Over at The Space Review this week there are a few articles on space policy topics. I have a book review of New Moon Rising, the behind-the-scenes account of the development of the new exploration policy. It’s an interesting book, but is marred to some degree by some production issues, such as poor editing. In addition, both Taylor Dinerman and Anthony Young have essays suggesting that the vision goes beyond just space exploration to encompass issues like economic and national security (which the Aldridge Commission also suggested in its report as well.) I’m a bit skeptical of such arguments, but it’s worthy of discussion.
Thanks for the complementary review. The typos and other snafus have me rather annoyed to say the least. Frank and I fixed them in the final galley edit but they never made it into the document used to typeset the book. As for the lack of an index – I am annoyed with that as well – I only found out about that after the fact. There was supposed to be one.
Does James Van Allen serve a compelling cultural purpose and/or our national interest?
I find it funny that we call any of these spacecraft, “Robots”. I’m not even sure you could call them smart drones. The vehicles being sent out today have no knowledge of the subject they are investigating and very little auto-navigation. Plans are in the works to have robots that could focus on subjects of interest but even these will have limits impose by the software capabilities. A human can find something unexpected much easier and dig deeper where it counts. Nothing on earth can match our visual system or our hand-eye coordination. That is comparing one human to one robot; a human team with a variety of disciplines would blow the circuits of any robotic team. Human exploration has had very little chance to show off its capabilities. ISS has never been fully staff and Apollo was canceled just went it was getting interesting. How can you compare orbiting the earth to sending objects to the furthest unknown reaches…?
An article on space.com has an interview with Gilbert Levin and he had the great idea of using the moon as a bio-shield by setting up labs on the moon for human researches to look at samples coming back from Mars and beyond and ensure they are safe for study on earth. I think if the same scientists think hard they could find lots of uses for human colonization. If anything I’m sure it would lead to cheaper “robotic” spaceflight.
New Moon rising sounds like an interesting book. Jeff’s review was excellent.
Jeff says “I’m a bit skeptical of such arguments, but it’s worthy of discussion.” so here goes…
From the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (USCNS/21) of 1998-2000:
(excerpt from Phase I report)
“The U.S. use of space for military purposes will expand, but other countries will also learn to exploit space for both commercial and military purposes. Many other countries will learn to launch satellites to communicate and spy. Weapons will likely be put in space. Space will also become permanently manned.”
(excerpt from Phase II report)
“U.S. survival interests include America’s safety from direct attack, especially involving weapons of mass destruction, by either states or terrorists. Of the same order of importance is the preservation of America’s Constitutional order and of those core strengths — educational, industrial, scientific-technological — that underlie America’s political, economic, and military position in the world.”
(excerpt from phase III report)
“The United States can remain the world’s technological leader if it makes the commitment to do so. But the U.S. government has seriously underfunded basic scientific research in recent years.
The quality of the U.S. education system, too, has fallen behind those of scores of other nations.
This has occurred at a time when vastly more Americans will have to understand and work competently with science and math on a daily basis. In this Commission’s view, the inadequacies of our systems of research and education pose a greater threat to U.S. national security over the next quarter century than any potential conventional war that we might imagine. American national leadership must understand these deficiencies as threats to national security. If we do not invest heavily and wisely in rebuilding these two core strengths, America will be incapable of maintaining its global position long into the 21st century. ”
Other quotes:
“it’s a grave risk for the country’s future not to be investing heavily in basic research.” – Newt Gingrich
“America’s ability to keep its standard of living and create jobs has to be based on creating knowledge, and our ability to do that is in considerable trouble.” – Norman Augustine
Testimony of James Oberg: Senate Science, Technology, and Space Hearing: International Space Exploration Program
“the workforce in the Chinese program reflects the major build-up of the past decade and is predominantly young, and has been involved in major program development activities. NASA, as a mature civil service branch, has had relatively stable – some might even say moribund – staffing for decades. While there has been a steady flow of new hires, they have in large part been involved in maintaining existing programs, without much opportunity to learn by doing. Outside observers such as Dr. Howard McCurdy have voiced serious doubts that the current NASA culture is capable of sustaining an ambitious and expansive new program (late last year he testified how that could be fixed), but there is little doubt that the Chinese space workforce is, because they’ve shown it.”
… and there’s much more where this came from.
In my view, space exploration is the primary driving force that can rejuvenate our science base. I’m told that 40% of the incoming students at Caltech are interested in space – this driving force is measurable.