need a national science and engineering agen (Score:3, Interesting)
The moon shot was propaganda, partially, but it also unleashed a ton of new technologies and trained a generation of engineers
Indeed. A whole lot of control theory -- my area -- was developed explicitly for the purpose of supporting the Apollo program. So much was done in controls during the 60s.
Space Property Rights (Score:2, Interesting)
We really need to be able to have laws that let people and corporations claim extra-terrestrial property as their own. Much the same as the Railroads got a huge chunk of land they could sell to individuals and take that money to make the trans-continental railroad we need a similar model for the space colonization.
These new "railroads" of the space age, (space X, Virgin Galactic, ect )"Union Galactic" so to speak could build the infrastructure for space colonization from both public funds and private funds. Heck we could even use cheap Chinese labor to build the thing since they want to go to space as well. Or they could use us....
Either way we need a new international agreement that is reasonable when it comes to countries, companies and private citizens claiming property on other worlds. As long as there is a provision not to settle places that already are settled by intelligent or semi-intelligent life.
We shouldn't have superfluous bureaucratic limits on this colonization process by having to do environmental studies on the moon before colonies can be built. If the planet you want to settle is a lifeless or near-lifeless rock, bulldozing and strip mining should be allowed in gusto.
Because of the Toynbee tiles (Score:3, Interesting)
The Toynbee tiles [wikipedia.org] are a warning to remind us of the perils of the militarization of space.
Re:We need a national science and engineering agen (Score:5, Interesting)
That made me curious. NASA invented tang?!?
It turns out it's an urban legend.
From Wikipedia:
"It was initially intended as a breakfast drink, but sales were poor until NASA began using it on Gemini flights in 1965 (researched at Natick Soldier Systems Center), which was heavily advertised. Since that time, it has been associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program, so much so that an urban legend emerged that Tang was invented for the space program"
Bad Summary, Worse Assumptions (Score:3, Interesting)
"In short, the Academies are asking why the nation has a civil space program"
Asking what the future short and long term goals should be assumes the answer to be "to accomplish the goals chosen as most desirable" and assumes there will be such goals set. The last item ("how can") even more clearly assumes it exists to accomplish them and seeks to examine by what means it can best do so.
The inclusion of "civil" is misleading because it's superfluous. They are asking about the program administered by NASA, but they are not asking about it comparison to any alternative. The recent news about Obama's transition team questioning whether to cancel the Ares program in favor of using "military" (read: already developed, tested and available, regardless of original customer; that story was badly flawed too) has nothing to do with the Academies' efforts. The latter had to have been in effect well before Obama's people raised the question.
[from the site]:
The committee will, inter alia â"
â review the history of U.S. space policy and propose a broad policy basis for 21st century leadership in space;
â examine the balance and interfaces between fundamental scientific research in space, human space exploration, robotic exploration, earth observations, and applications of space technology and civil space systems for societal benefits;
â assess the role that commercial space companies could play in fulfilling national space goals and the role of the government in facilitating the emergence and success of commercial space companies; and
â highlight options for government attention to address and potentially resolve problems that might prevent achieving key national goals.
Illustrative examples of potential topics for the committee's consideration in the study include the following:
â Near-term and long-term human spaceflight program goals and options for fulfilling them;
â Utility of satellites in understanding global climate change and in advancing geophysical sciences (physical oceanography, solid earth sciences, etc.), and roles and responsibilities of government agencies in such Earth observations;
â Potential opportunities in various space sciences, including planetary missions, space-based astronomy, astrophysical observations, extraterrestrial life searches, assessing planetary bodies in other solar systems, etc.
â Reconciling total program content and total program resources for the civil space program;
â Strength of the U.S. space industrial base;
â Developing advanced technologies for applications in remote sensing and other areas;
â Access to space, availability and cost of U.S. launch vehicles, use of foreign launch capabilities; and
â International cooperation and competition in space programs.
National security space issues will not be a main focus of the report, but may be addressed to the extent that they interact with or impact the civil space program.
[and]
The committee invites you to comment on this study by filling out a questionnaire. Questions you might consider when framing your input to the committee:
â What should be the rationale and goals for the civil space program?
â How can the civil space program address key national issues?
Re:Let's rephrase : scientists say, kill manned sp (Score:5, Interesting)
What we really need is an alien race to show up, blow up a major city or two, leave us exact directions on how to get to their home planet and specs on what sort of weaponry they have, and then leave us alone for about 200 years. That's about the only way I can see the military getting into manned space travel in a big way.
von Braunians, Saganites, and O'Neillians (Score:4, Interesting)
That reminds me of how some say there are three schools of thought in space advocacy, which can be summed up as follows:
http://theforvm.org/diary/bill-white/werner-von-braun-carl-sagan-gerard-oneill [theforvm.org]
Saganites: "Space is big, billions of stars, isn't God's creation incredible...DON'T TOUCH IT." [though in fairness to Sagan, in his later years he became more supportive of human spaceflight]
Von Braunians: "We vill go boldly into space, and you vill watch on television, and you vill enjoy it." That's the current space program.
O'Neillians: "We will build the tools, go into space, and use its resources to expand humanity and freedom into the cosmos." ...
In a paradigm Tumlinson dreamed up, the space world fractures into three groups: Saganites, O'Neillians and von Braunians.
Saganites, named for astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996), are the philosophers and voyeurs of the cosmos, intent on low-impact exploration that promotes a sense of wonder. They consider the universe an extension of Earth, and want space explorers to be politically correct pacifists and environmentalists.
O'Neillians take their name from Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill (1927 - 1992), who imagined city-size colonies in space contained on vast, rotating platforms (think of the space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey, with its spinning rings and artificial gravity). Getting people out of here en masse was the thingâ"not to kiss Earth good-bye in the rearview mirror, but to give it a chance, by consuming extraterrestrial rather than terrestrial resources. (An O'Neillian motto, riding a bumper sticker of his day, read: âoeSave Earth: Develop Space.â)
Von Braunians are, strictly speaking, the old guard, named for the V-2 and Saturn rocket-meister Wernher von Braun (1912 - 1977). Von Braunians advocate a centralized approach: large expensive projects like the ones NASA undertakes, projects that ordinary people can be proud of but not participate in.
I'd add that there's also the Heinleinians, who want to use the power of private industry to bring about O'Neill's vision.
Re:Let's rephrase : scientists say, kill manned sp (Score:3, Interesting)
Such scientists would be poor representatives of Human Civilization and should reconsider their role in society.
Or else they just have different priorities as far as research goes. Curing AIDS vs landing on Mars, for me and a good chunk of the world's population, AIDS comes first, I'd advocate that research grants reflect that.
Re:BECAUSE (Score:3, Interesting)
Because we can.
That should be more than enough reason.
I'd say the original question was badly stated. A better form would be, "Why should we fund a civilian space program, rather than done one or more of the following with the money:
Re:von Braunians, Saganites, and O'Neillians (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting points. I'd like to add that they aren't strictly exclusive - the Saganite example speaks to motivation and behavior and the Von Braunian one speaks to how to accomplish building the vehicles.
Therefore, I don't see that they fracture so cleanly into the various groups described.
1. How to get off the rock - Von Braunian.
2. How to behave once off the rock - Saganite
3. Why get off of the rock in the first place - O'Neillian
These attributes or their counterparts form very descriptive tuples.
However, we're all still in the Von Braunian stage of knowledge for the first point (with many deep bows to Space Ship One as I say that) - light up explosives/propellents under/behind your seat and use bulky chemicals to reach escape velocity.
We all kick at that, but there it is.
(More deep bows to the deep space probe that used ion drive rather recently (within last decade). But still - that wasn't for escape.)
Re:Why has already been answered (Score:3, Interesting)
Your link/quote doesn't disprove the grandparent's statement. What it states is that NASA was created to compete with the Soviets. Competition can be peaceful; consider the Olympics. (In fact, the space race was a way for the two sides to compete head-to-head without ever firing a shot. Far fewer people were killed and we got to prove ourselves to the rest of the world. Seems like a win-win.)
Re:Let's rephrase : scientists say, kill manned sp (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let's rephrase : scientists say, kill manned sp (Score:3, Interesting)
The Marines are already looking into suborbital fliers (like the SpaceShipOne setup) so they can get around nasty problems like negotiating passage through airspace (which only extends about 50 miles up) and bad weather. Boots on the ground in a couple hours instead of a few days.
Re:argument for a civil program (Score:3, Interesting)
Who cares about the money ? [...] Self sufficiency is the goal both in space and on the ground. [...] I bet the crew and the builders of the ISS have thousands of ideas on how to improve the station, but they don't have the budget. Half the reason they don't have the budget is because they don't seem to achieve anything. But they'll never achieve anything without a budget.
Profitable enterprises are self-sufficient and self-funding. That's what you need in space. The big jump we haven't made yet. I'm not saying everything has to be able to make a profit in space, just almost everything. Just like on Earth.
Eisenhower let the Russian military go first (Score:2, Interesting)
The USA had an orbit-ready satellite literally hidden in a closet, but Presidential orders forbade them from attempting a launch. The civil space program (nee NASA) were years behind the military programs, but for public relations purposes, the President wanted the USA's satellite launched with its scientific payload as part of the International Geophysical Year program, showcasing American advances in science.
But the poor performance of the civil space program caused much embarrassment to the USA until Kennedy killed two birds with one stone. With his "we will go to the moon" mandate came massive funds and other resources for the civil program, and, turning Eisenhower's goal on its ear, the "space race" accelerated the arms race tremendously.