I’m just not big on politics, something I learned when I was involved with the UNA-USA. Politics involves changes, and every year you have to train a new crop of folks up on the Hill, and it becomes a tiresome cycle.

Which isn’t to say that I’m not respectful of the good work (the abundance of which is always open to debate) of our legislators, and we do live in a nation of law where all men are equal thereunder. “”

So carrying the torch of knowledge to the legislators regarding space matters and their importance to the U.S. is a necessary work. But not all temperaments are suited to such things. Some of us just want to do good space works in our communities, because those are important too (if not more so). And I find that the NSS does encompass that. So will our ISDC 2007 in Dallas, which will have politicians and educators alike.

Isaac Asimov was once asked if he wanted to travel in space. He pointed out that it was almost impossible to get him out of New York, and said something to the effect of, his job is to point the way.

Like Asimov, I see this as the next step in the long sweep of human expansion over our own planet’s surface.

— Donald

Several years ago I volunteered to lobby Congress and as I recall that event was called the “Moon-Mars Blitz” — it was great fun and I believe everyone should volunteer for these things but this year family conflicts left me unavailable for any of the Spring lobbying events.

Anyway, during our training, and to rally the troops, one of the organizers tried to get us fired up by asking the volunteers, “Who wants to fly in space?”

As everyone raised their hands and cheered I kinda shrugged my shoulders. The guy next to me said, “What, you don’t want to travel into space?”

Both then and today my basic answer would be the same. “Sure, it’d be cool” But I also would like to date Victoria Secret models and I ain’t holding my breath on that.

On the other hand, the idea of our species setting down roots “out there” and having children who will have children who will have children and eventually engulf the entire Solar System with life is something that captivates me. Even if I cannot live long enough to see it happen, I’d like to see that undertaking at least get started. And to help in a tiny, tiny way, if I can.

Is this logical or rational? I’m not really sure it is. But it is what motivates me.

I fully agree. That is why I’m supportive of China’s, India’s, and, yes, Russia’s and Europe’s efforts, however modest or otherwise some of these may be. In purely parochial terms, some of these events are probably “bad” for the United States. But, to the degree that they encourage or enable a future human expansion into the Solar System, they are good news indeed.

— Donald

I’ll throw in a doubly heretical POV here: that “eventually” is far enough out that the array of nations:values may well be very different by then. This has nothing to do with immediate lobbying strategies, since “the US must be a leader in X” is a traditional and still indispensable pitch as long as most effort is tax-funded. But in my heart of hearts I care a lot about the species getting established in space, and not a lot about which country takes which baby step over the next few decades. Just sayin.

Next question, “who” is the agent that will aspire to these goals?

As for our species, I assert permanent settlement (becoming spacefaring) must be THE goal. As Mike Griffin has said, perhaps no lesser goal can justify the risk to life and treasure that will be required for routine and sustained human spaceflight and no greater goal can be imagined.

As for “Western Civilization” or people who aspire to American values (arguments over what that means are hereby tabled) I again assert that permanent settlement is THE goal.

As for that entity known as the United States of America I find it a little bit harder to articulate why our national best interest is served by permanent settlement except in the vicarious sense that I shall willingly pay for my child’s college education even if the direct “benefit” to me is less tangible.

I simply see no scenario where Washington DC can (or should) retain long term political jurisdiction over permanent settlers on the moon or Mars even if our nation does retain jurisdiction over temporary mining camps, or research stations and the like.

But then again, I foresee paying for my children’s college education even if they choose a major I do not approve of.

As for that entity known as NASA (one subset of the USA) again as Mike Griffin has said, NASA must answer to a diverse group of stakeholders and many of those could care less about settlement, with some of those being primarily focused on the value of their corporate stock.

A question that interests me is whether (a) NASA or (b) even entire nations (such as the US) are the appropriate entities to sponsor or undertake the permanent settlement of space.

Would the US need to follow affirmative action policies in choosing settlers, for example?

Perhaps we need “a people” to settle space rather than a nation-state.

Finally, its been a few years since I pounded this drum, however I keep coming back to a definition of spacefaring I have long favored. If we can safely and routinely bear children at multiple celestial locations, we are spacefaring. Otherwise, we are not.

= = =

Thus, on the question of political lobbying of the US government, I see it like this:

(a) Someone will eventually settle space, or not. If not, humanity will begin and end its days here on Earth.

(b) If “Yes” and someone does eventually settle space, then I desire that people holding “American values” paticipate in that permanent settlement.

Even if my biological children or grandchildren never travel out there, I want my memes (values and principles) to be shared by those who do travel out there, and stay.

Finally, I believe Mike Griffin has asserted many of these above points, at times in sworn testimony to Congress, making him my ideal choice for NASA Administrator, scuffles over EELV versus Ares 1 notwithstanding.

The problem with that Jim is that when people see the phrase exploration, they think exploration = science.

Frankly, I’d be happy if we could narrow it down to the point of getting everyone who supports manned flight to agree to always bring it back to colonization. Let me give an example. Last year, the SEDS chapter at my school restarted after having fallen off for years. During one meeting, I tried to make the point that at any sort of political events (we talked about doing them – nothing ever came of it as far as I know), we should bring up colonization or settlement. And I didn’t necassraily mean “we’re going to colonize right now ” (although I do think its entirely debatable that we’ve already started), but in the sense of “This will bring us closer to the goal of space colonization/settlement”, and, while I wasn’t the only one arguing for this, most of the people there thought that bringing up colonization or settlement was a bad idea, basically arguing that it sounds too ambition/ostentation/whatever. Basically that it was too big of an idea for the average politician (forget the average person) to wrap their minds around it. And so, assuming they did anything (my suspicion is that they didn’t) they would only mention exploration. And, because of that exploration = science dicotimy we have right now, this forces the humans vs robots debates that we are all aware of.

If those of us who back manned spaceflight, instead of talking about exploration started talking about colonization (and as much as possible about colonization), I suspect that, to some degreee, the scientist would stop fighting us, at least as much. Because then, both manned and unmanned would serve 2 different and distinct purposes. By trying to occupy the niche of exploration, we’ll have this robots vs human debate for many years to come.

The sad thing, Jim, is that I think, for a very brief period shortly after the VSE was announced, we almost had this. Space scientists were not initially opposed to the VSE as it was initially presented, so long as what they perceived as their interests were respected. This consensus was bound to break down as hard financial choices needed to be made. However, one of Dr. Griffin’s greatest failings, I think, was that he pointlessly picked fights with scientists long before he had to, making unnecessarily (or at least unnecessarily early) enemies of them.

— Donald

Substitute the word “space” to “railroad”, “sea” or “air”, substitute centuries accordingly and see how silly discussions can you extrapolate from there.
The problem with “space” is that cold war and the whole rivarly thing messed up the natural order of things, and space became a place for politics long before it becomes a place for communities.