Huh? How can anyone tell from a blog know what anyone else has read or understands? Since when does blog participation give someone clairvoyant superpowers?

I read and understood what was written. I simply disagree with the conclusion you draw from your own argument. It involves a leap of logic that is not supported by the evidence.

One cannot leap from a macroeconomic study about the historical benefits of science and technology investments to the conclusion that the U.S. government should pursue a $100 billion program today to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020. Such a study only generally supports a conclusion that this type of investment is usually a good thing. It does not support an argument that this particular investment, at this particular point in time, and at this particular level is a good thing.

“The problem with historians like yourself”

Where did I (or anyone else) say that I was an historian?

FYI, I do have an economic background and have published econometric studies. It’s precisely because of that background that I’m aware of the limits of macroeconomic analysis and what truths it can and cannot claim.

And besides, what’s wrong with studying history? The quoted macroeconomic studies are precisely that — studies of the historical impact of science and technology investments.

“is you get so hung up on minutia you fail to see the big picture.”

First, please don’t make this personal. Argue the facts and logic, not the poster.

Second, federal R&D budget decisions are hardly minutae. In any one fiscal year, the White House and Congress have to decide how to allocate tens of billions (hundreds of billions over the five-year runout) of taxpayer dollars between defense, medical, energy, basic, NASA, and other R&D types. Although there are economic studies that can marginally inform these choices, the ones quoted are not them.

Third, big civil space policy decisions — what targets (Moon, NEOs, Mars, outer moons, extrasolar planets), towards what purposes (scientific inquiry, economic security, national security), with what means (observatory, robotic probe, sample return, human expedition), on what timeframes (by the end of this decade, by the end of the next decade), and with what transportation (Shuttle-derived, EELV-derived, clean-sheet) — also do not qualify as minutae. As we are seeing in the current budget and mass shortfalls of the Ares I/Orion architecture, there are huge policy decisions that determine success or failure of such exploration efforts and these decisions are not informed in the least by macreconomics.

“Nor are you able to move beyond the accepted beliefs of your field.”

Again, don’t make this personal. Argue the facts and logic, not the poster.

And on the contrary, economics is my field (among a couple others).

“As I noted, the studies reported on here CORRECTED for those variables of resources available you are so hung up on”

Don’t make this personal. Argue the facts and logic, not the poster.

And since when does referencing a study to the contrary qualify as being “hung up” on something?

“There are patterns of successful strategies and ones that fail to work.”

The only “pattern” or “strategy” espoused in this argument so far is that science and technology investments usually pay off for nations. I hesitate to call that a “pattern” or a “strategy”, but I agree the statement is generally true. But that statement, by itself, hardly justifies NASA’s existence or the existence of a human space exploration program, nevertheless support for a specific human lunar return effort.

Heck, among exploration alternatives, one could argue that a program of ocean resource exploration and exploitation would garner much greater returns at much less cost and much more quickly than anything we do at the Moon in the coming decades, maybe even centuries. The value of volatiles and metals on the Moon have nothing on the untapped petroleum, natural gas, and methane hydrate potential, nevertheless the biological and metallurgical potential, of Earth’s oceans. Even more so when the costs of extracting resources from the Moon are compared to the costs of extracting resources from the oceans.

I’m a space cadet too, and I’m not arguing that we should strip mine the oceans’ floors. But the point is that we can’t jump from an assertion about the value of science and technology investments in general to assertions about the value of particular types of science and technology investments on the basis of these kinds of macroeconomic arguments alone. Other policy, technical, and even economic arguments have to enter before those decisions can be made (or at least properly informed).

“You really need to read those books and take the time to understand the research before dismissing on it even if its not from your field.”

[rolls eyes]

Thanks for the reading assignment.

FWIW, I read and have two of the three original quoted sources (Pomeranz and Porter) sitting in my library.

“I have done the same with space policy.”

[rolls eyes again]

If you say so, but the evidence is not on display here. I don’t have clairvoyant superpowers so I’ll have to take your word for it.

“As for China not wanting it greatness back, again what do you think has been behind the political history of the region the last hundred years?”

Oh, I don’t know… suffering from, defending against, and containing Japanese imperialism? Defending against intra-communist struggles and border disputes with the former Soviet Union? Putting down (rightfully or wrongly) with student and popular political uprisings? Reclaiming lost territories like Hong Kong, Mongolia, and Taiwan that Chinese leaders believe (rightfully or wrongly) belong to “One China”? Managing what is arguably the largest and fastest transition from a developing to developed country that any nation has undergone?

Like the earlier macroeconomic arguments, to read the past 100 years of Chinese history as a simple struggle for superpower status is a gross oversimplification.

China arguably wants to be the leading power in its region and among the great nations of the world. But there’s a big difference between that role and becoming the world’s sole superpower. There’s lots of evidence that China wants to become the former; not much that China wants to become the latter.

“China aims to send a spacecraft to the Moon in three years’ time, the head of the country’s space agency, Sun Laiyan, has confirmed to the BBC.

In the discussion, Mr Sun made no secret of China’s ambition to become the next space superpower.

The Moon was a major target, he said, and the first mission should take place before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games in four years’ time.”

First, it’s not clear how the journalist jumps from a lunar orbiter launching in a few years time to China having the “ambition” to become a “superpower”.

Second, even if the “space superpower” statement did come from Sun, he leads China’s space activities. It would make sense for Sun to believe China should lead in space, just as Griffin and every other NASA Administrator thinks the U.S. should lead in space. That doesn’t mean that either country’s political leaders agree with that priority and will support it budgetarily, especially in light of other priorities.

“BTW that lunar mission is still on track.”

So what? So are India’s Chandrayaan lunar mission, Japan’s SELENE (less so, she’s having integration problems) and Lunar-A lunar missions, Germany’s LEO lunar mission, and NASA’s LRO (less so, she’s having cost problems) and LCROSS lunar missions. Heck, even the Ruskies are resurrecting their Luna-Glob lunar mission. In an international field crowded with no less than seven different upcoming lunar robotic missions, one Chinese orbiter hardly implies that China is about to own the Moon and all its resources.

“The space program will enable Hu and Wen to claim they have finally realized the ‘Four Modernizations’ goal laid down by former leaders including the late Premier Zhou Enlai and late patriarch Deng Xiaoping,” said a veteran party cadre.

Moreover, the current so-called Fourth Generation leadership hopes the man-in-space game plan will ignite a mega-tonnage of patriotism, upon which the party relies to sustain national cohesiveness given the obsolescence of Communist ideology”

There’s nothing in this quote indicating that China views its human space flight program as holding some great economic or international advantage. On the contrary, it shows that China’s human space flight program is all about giving the Chinese people pride in themselves and their government. It’s all about demonstrating that this developing country can become a modern, developed state and about maintaining cohesive support for an outdated political ideology. There’s nothing in this quote about beating the U.S. for world superpower status.

“But then all you really need to do is talk to Chinese students in the U.S. as I used to in my classes…”

FWIW, I’ve spent a couple months working with professionals from the Chinese space program. I’ve also been to Beijing and presented at an international conference there. Neither of those experiences amount to a hill of beans on a blog like this. But I’ve never encountered the claimed Chinese nationalistic fervor for beating the U.S. in space or any other venue. My 2 cents is that our own fears are projected upon the statements of Chinese students and professionals that we encounter, and the equivalent of the shoe-pounding, Kruschev-like, “we will bury you” statement from a Chinese leader exists only in our Western imaginations.

“Space as an extension of science policy and history is fun,”

Space policy is actually its own field. You can take courses in it. It’s not a mere extension of “science policy” or history.

Heck, even “science policy” is actually “science and technology policy” as taught in today’s government and international affairs schools.

“but you really need to start to look at the bigger picture in your analysis.”

[rolls eyes]

For the umpteenth time, please stop with the empty lessons and personalization of the debate. I’m all for arguing facts, logic, and opinions. But if we don’t have counter-evidence or arguments and if we can’t avoid posting opinions without throwing thinly veiled insults at the other poster, then we really shouldn’t post. This forum is too good for that.

“Really, you need to move beyond the Beltway mindset into the real world.”

First, again, argue the facts and logic, not the poster.

Second, the Beltway is the real world. The major, multi-billion decisions that affect the material direction of the nation’s civil space program are made in the White House, Congress, and at NASA Headquarters. They aren’t made in the ivory towers of university economics professors. That’s reality.

“Otherwise space policy will continue to be as useless to the nation’s future as it has been since the 1970’s.

This argument confuses the civil space program with space policy. If one equates human space exploration with utility (a very fallible argument but let’s go with it), then yes, the nation’s civil space program has arguably been “useless” since the end of the Apollo program.

But space policy encompasses the arguments, both pro and con, about human space exploration, as well as all the other aspects of the civil space program (e.g., LEO development, science missions) as well as all the programs and regulations involving other space sectors (military and commercial).

To say that space policy, or even just policy regarding human space exploration, is “useless” to the future of the nation is like saying that a Presidential debate on social security is useless to the future of the nation. One might not like any of the candidates’ positions, or even think that social security is a stupid program, but the debate will have an impact, one way or the other, on the future.

“That is also a symptom of national decay, failure to see the world beyond the King’s court (or national capital), a form of group think.”

This statement is pure rhetoric and hyperbole. Just because an argument comes from Washington doesn’t mean that it’s wrong, subject to misinformation, or a form of groupthink.

The reality is that political decisionmakers inside the Beltway are better informed — through massive intelligence services, innumerable staffers, and top access to experts and non-Beltway decisionmakers — than practically anyone else on the planet. We may not agree with their politics or policies, but to say that they can’t see the world beyond the Beltway is just silly.

With regards to groupthink, the reality is that the Beltway is cauldron of debate with two political parties and innumerable splinter-groups at each other’s throats all the time. Our favorite position may not be held by the majority at any particular point in time, but to claim that all of Washington is engaged in groupthink is goofy.

And even if that’s not the reality, many of the arguments above do not comprise a single Beltway mentality. For example, a lot of right-wing Beltway types do portray China as superpower-hungry. I argued the exact opposite above.

“Its not my job to provide a mini-seminar in modern economics for you or on why nations are successful.”

No it’s not. Please don’t resort to lectures. If you want to debate facts, logic, and opinions, great. But please do drop the condenscending tone and thinly veiled insults, the mistaken assumptions about what the other poster knows or thinks, and the gradiose conclusions drawn from absent evidence.

“As noted there are many good books on it. Read them if you want to expand your horizons,”

Ugh… [rolls eyes]… please stop with the condescending personalization. If you are unable to stick to the facts, logic, and opinions, then don’t bother posting.

“don’t simply dismiss them”

Sigh… [rolls eyes again]… I specifically stated two posts ago:

“I don’t want to dismiss these references out of hand — it’s all good work.”

I then spent two very long posts (not counting this one) articulating several arguments about the limits of those references — why such macroeconomic arguments fail to inform the science and technology resource allocation decisions that confront actual policymakers today. To say that I dismissed those macroeconomic studies is a gross mischaracterization.

“because they come from a different field then yours”

Again, those macroeconomic studies are not out of a different field (at least for me). I do have an economic background, and that’s precisely why I feel compelled to correct statements about the limits of these kinds of studies for informing policy decisions (civil space or otherwise).

“or because they don’t specifically mention space”

It has nothing to do with whether those macroeconomic studies looked at space. As I stated two posts ago, there are major problems with applying the lessons from the Pomeranz work to modern space exploration investments because the medieval Chinese analogy breaks down under closer examination. And moreover, as I also stated two post ago, these macroeconomic studies do not address the concrete, greed-and-fear, type of rationales and justifications that actually drive real decisionmakers to invest in and undertake new programs of exploration, today or in the past.

FWIW…

The problem with historians like yourself is you get so hung up on minutia you fail to see the big picture. Nor are you able to move beyond the accepted beliefs of your field.

As I noted, the studies reported on here CORRECTED for those variables of resources available you are so hung up on to identify which strategies worked for wealth creation and which didn’t. There are patterns of successful strategies and ones that fail to work. You really need to read those books and take the time to understand the research before dismissing on it even if its not from your field. I have done the same with space policy.

As for China not wanting it greatness back, again what do you think has been behind the political history of the region the last hundred years? But here is a quote from the BBC on China’s space goals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3874419.stm
Wednesday, 7 July, 2004, 15:07 GMT 16:07 UK
[[[China aims to send a spacecraft to the Moon in three years’ time, the head of the country’s space agency, Sun Laiyan, has confirmed to the BBC.]]]

[[[In the discussion, Mr Sun made no secret of China’s ambition to become the next space superpower.

The Moon was a major target, he said, and the first mission should take place before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games in four years’ time.]]]

But then he’s only the head of China’s space agency so he probably doesn’t know why China is in space.

BTW that lunar mission is still on track.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-05/20/content_6127181.htm

Here is some more analysis of China’s space goals.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/10/12/china.rocket/index.html

China’s leaders seek space boost

By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
CNN Senior China Analyst
Monday, October 13, 2003 Posted: 4:35 AM EDT (0835 GMT)

[[[“The space program will enable Hu and Wen to claim they have finally realized the ‘Four Modernizations’ goal laid down by former leaders including the late Premier Zhou Enlai and late patriarch Deng Xiaoping,” said a veteran party cadre.

Moreover, the current so-called Fourth Generation leadership hopes the man-in-space game plan will ignite a mega-tonnage of patriotism, upon which the party relies to sustain national cohesiveness given the obsolescence of Communist ideology.]]]

And here is a book you might want to read about Deng Xiaoping by David Shambaugh (Deng Xiaoping – Portrait of a Statesman” Clarendon 1995) who points out that the goal of most of China’s political reformers has been “attainment of great power status”. (page 2).

I could find more, but really any contemporary book on Chinese politics or 20th Century will say basically the same.

But then all you really need to do is talk to Chinese students in the U.S. as I used to in my classes. Ask them how they see the future of their country relative to the U.S. Many are not bashful about it. As they put it the U.S. is old, New China is young, and the young must replace the old. Sure the U.S. did great things once like go to the Moon, but that is ancient history. China’s going in the future.

Space as an extension of science policy and history is fun, but you really need to start to look at the bigger picture in your analysis. Really, you need to move beyond the Beltway mindset into the real world. Otherwise space policy will continue to be as useless to the nation’s future as it has been since the 1970’s. That is also a symptom of national decay, failure to see the world beyond the King’s court (or national capital), a form of group think.

BTW, as I noted earlier IF national greatness is determined by luck as Jared Diamond argues then why even bother with policy analysis or space advocacy, just let luck take its course. Fate will guide the decision makers.

But anyway this will be my last post on it. Its not my job to provide a mini-seminar in modern economics for you or on why nations are successful. As noted there are many good books on it. Read them if you want to expand your horizons, don’t simply dismiss them because they come from a different field then yours or because they don’t specifically mention space.

Not necessarily. Assuming all nations and peoples are equally smart, industrious, and innovative, if you start with a disparity in resources, those nations and peoples that started with more and better resources will amplify those advantages to a greater and greater extent over time.

Just like the macroeconomic arguments, it’s a gross oversimplication of very complex systems and behaviors. But given that both arguments are gross oversimplifications, it’s arguable that either is (and probably both are to a certain extent) right (or wrong).

And that’s the problem. Grossly oversimplified arguments about the past don’t inform policy debates about specific resources allocations going forward.

“Its like the old urban myth that Bumble Bees aren’t suppose to fly based on the laws of Aeronautics… just as the detail taxonomy work and field studies of botanists on specific plants is for ecological studies.”

Huh? How do aeronautical or biological analogies advance this argument? These analogies doesn’t change the fact that policy decisions about specific resource allocations have not been made on the basis of macroeconomic policy in the past and still are not made on that basis today.

It’s like saying that ecological studies of arboreal environments determine whether I decide to plant a maple or elm tree in my front yard.. The studies are interesting academically, but they don’t impact real world decisions, at least not at the level of policy that we space cadets are interested in (e.g., investment in NASA or human space exploration versus other R&D or federal programs).

“China is advancing rapidly and has ambitions to be the foremost super power.”

As I asked earlier in the thread, where is the evidence that China wants to take on the responsibility of being the world’s leading superpower? Where are the Kruschev-like, shoe-stomping “we will bury you” U.N. speeches from China’s leaders?

There’s no doubt that China is pursuing a “One China” (including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia) policy. There’s even evidence that China may want to be the foremost regional power in East Asia. But world superpower? I’d be interested if anyone knows of any quotes to that effect from China’s leaders (I’m genuinely asking), but I haven’t seen such myself.

“And that means it will need to lead in space exploration and science as well.”

Even if we assume China wants to eclipse the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower, does China have to lead the U.S. in space exploration (or science) to become a superpower? The Soviet Union never landed cosmonauts on the Moon and never had a robotic space exploration program that matched NASA’s but they were arguably a world superpower on par with the U.S. for a half-century. And of all the causes attributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union, their space program certainly wasn’t one.

Heck, some Soviet science was downright backwards and they still maintained superpower status for a half-century. And again, of all the causes attributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union, bad Soviet science certainly wasn’t one.

“And will we apply modern economic research to space policy or just ignore it?”

I guess I didn’t make myself clear enough. The problem with macroeconomic arguments is that they’re macro. Even if you believe them, they only tell us that we should generally spend resources on science and technology. They don’t tell us how much we should spend in each budget cycle or in what specific technical areas.

The White House and Congress don’t debate whether they should spend taxpayer dollars on science and technology. That’s a given. They debate how much in each annual budget, towards what national goals, in which agencies, and on what programs. We space cadets gotta get down to brass tacks if we’re going to inform those arguments. Continuous appeals ivory tower academic studies or outdated Cold War rationales won’t cut the mustard inside the Beltway.

FWIW…

I have also of Jared Diamond’s books, “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Collapse”. His “Guns Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” is an interesting book and does much to explain why ancient civilizations may have originated where and when they did. It also explains why no real civilizations emerged in Australia, and New Guinea his area of personal experience in his studies of avian ecology. But he carries his “fate” argument (natural environmental factors) too far when looking at the origin of modern wealth and national greatness which is why although it’s a popular book in that it defuses the guilt of the west (it was our destiny based on ecology) he ignores most of the extensive body of economic research on the question which looked at similar ideas decades ago. Really Diamond’s work is basically an update of Arnold Toynbee environmental model of challenge and response.

” William Bernstein addresses Diamond’s hypothesis in “The Birth of Plenty” and points out it’s problems in explaining modern inequalities (since the mid 1600’s) when the key domestic animals, plants and diseases had already been distributed throughout the world. He also controls for Diamond’s hypothesis by matching countries that are identical on economic variables before one surges ahead while another declines. Why did Spain, which benefited form an early burst of exploration and a brief age of enlightenment decline while England surged forward despite its religious wars one of his examples.

However its Kenneth Pomeranz book, “The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy” that really destroys Diamond’s arguments for the modern world. As noted China was economically equal with western Europe and probably ahead in technology at the time and was exposed to the same diseases, in fact many originated in the Asia region. And it had stresses from regional competitors like India and Mongolia the influence of which Diamond dismisses to support his hypothesis. Not to mention the new stress of western expansion which was still moving slowly. But like the U.S. view on space today, China decided there was nothing of economic value it hadn’t already discovered or needed to discover.

As for your statement that is wasn’t economic arguments that drove those decisions on exploration and expansion. Yes, that is true as the economic research had not been done yet linking the exploration and knowledge expansion to national greatness. And if you have noted most of these books I have posted 1990 and even post 2000. Roosevelt didn’t have modern Macroeconomics to guide him on the depression, but why the decisions he made worked, such as getting people back to work and stabilizing the financial markets are explained by modern macroeconomics. And if you read president’s Kennedy’s speeches. Especially his Rice University speech, he had some inkling that great nations explore even if that argument was not used in the day to day decisions made on the Apollo program.

Its like the old urban myth that Bumble Bees aren’t suppose to fly based on the laws of Aeronautics. Of course that was based on our knowledge of aeronautics in the 1920’s. But Bumble Bees flew anyway. And we have learned a bit about aeronautics since then, especially rotary wing aircraft, that explained quite a bit about how a Bumble Bee flies.

A couple of books space policy experts might want to read to get up to speed on modern economic research and wealth creation, especially those that have a historian’s background, would be the “Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics” by Eric D. Beinhocker (Harvard Business School Press 2006) which outlines the huge strides in economic understanding that has emerged in the last 20 years from the application of evolutionary systems theory to it. The second would be Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery by David Warsh (W. W. Norton 2007).

Historical research like you quoted for Spain and Apollo is useful as a source of raw economic data for studies like these, just as the detail taxonomy work and field studies of botanists on specific plants is for ecological studies. But you need to be able to step back and see the bigger picture if you want to craft successful strategies for either a nation or a country. That is the value of this line of research, it has provided the bigger picture of the impact of space policy on a country just as ecology explains why a plant’s specific strategy is successful in expanding its range.

And this bring us back to the article that started this thread. China is advancing rapidly and has ambitions to be the foremost super power. And that means it will need to lead in space exploration and science as well. The Chinese leaders know this even if they are not familiar with the modern economic research on the linkage, just as a Bumble Bee knows how to fly without understanding aeronautical engineering. Individuals from business familiar with modern economic thought and literature recognize this and that is why they take it for granted China’s statements on mounting a manned lunar effort at face value and that they will go to the Moon.

The question is will the U.S. be there when they do or will it have started its long decline to being a former super power like Great Britain is today? And will we apply modern economic research to space policy or just ignore it?

In the “The Birth of Plenty : How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created” William Bernstein (2004 McGRaw-Hill)

[snip]

In “The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy” Kenneth Pomeranz (Princeton University Press, 2000)

[snip]

And of course there is Michael Porter’s classic work “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” (Free Press, 1990)”

I don’t want to dismiss these references out of hand — it’s all good work. But there’s several problems with using these kinds of general, macroeconomic, historical studies to justify specific human space exploration initiatives:

1) There are other, arguably equally valid bodies of work “proving” that the relative advantages of different nations and cultures arise not from their socioeconomic choices about the importance of research, technology, or exploration (or anything else) but from random inequalities in the distribution of resources that those nations and cultures had to work with in the first place. In other words, it’s not the Socratic method or the Renaissance mindset or Yankee ingenuity that created a dominant, wealthy, western world. Rather, it was advantages in climate, the number and quality of edible plant and domestible animal species, the availability of ores, and exposure to diseases that gave western societies the wealth from which they could pursue intellectual inquiry in ways that other societies could not afford. “Gun, Germs, and Steel” is probably the modern classic in this line of argument.

2) Often, the historical parallels fall apart under closer analysis. For example, even if we accept the argument that the recall of China’s imperial fleet during the 1400s Ming Dynasty was a cause (and not an effect) of China’s retrenchment and decline, it’s not clear that this historical example has any relevance to, say, a national human lunar return effort today. The value of China’s imperial fleet was in its capability to conduct trade with other economic powers, exchange ideas with other cultures, and exert influence on other nations — none of which applies to human lunar return effort because there’s obviously no one to trade with, exchange ideas with, or influence on the Moon.

3) These general, macroeconomic, historical studies don’t provide a useful argument that informs choices about how to address today’s specific policy challenges going forward. Even if we accept the type of argument that Presidential science advisor Vannevar Bush made after WWII and the Manhattan Project — that historically taxpayer spending on science and technology has paid off so the government should continue to support it — the argument doesn’t tell a policymaker where to specifically spend dollars in the future. For example, today the White House and Congress can choose to put additional R&D dollars into cancer research, technologies to mitigate climate change, economically competitive investments like nanotechnology breakthroughs, weapons research, or more space exploration (and any dozens of other R&D choices). Just knowing that taxpayer investment in research and engineering has paid off for societies in the past is not enough to make the hard choices about how much is the right amount to spend on R&D today and where specifically it should be spent. A general, macroeconomic argument about the past benefits of these kinds of investments does not help NASA compete against these other R&D priorities (as well as other federal priorities) for dollars going forward.

4) Finally, if we step out of the ivory economic analysis tower and look hard at what rationales and justifications have actually driven decisionmakers to fund or pursue exploration in the past, it’s never been some academic argument about the economic benefits of exploration. It’s always been some very concrete, very specific issue or problem — usually (I’d argue always) driven by fear or greed — that the exploration effort directly addresses or resolves. Kennedy didn’t choose a human lunar landing because an economic study told him that the goal had the highest ROI; he chose it because his advisors thought that goal gave the U.S. the best chance of demonstrably beating the Soviets in the space and rocket arena. The Spanish crown didn’t fund Columbus because of an economic study about the past benefits of exploration; they wanted a new trade route to the East. The Viking-age Ericssons didn’t leave Norway and travel to Greenland and Vinland because of economics; they were fleeing the forces of a powerful king whom they had ticked off.

When it comes to federal funding, the challenge for human space exploration advocates (myself included) is not to make general appeals to the value of science, technology, and exploration investment. Nor is it to apply outdated Cold War justifications for human space exploration in the absence of a real human space exploration competitor. The challenge is to find in today’s policy environment, what are the pressing issues or problems that a human space exploration effort can help address or solve and articulate how a specific human space exploration effort will address and solve them.

FWIW…

But this putative correlation wasn’t the issue, it’s the direction of underlying causation.

Let me propose that ‘greatness’ and ‘exploration’ have a common underlying cause — the nations in question produced great economic surpluses that could be applied in various ways. IF exploration then led to further return, these nations could exploit that. It doesn’t mean exploration (particulary if the concept is extended to space) necessarily causes a return, or contributes to the economic surplus.

RAND: Kind of getting off topic, but they’re certainly not (just to take one example) Islamic values. Are you saying that Muslims aren’t human?

No. They are just as human as us Americans. (I know this is getting off topic.)

RAND: They are in fact western values.

They are values that were initially born, grew, and flourished in the West.

But I have not seen a compelling argument yet, to persuade me that they are nothing other than human values that will become universal, or near universal, over the long run. By “long” I mean centuries.

RAND: Whether or not they’re transplantable to other cultures is the grand experiment that we’re currently undertaking in Iraq and the Middle East.

History clearly shows there was a huge amount of resistance in Europe to the growth of these values. We forget, to our own peril in the Middle East, that it took centuries, and many major wars, for these values to first become widely accepted in Europe. And in America.

In America, what we take for granted as western values were not universal until late in the 20th Century. Us enlightened westerners required a major civil war to transfer these values to people of all color. Yet, even the Civil War did not extend the benefits of these values to women, which required suffrage in the 20th Century. In addition, in the early 20th Century it was American government policy, which was called assimilation, to beat Native American children who wanted to speak their own language and practice their own religion. Talk about freedom of religion, and freedom of speech.

In other words, Europe and America had centuries of resistance from conservative reactionaries. In many ways, the only reason that these values won over large majorities is because young people adopted them, and old people died out.

I could make a pretty good case (and I am sure you could too) that there are conservative reactionaries still resisting certain “liberal” ideas. And the same effect is taking place — the issues are changing very slowly over time because younger generations have different views than older generations.

To expect anything other than “resistance” from conservative reactionaries in the Middle East, and other countries, ignores the history of America and Europe.

This is why the grand experiment in Iraq may fail, and yet we still can not conclude that what you call “western values” are nothing more than human values that luckily came to the west first.

I am somewhat persuaded that you can’t teach adults “western values”. You need to reach them earlier.

Our long-term hope lies in the children, and new methods to reach children.

Our failure lies in letting the reactionaries teach the children.

– Al

PS — Sorry, this was pretty off-topic.

Launch costs are a key technological challenge for space and always have been. The question is do we just wait around until they come down, or just move ahead now with existing costs and see how they are reduced in the future?.

Historicaly transportation costs are driven down by demand encouraging marginal improvements through competition. So the question is how do we get such a demand driven process going with space?

And don’t say NASA, because NASA has very limited demand for launch services, not enough to get the economies of scale needed to driven innovation. That is why COTS is a waste as are most efforts to force NASA to address the launch cost issue. You need to focus on leveraging self-interest when design policies that will actually work. At least that is how it works in Business Strategy