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Odds and ends

There were a few space policy-related items published over the holidays:

In an op-ed in Tuesday’s Washington Post, Paul Spudis restates the case for going back to the Moon. His commentary is summarized in these sentences from the introduction: “The moon is important for three reasons: science, inspiration and resources. All three are directly served by the new lunar return architecture. This program has the potential to make significant contributions to our national economy and welfare.” There’s nothing necessarily new here, but it’s a good restatement of the arguments for human lunar exploration.

On the other hand, the Toledo Blade dropped a lump of coal in the stockings of space supporters in a Christmas Day editorial. Rather than focus on human exploration of the solar system, Mars in particular, the Blade argues that NASA should focus on safely flying the shuttle and completing the ISS (which is exactly what NASA is focused on, many would argue.) “Right now, most Americans would rather NASA and the Bush Administration limit their horizons in the short term,” the editorial claims. Later: “Many Americans, we feel sure, would say that first we help our hurricane victims, then we think about colonizing Mars.” Given that “colonizing” Mars is relatively far in the future, regardless of spending on hurricane relief, the Blade’s argument is a little dull here.

The Blade editorial also notes the gap of potentially $6 billion between the expected costs to fly out the shuttle and what has been budgeted for the program through 2010. The Palm Beach Post examines this issue in more detail,including the possibility of flying the shuttle after 2010. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) told the Post that he would support extending the program if the ISS is not complete by 2010 or if the CEV is not expected to fly until after 2012. Nelson’s colleague, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), agreed with him, saying she would also support a shuttle extension “even if it means expanding NASA’s budget.” Hutchison: “We can’t continue to cut, cut, cut NASA’s budget and expect to make it to the moon and Mars.” However, NASA’s budget has not been “cut, cut, cut” in the last few years—far from it, especially when compared to many other non-defense discretionary programs. The problem lies elsewhere, perhaps with NASA’s cost estimation processes.

11 comments to Odds and ends

  • Paul Dietz

    Spudis’ rationales remain unconvincing to me.

    Science is inadequate, just as it was inadequate to justify Apollo, the Shuttle, or ISS — we just don’t value science enough to make the large investment in a lunar base be worth the cost. The argument about radio quietness is also inept: free flying radio receivers can be shielded from Earth by large conductive sheets at a cost small compared to the cost of setting up a lunar base. Stability is also a solved problem for free-flying telescopes with modern technology.

    Lunar resources will not be important for use on Earth without significant cost reductions, but NASA has apparently concluded that reducing the cost of getting into space is a problem it can’t solve. Spudis’ notion that lunar water would be useful for further exploration into the solar system begs the question of the justification for *that* exploration.

    This leaves ‘inspiration’. There is indeed inspiration from manned spaceflight, but it’s not the kind space advocates would like. Manned spaceflight is an inspiration for governmental gigantism and entitlement. “If they can put a man on the moon (with the implicit assertion that this doesn’t have any real practical utility), why can’t they spend N billion dollars on MY project (which is obviously more useful)?” As a fraction of the federal budget, manned spaceflight is certainly not the largest, but that doesn’t matter for bloat inspiration — what matters is visibility and programmatic charisma. NASA’s very conspicuous consumption lowers the bar for justifying other government programs.

  • Paul, I might dispute your limited view of the cost-effectiveness and value of human lunar exploration (how valuable are the only absolute dates, upon which is based the entire tree of relative dating based on crater counts throughout the entire Solar Syustem?). However, you could be entirely right — and it is totally irrelevant.

    There has been a minimum of 10,000 years of relentless human expansion into new frontiers, _none_ of which was “cost effective” in the way you’re measuring it until after the infrastructure was in place. Human history, and certainly human exploration, has rarely if ever been drivin by measures of “cost effectiveness.” (A quick look at Mr. Bush’s budgeting should show that, in spite all Republican protestations to the contrary, “cost effectiveness” per say has little influence on how the United States government spends its money. Given the sales of SUVs, it doesn’t have a whole lot of baring on private spending decisions, either.)

    Even if you are one-hundred percent correct about the “cost effectiveness” of the VSE, you are assuming that every trend in human history will turn on a dime just because we’re talking about lunar exploration.

    Since it is possible, even relatively easy compared to other projects humanity has undertaken, somebody in the next few decades will return to the moon with more permanent infrastructure and have a go at staying there. As an ex-archaeologist who studied long-term trends in the human experience, I am very confident of that. The only question we in the United States have to address is, are we going to let “cost effectiveness” rule our decision making on this one issue alone and stay at home? Or, are we going to be part of the next grand human endeavor?

    At this point in space and time, that is the only spaceflight-related question that really matters.

    — Donald

  • Paul Dietz

    There has been a minimum of 10,000 years of relentless human expansion into new frontiers, _none_ of which was “cost effective” in the way you’re measuring it until after the infrastructure was in place.

    I reject your assertion. The diffusion of people across the globe, like almost all human endeavor, was driven by short term benefit maximization for the individuals involved (and their immediate kin). Even in the recent (500 years) past, profit motivated most exploration, and the ‘infrastructure’ for the Age of Exploration was developed for more mundane purposes before that exploration even occured.

  • TORO

    The Blade seems rather dull.

  • Even in the recent (500 years) past, profit motivated most exploration, and the ‘infrastructure’ for the Age of Exploration

    Untrue, Paul. Profit motivated exploitation of something that had already been explored, but the initial technology, infrustructure, and exploration itself were all financed by governments, usually for military purposes, though occasionally to pre-establish trading rights. When advanced sea-going technology, intial forward bases, and “scientific” projects like the Beagle (financed by the military for the military) were developed and underway, only then did commercial interests utilize the new capabilities.

    In our own field, commercial comsats relied on ICBMs for transportation, which were certainly not “economically justified.” Or, look at GPS / Galileo today, which, while creating vast new industries, were funded for totally uneconomic military and security interests.

    Now, I consider it a good that the lunar infrastructure is being developed by a civil government, but as always, the launch technologies Dr. Griffin plans to use were developed largely for military reasons.

    I am certain that you can supply exceptions (I can think of a few myself), but they are exceptions. Very few first came to the “new world” on ships initially developed solely for commercial use. Likewise, nobody will go to Earth’s moon for commerce until somebody else has paid for the ships.

    Going further back, nobody knows why people first expanded out of Africa and across the globe, but it was almost certainly not for measurable “cost effective” reasons like those you have suggested. My guesses would be, various religious motivations, simple curiosity, and population pressure, or most likely a combination of all three.

    — Donald

  • Paul Dietz

    commercial comsats relied on ICBMs for transportation, which were certainly not “economically justified.”

    I again reject your assertion. I would classify military expenditures as economically justified, in the sense that specific benefits are expected to be obtained from the expenditure in the short term — for example, not being conquered! They are not necessarily globally economically optimal, of course, since all sides would often be better off avoiding arms races, but economic decisions are made by independent actors, on the margin.

    The perennial problem with (manned) space is that the ‘benefits’ that have been proposed have been very flimsy and unconvincing. This is why the defense budget is so much larger than the NASA budget.

  • Well, Paul, that’s a pretty broad definition of “economically justified.” And, under it, human spaceflight is certainly justified, as a defense against becoming extinct if nothing else. You may recall that humanity was probably once a relatively small number of individuals confined to a few rift valleys in Africa and at great danger of becoming extinct. We avoided that by expanding, first throughtout Africa, then (probably via a very small number of individuals) out of Africa. (To this date, there is far more genetic variability within Africa than there is within all of humanity outside of the continent.)

    We are in much the same situation today. If humanity, and by extension terrestrial life, are to survive for any length of time, both have to expand beyond the planet. Sending exploratory robots won’t cut it.

    Even on scientific grounds, you are wrong. Automated exploration can answer many questions, but it cannot (probably ever, but certainly in the near term) do the kind of detailed surveys that would be required to, say, determine the history of any life on Mars. Or, to determine the detailed absolute dating over vast areas required to really understand cratering record on the moon. Or, understand the history of water on Mars.

    The Spirit rovers on Mars are certainly one of humanity’s greatest technological achievements to date. However, they have accomplished what two scientists on site could have done in a couple of afternoons. Even if the cost per unit science were comparable, you’d be better off for science with people on-site. But in reality, the cost per unit science is almost certainly higher of the robots than it would be to place a couple of scientists on site. The problem is not the latters’ productivity; it is the up-front cost.

    We are still in the investment period and (except for Apollo which was far more scientifically productive than is generally recognized) most of the benefits of human spaceflight are still in the future. That does not mean they aren’t there or very real. Scientists are fools to let NASA’s and the United States’ mismanagement of the Shuttle and Station programs blind them to that, and pretend that robots can do any real science beyond initial reconnaissance. JPL’s tremendous successes doing the latter let’s scientists convince themselves that they are much more successful than they really are. But, right now today, fifty years in, we do not have one absolute date for any surface anywhere in the Solar System other than six sites on the moon and on our own home world. Saying that we have any real understanding of the Solar System when its all based on relative guesswork from remote observations is impatience driven hubris and willful ignorance of the limitations of what we’ve really accomplished.

    We will not truly understand Earth’s moon, let alone a body as complex as Mars, until we’ve obtained many tens of thousands of absolute measurements across very wide areas with many “Lewis and Clark”-class expeditions. It is time to move beyond remote observations and a tiny number of measurements from clockwork robots. This is especially so for the moon, since we can do that now with relative ease and while living off the land for the heaviest required resource, oxygen.

    — Donald

  • Doug Lassiter

    Not to interrupt a good argument, but I would add to the first comment about “stability” being a solved problem that in terms of thermal stability, the vast majority of the Moon is among the worst surfaces in the whole solar system. The temperature swing on all but the small permanently shadowed areas is enormous. Calling the Moon a stable place (say, compared to a site behind a cheap, lightweight solar shield in free-space) is quite absurd, and such temperature swings pose major problems for maintinaing precision optical alignment as well as for infrared telescopes in general, for which achieving stable low temperatures is essential. And by the way, and for good reasons, no current concepts for lunar observatories involve operation in permanently shadowed areas.

  • Feel free to interrupt, especially with such an interesting post!

    And by the way, and for good reasons, no current concepts for lunar observatories involve operation in permanently shadowed areas.

    What are the “good reasons”? This lay person would have thought that a permanently dark crater would make both a thermally stable place and an essentially infinite heat sink. But, I’m prepared to be wrong on this.

    I thought the lunar farside had been proposed more for radio telescopes, than for optical observatories.

    In any case, I agree that, by themselves, lunar observatories are not a reason to return to the moon, either automated missions or with crews. The idea only makes sense (maybe!) if you are going there anyway for another reason, e.g., geology or oxygen exploitation.

    — Donald

  • Paul Dietz

    And, under it, human spaceflight is certainly justified, as a defense against becoming extinct if nothing else.

    VSE/ESAS doesn’t do this — an example of justifying one program by refering to very distant putative benefits. There is no prospect in the short (or medium, IMO) term of human spaceflight providing such insurance. Human colonies beyond Earth will not be able to survive without support from Earth for the forseeable future.

    If you are refering to protection from impacts, then VSE/ESAS also has little to do with defending against impacts capable of causing human extinction (which would have to be even bigger than the 10 km impactor at the K/T boundary). Indeed, it’s not obvious that manned spaceflight is needed at all, even if such a large body on a collision course were found — the larger the body, the easier it is to nudge it with nukes without fragmenting it. At best, the HLV of ESAS could help launching gigaton-scale warheads, but those could also be designed for in-orbit filling of the main deuterium tank. In any case, searching for potential impactors does not require humans in space.

    We are still in the investment period and (except for Apollo which was far more scientifically productive than is generally recognized) most of the benefits of human spaceflight are still in the future. That does not mean they aren’t there or very real.

    First, I would disagree that Apollo was scientifically justified. Sure, it returned scientific data — but was lunar geology really so important it was worth several percent of the GNP at its peak? Obviously not — that was many times what the US spent or spends on terrestrial geology.

    Second: yes, it’s an investment. It’s the property of investments that some are better than others. You have to show that manned space spending is going to earn sufficient return to justify the cost, compared to other things those resources could be invested in. The farther the return lies in the future, the greater the payoff has to be, rising exponentially the farther into the future you go.

    Even on scientific grounds, you are wrong. Automated exploration can answer many questions, but it cannot (probably ever, but certainly in the near term) do the kind of detailed surveys that would be required to, say, determine the history of any life on Mars.

    If automated planetary exploration is more expensive per unit of science (accepting for the moment this argument) than manned space exploration, that doesn’t necessarily justify manned space exploration. Instead, it provides an argument against doing either. Manned spaceflight has to justify itself on the basis of what it can do, not on the basis of being better than some other specific activity.

  • VSE/ESAS doesn’t do this — an example of justifying one program by refering to very distant putative benefits. There is no prospect in the short (or medium, IMO) term of human spaceflight providing such insurance. Human colonies beyond Earth will not be able to survive without support from Earth for the forseeable future.

    I completely agree, however, we will never get there unless we start, and VSE (because it starts commecial supply and “living off the land”) is the first step in that direction. Again, it took humanity 10,000 years to learn to travel confidently over the terrestrial oceans, but it never would have happened if someone, somewhere had not started the first litoral expeditions to barely visible islands. Almost certainly, these cost at least “a few percent” of the local tribe’s total civil budget and had no measurable or immediately justifiable expectation of economic return.

    There is no reason to believe that achieving a Solar System-wide civilization will take less time than achieving a global one. But, it will never happen if those of us who are capable of taking the first steps don’t do so. We cannot imagine the benefits of a Solar System-wide civilization any more than a thoughtful member of a neolithic tribe could have imagined the benefits of a global civilization — but those benefits have proven very real, not least to the scientific endeavor.

    We can start the process that may lead to a much grander and more knowledgeable future for humanity, therefore, now is the time to do so.

    If automated planetary exploration is more expensive per unit of science (accepting for the moment this argument) than manned space exploration, that doesn’t necessarily justify manned space exploration. Instead, it provides an argument against doing either.

    Actually, with this, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, and demonstrated what is wrong with those who say we should spend all our money on robotic space exploration. There is no way to economically justify the amount of money we spend on robotic space exploration or human spaceflight. Neither human or automated space exploration, today, generate economic returns commesurate with their costs. However, if we are going to waste our money on this economically senseless activity, as measured by any return we’ll see in the next few decades, we may as well do it right, send scientists, get some real science for our money, and lay the groundwork for a real, human future in space.

    — Donald