NASA

“An unsustainable trajectory”

That’s from the first sentence of the summary report of the Augustine committtee, just posted on the OSTP web site: “The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory.” I haven’t had time yet to review the report, although at first glance it does not appear to be that surprising given the comments made by committee members at the public hearings. Your comments, as always, are welcome.

58 comments to “An unsustainable trajectory”

  • Grammer Goon

    I like the “… perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing…” bit.

  • Ryan T. Noble

    Return to the Moon in the “mid 2020’s”? That is a sad goal. It took us less than a decade to go from nothing to Buzz Aldrin taking a piss on the Moon!

    I just finished a B.S. in Aero Engineering and am studying Air & Space Law at Ole Miss. This country has soo much potential and no goddamn commitment. Might change my concentration to technology export so we can pick up shop and move to a country that appreciates our talent. Hell, I love tikka massala and naan.

    I know the Committee is just stating the facts, its not their fault, but today they are the target of my rant.

    A little spacefarer haiku:
    Waning Moon so bright
    Augustine do not betray
    lest never wax again

  • mike shupp

    The Augustine people have come up with 5 major options (8 actually, counting the various variants) for continuing manned space flight, not a one of which is in serious danger of implemented.

    Augustine 2 basically leaves where we were after the Augustine 1 report, in other words, except that we’re two decades further down the path to total irrelevence.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Mike shupp,

    And you know this because…

  • Major Tom

    “This country has soo much potential and no goddamn commitment.” [Mr. Noble]

    Per the committee’s summary report, this country spends as much annually on NASA as all the civil space programs of all the other nations around the world combined. If that’s not a “goddamn commitment”, I don’t know what is.

    The problem is that we repeatedly waste that “potential” fruitlessly pursuing duplicative, hard-to-develop, and unaffordable systems, especially when faster, easier-to-develop, and more affordable options are available.

    One of the major benefits of this committee’s work is that the summary report repeatedly points this problem out. If NASA (and its funders and overseers in the White House and Congress) can actually “commit” to acting on that advice for once (instead of disregarding it as happened with the VSE and Aldridge report), we might see more of the agency’s “potential” (fiscal and otherwise) realized.

    “The Augustine people have come up with 5 major options (8 actually, counting the various variants) for continuing manned space flight, not a one of which is in serious danger of implemented.” [Mr. Shupp]

    With the exception of staying in LEO and direct-to-Mars, the options basically cover the waterfront. So, to be clear, you’re saying that there is no implementable options for continuing manned space flight.

    “Augustine 2 basically leaves where we were after the Augustine 1 report”

    We shouldn’t compare apples and oranges. The charge in the first Augustine report was to prioritize the entire civil space program. The charge to the second Augustine committee is to fix human space flight. They’re not the same thing, not by a long shot.

    FWIW…

  • Actually, I suspect will end up with one of the two “current budget” options. It could be worse. At least one of these involves expansion of COTS-like initiatives, so we may end up with a greatly expanded commercial space transportation industry — and, in my opinion, if we want an expansive future in space that is the most important goal of all.

    — Donald

  • Doug Lassiter

    This country has soo much potential and no goddamn commitment. Might change my concentration to technology export so we can pick up shop and move to a country that appreciates our talent.

    The issue is not as much commitment as it is responsible planning. May you end up in a country with leaders who can deliver what they say they’re going to deliver. That didn’t happen here.

    Re commitment, it comes in many flavors. Our nation actually does pretty well in that respect. With regard to putting human flesh back on the Moon, that particular flavor doesn’t appear to have gotten people very excited. I’m sorry to say that, but it’s a matter of choice, and not a cultural deficiency.

    BTW, the cost of Buzz leaving his mark on the Moon was vastly greater than what we seem to be able to afford right now. A very common, and very faulty comparison.

    It looks to me that the Augustine report will not produce any big surprises. But architecture aside, it is gratifying that they have underscored the importance of goals over destinations. That’s a critical policy mindset that seems to have been lost in the last half decade. Unfortunately, the report is kind of thin on possible goals, but I suppose it wasn’t really chartered to come up with any.

  • mike shupp

    Ferris Valeyn — “and you know this because?”

    Nothing personal, but I’ve got a sprained ankle today. It hurts. For the moment, please find another punching bag.

    Major Tom: “So, to be clear, you’re saying that there is no implementable options for continuing manned space flight”

    Doesn’t look that way. Quoting myself, from NASAWATCH:

    ” I think the Augustine people should have sketched out three more possibilities: (1) a plan compatible with current financial constraints that continues manned space flight in LEO only for the next 50-100 years (2) a plan for terminating government-funded manned space flight in the next five-ten years, with all future American spaceflight funded by individuals and corporations persuing their own interests without regard for government constraints, (3) a plan for terminating American manned spaceflight of any sort, whether corporate or government-funded, within 5-10 years, without possibility of future resumption. Let’s really put the available options on the table, in other words. Let’s make some real choice, instead of pretending to keep options open even while we close them down.”

    IOW, it’s time to think about options for keeping manned space flight and its possibilities alive for future generations and nations even if the US decides to bail out. I think we should give this serious thought.

    What I actually see happening is giving NASA another $1 billion per year to keep ISS alive, and some additional COTS spending, but nothing more for flight outside LEO for the next ten-twenty years — except for a lot of rhetoric. After 40 years of doing nothing, I’m tired of rhetoric. I think the USA should just shut the f*** up, and let the rest of humanity get on with conquering the space frontier.

  • Anonymous

    @ Major Tom,

    Arguing that the fact that NASA’s budget is roughly comparable to the rest of the world’s civil space budget does not mean that this is a particular sign of commitment on the part of the US. The question is whether or not the US will make a clear enough commitment to space exploration to support a strong and robust program. The fact that we spend as much as other people may

    1) simply reflect that the rest of the world is even less committed than we are, or

    2) that they are more efficient with the resources they have been allocated, or

    3) that they are more focused on a specific set of goals, rather than the broad array of goals that NASA addresses.

    Asserting that our commitment is “enough” or not based on what other countries aren’t doing is a tricky exercise at best. Further, that “commitment” may also be a legislative or programmatic issue (as you note may be possible given the choices NASA has made on which systems to develop), which would be an issue completely aside from funding.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    The report is sober, well written, and lays out the pros and cons of the various options quite well. It also puts Obama in a hard position, with the absolute mandate that another three billion a year has to be found. It will be very hard indeed to pretend to have an exploration program and then underfund it.

  • Mark, I agree. I wonder if the report’s authors intended to put Mr. Obama in that position. And, I wondered before in this venue if Mr. Obama now regrets setting up the commission. It probably would have been much easier to fudge the issue before it was presented in such stark terms.

    That said, I like Ferris’ comment that it could have been starker still.

    (Ferris, I hope your ankle feels better.)

    — Donald

  • Doug Lassiter

    It will be very hard indeed to pretend to have an exploration program and then underfund it.

    Although the previous administration did that quite handily. Well, in all fairness, that WH stopped pretending they had an exploration program fairly quickly. NASA who?

    If a compelling goal for human space exploration can be crafted, and if it is one that Obama can feel comfortable advocating, I suspect that $3B/year could appear. But I think the administration is conscious that the American public has mixed feelings about human space flight, at least as the picture of it is now painted, so he’s going to tread carefully with any compelling goals. To wit, $3B/yr extra in FY11 seems VERY unlikely.

    One wonders what Obama’s next step would be. Throwing lots of money at any thinly studied option seems highly unlikely. Are we looking at an ESAS-II, perhaps, being guided by the Augustine report? Does he just buy some time with a shuttle extension? Moon-or-bust by 2020 is clearly not a driving goal anymore. Actually, if ISS can be freshly spun as “exploration” (a tall order, that one), he could have his cake and eat it too. Just keep doing what we’re doing, but make it look different.

  • Robert Oler

    This report is well written and is the key to the Obama administration ending the misguided attempts to send humans past earth orbit as an Apollo type project. What we are oddly enough going to see is Rick Tumlinson’s “Alpha Town” concept be given a go.

    It is really quite amazing the twist and turns that the space station program has taken.

    Robert

  • RayGun

    Major Tom said
    “Per the committee’s summary report, this country spends as much annually on NASA as all the civil space programs of all the other nations around the world combined. If that’s not a “goddamn commitment”, I don’t know what is.

    The problem is that we repeatedly waste that “potential” fruitlessly pursuing duplicative, hard-to-develop, and unaffordable systems, especially when faster, easier-to-develop, and more affordable options are available.

    One of the major benefits of this committee’s work is that the summary report repeatedly points this problem out. If NASA (and its funders and overseers in the White House and Congress) can actually “commit” to acting on that advice for once (instead of disregarding it as happened with the VSE and Aldridge report), we might see more of the agency’s “potential” (fiscal and otherwise) realized.”

    I agree with this statement 100%. If Mike Griffin would of started working on the Delta IV and Atlas instead of wasting 4 years. The shuttle could retire and we would have no gap. We could afford to go back to the moon by 2020. All with no increase to NASA. Griffin thumbed his nose at the VSE and said its my way or no way. 17 billion dollars a year for the next 11 years should put a man or 4 on the moon. If it can’t we shouldn’t be going.

  • GoSpace

    @Mike

    “Augustine 2 basically leaves where we were after the Augustine 1 report, in other words, except that we’re two decades further down the path to total irrelevence.”

    One difference. At least we still had the Shuttle after Augustine 1 to build our dreams on. Now all we have is a seven year spaceflight gap. I wish it was two decades ago when we still had options other then capsules for replacing the Shuttle.

  • mike shupp

    GoSpace —

    Gently as possible, it never made sense to build dreams on Shuttle. Shuttle was supposed to be a first generation quasi-SSTO vehicle which might last for a decade or so until a revived, revitalized space program in the 1980’s would make a better launch system necessary. It was a kludge, in short, and I think most of us working on it understood that. Nobody back in the 1970’s expected that so crude and simple a system would be sufficient to carry the space program into the second decade of the 21st century.

  • GoSpace

    @Mike,

    Yes, it was a 1st generation system and unfortunately NASA never got to build a 2nd generation Shuttle. That is one of the big tragedies of the last 25 years of space policy. But at least we had a way to send astronauts into space. And a nice big cargo bay and the ability to assemble vehicle in orbit. Pity it wasn’t lunar landers as in this GD study…

    http://www.astronautix.com/craft/earccess.htm

  • pg

    If a compelling goal for human space exploration can be crafted, and if it is one that Obama can feel comfortable advocating, I suspect that $3B/year could appear.

    We should be safe from that, since no compelling goal is going to appear any time in the near future.

    I’m heartened by the commission’s courage in saying that the job can’t be done for what it’s been promised. NASA has a long and very sordid history of vastly over-promising results and under-promising costs until the project is too far along to be comfortably canceled. I just wish they had the courage to say the unsayable: manned spaceflight itself is not worth the trouble.

    It was reasonable to ask in 1961 whether it was worthwhile to send people into space. By 1970 it had been very clearly demonstrated that it wasn’t. To pretend today that we don’t know that is a stunning display of disingenuousness.

    Machines controlled by people on the ground did every job better in every way than machines controlled by people on-site. Machines weigh less, don’t get tired, don’t disturb the platform, don’t breathe, don’t eat, don’t crap, are far less sensitive to radiation, and don’t need to come home. And their relatives don’t sue when something goes wrong.

    If you made up a list of what you actually want to accomplish in space independent of the method of accomplishing them, sending people along to watch would never make the cut. The only reason we continue to stuff meat in a can is to protect the institutional imperatives of Johnson, Marshall, and Kennedy.

    Manned space doesn’t even produce any useful side effects. Because of the risk-averse culture surrounding manned space flight it’s decidedly low tech. There’s not even any meaningful experience gained. Manned spaceflight will only be useful after radical improvements in propulsion allows getting to a planet in a small fraction of the Hohmann transfer time.

  • Robert Oler

    I think the USA should just shut the f*** up, and let the rest of humanity get on with conquering the space frontier. Mike S wrote

    Mike…what makes you think that any one else (ie the rest of humanity) is interested in doing “the space frontier”?

    really there is no frontier to conquer right now. I would argue that “frontier” is not a place so much as it is a “state of civilization”. Where events have gotten to the point where civilization is ready to move from one state of equilibrium to another…ie a lot of things have come together to make that “move” possible.

    Right after WWII it seemed as though airline service was ready for really large airplanes…and manufactors either built or were on the drawing boards to build airplanes that carried passenger compliments the size we take for granted today.

    Problem was that was a “frontier” to far.

    Humanity is going to find that if it is going to ever go to Mars or the Moon, it is going to have to build a space industry that can function and make money in LEO doing “something”…and only then will it be ready for the next frontier.

    Robert

  • GoSpace

    @Robert,

    Yes. We need to forget exploration and Mars and just go back to O’Neil’s model of building space colonies that build SSP for Earth. That should be NASA’s ONLY mission and everything else not linked to it junked so it has the money to actually do it. And then just turn the ISS into a construction shack for the first colony. Or scrap it to and buy some Bigelow habitats for the job.

  • mike shupp

    “Humanity …. is going to have to build a space industry that can function and make money in LEO doing “something”…”

    Well then, our space program is going to be mincemeat, Bob.

    Think about this: Who puts up and owns weather satellites? Governments. Private companies access the data, of course, and repackage it for websites and some other companies with specialized needs, but nobody but governments wants to own or operate a weather satellite.

    Landsats and other earth observational satellites. Governments own these too. The US government has been trying to privatize the Landsat program for over thirty years now, and it has never found a taker.

    GPS satellites. Airliners use GPS, hunters use GPS, the Sheriff’s Office tracks probation offenders via GPS, owners of expensive cars try to protect them from theives with GPS, parents practically track their kids by GPS…. And who owns the GPS satellites? The US government. Does anyone else in the world want to own a GPS system? Oddly enough, the answer is yes — European governments want a European GPS system.

    Satellites to track air pollution and assess global warming and track ocean currents and measure ionosphere levels? All are government owned or at least government funded. Spacecraft running out to Pluto, or rollling along on surface of Mars, or counting sunspots on the Sun? All government again.

    You’ll note not a one of these efforts has made a penny by itself. About the only real space-related business in which privatlely owned hardware features is commercial communications, and I suspect even that is kind of a fluke — if the Kennedy people hadn’t been so eager to hype the coming Space Age, there probably never would have been a ComSat Corporation, and American comsats, like those of most of ther nations, would also be government owned.

    And the result of all this? Here we are more than 50 years into the (actual) space age, and everyone knows that the space industry is stagnant and deserves to go to the wall, because no one is making money in LEO. And never will.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Mike Shupp

    Comm sat industry is making money just fine. I also believe that things like DirecTV is making money.

    Also, I don’t believe its fair to suggest no one is making money on GPS – people are absolutely making money (just look at the various GPS units you can buy) – but there isn’t an individual company who owns the systems, who is making money.

    There is a reason that the Space Foundation report said that the space sector was worth $251 Billion dollars in 2007

    You may think I am picking on you, but the fact is, borrow from our earlier discussion, you have made the classic space supporter mistake – you’ve found the cool technical plan, but haven’t considered the socialogical plan (economics, political support, etc..). And THAT is what we need. You may not feel its fair, and is asking for something on par with FDR’s New Deal – well, the simple fact is without a sociological plan, you don’t get the technical plan.

    The telecon industry is absolutely making money. Companies like Intelsat, and PanAmSat, are successful companies, who have made money.

    Building an industry is the first real, credible plan, I have seen.

    It was quite successful with the airline industry, and we can repeat its success in the space industry

    BTW, sorry to hear about your ankle

  • Robert Oler

    Mike S. Well I dont think that it is quite that grim.

    Governments (and their role) is to do infrastructure and it is, at least in this country right here right now the role of private industry to “make money” off of that infrastructure. You bring up the GPS system..

    The GPS system has paid for itself many times over by the use that private industry has made of the system and the manipulative (and multiplicative) affect that it has had in the American economy. In air traffic control alone the system has more then paid for itself.

    The role of government is to do those things.

    ISSmight be on the brink of translating from “government pork” to infrastructure for private industry. And that is where American tax dollars should be being spent….at least in my opinion.

    There is not in my view a reason to spend any money to send people to (insert place here)

    Robert Oler

  • Robert Oler

    Calspace…I dont know if ONeil colonies OR sps are the future, but they or whatever is wont happen without a private space industry in LEO…oddly enough after decades of bungling we might be on the verge of that.

    It is rather exciting the orders spaceX is getting

    Robert

  • p.g. Machines controlled by people on the ground did every job better in every way than machines controlled by people on-site.

    This, I suppose, is why repairing the HST with astronauts was determined to be both less expensive (using the super-high-cost Shuttle infrastructure, no less!) and have a greater likelyhood of success than any robotic repair. Note that the HST has well-known states, geomitries, and interfaces; it is an ideal target for automated repair. If we can’t even automate that, how are we going to automate, say, finding a fossil on the fractile, infinitely complex, and largely unknown surface of Mars?

    There are things that robots can do, but there are many goals in space that no realistic robot or teleoperated machine in any of our lifetimes is likely to achieve.

    (Please note that, this time, it was not I who started the robots versus humans debate!)

    Mike Landsats and other earth observational satellites. While it is still early days, these, actually, are being commercialized successfully, especially in “socialist” Europe. And, what about Comsats, one of the most profitable industries of our time? And, space tourism is definitely showing (very early) promise. . . .

    Robert It is rather exciting the orders spaceX is getting

    And, that is the understatement of the week. The Europeans, of all people, just purchase one.

    — Donald

  • Robert Oler

    Donald.

    HST was never designed for automated repair or replacement and hence it wasnt going to work all that well. As best I have understood the cost of the Hubble missions it would have been cheaper to launch an “expendable” Hubble then the replacement mission…except the replacement was “free” in the national budget HST is very expensive, as I understand it a KECK can be built in every state of the Union every year for the price of operating Hubble.

    There is a mixture of crewed and uncrewed vehicles but it has far more to do with “the overall picture” rather then the minor picture. I agree that an astronaut can probably do a better job picking out a fossil from a rock (assuming that there are such tings) then a machine…although I also think that a machine can do a better job telling the astronaut where to look.

    We are in my view still heavy into the “machine” land.

    yes spaceX is rather exciting. (grin). Not only from a space standpoint but from a national standpoint, it might be one of the ways we talk ourselves out of this depression.

    Robert

  • Robert HST was never designed for automated repair or replacement and hence it wasnt going to work all that well.

    That should not matter. It is still an extremely well-known object with well-known interfaces; it should be second only to something designed to be repaired as an “easy” repair. There will be many machines in the future that need to be repaired that were not designed for it. Realistically, if we cannot automate repairing HST, there is not a whole lot we can automate.

    as I understand it a KECK can be built in every state of the Union every year for the price of operating Hubble

    Maybe so, but Hubble still manages to have at least the influence in cutting edge astronomy as all the ground-based telescopes put together. Quality and quantity are not synonymous.

    We are in my view still heavy into the “machine” land.

    And, while this is the “majority” opinion, I think it is dead wrong. We’ve done the “easy” stuff (flyby reconnaissance, simple reconnaissance rovers) and therefore somehow concluded that automating the “hard” stuff will be easy. Yet, every time we have tried to automate the hard stuff like complex engineering or science (HST repair, Viking and Pheonix, which respectively we aborted, completely failed to answer the questions asked, and mostlly failed to answer the questions asked in advance), we have failed or partially failed.

    Our experience should not engender confidence, yet somehow it does. That is the very definition of wishful thinking.

    — Donald

  • CharlesHouston

    @mike shupp –

    Hey, we are taking up a collection to get Ferris a Get Well present for his ankle. Could you hop over there and drop it off for us?

    Just kidding, got to interject some humor once in a while.

  • Robert Oler

    Donald. I dont know (grin) that I agree with much of what you wrote.

    “how” a vehicle is designed heavily influences “how” it is maintained. That is true no matter who or what is maintaining it. There is a great deal of difference how the mechanics work on say a B737/300 (or even 200) and a 777. Had Hubble (or the various spook payloads that its heritage is from) been designed for on orbit servicing by machines, they would have been designed quite different. Mostly the “spook” machines are just trashed, because the are right now more expensive to service then to retire.

    I suspect that the only thing keeping Hubble going is politics…and inertia (that might be the same condition said twice). Rumor (and it is only that) is that the USN SOSUS system is maintained fairly “autonmously” ie man tended machines.

    I suspect that we are just starting to scratch the limits of “machines” in space exploration. The military is falling in love with UAV’s to do a wide variety of task (some in human tended mode) but they are not the only ones.

    I bet money that is true in planetary vehicles…besides the cost right now for humans to “go” is so high, robots can do almost everything better on a cost per result basis. It wont be, for instance, humans who answer the question of water at the lunar poles…machines will answer it.

    There are some things humans will always do (just in the dexterity loop) better then machines…but at least for the next couple of decades that will always have to be measured by the cost of humans in space, and right now that measurement tends toward machines. Hubble is after all…a machine.

    Robert

  • Shuttle was supposed to be a first generation quasi-SSTO vehicle

    This is a very strange use of the word “quasi.” I wouldn’t have thought that it could convert SSTO to “two and a half stage vehicle.”

  • Robert: It wont be, for instance, humans who answer the question of water at the lunar poles…machines will answer it.

    That is a very interesting example. If the water is near the surface and easily excessible, or if it happens to be in a state that can be remotely sensed from orbit, than machines might well detect it. But even here, in spite of several missions partially or fully dedicated to this task, they have yet to unambiguously determine that what is being seen is water ice, at least in the public literature (there are hints that unpublished results may be more promising).

    If the material is deeply buried, excruciatingly rare, and highly localized — which may well be likely — than the equation quickly gets a lot more complex. A human being with a few tools can quickly travel over great distances, tackle steep slopes with tallus, dig deep trenches, manage deeper drills, sift vast volumes of material, instantly recognize interesting samples, handle or break the samples on any axis, use instant pattern recognition to select or reject them for further study or return to Earth, et cetera. Most of these tasks can be automated individually, though usually with great difficulty, making them all work together in a smooth search for “ore” is far beyond what is likely to be automated for a long time. Sure it is expensive, but a properly equipped human expedition to one of the lunar poles could probably produce an answer pretty quickly, and then move on to experimenting with utilization and finding other resources — and science, like looking for the fragmentary remains of early terrestrial continents splashed up during the late bombardment, which are certain to be rare and hard-to-find and -extract. Trying to automate all that would quickly get extremely expensive, probably climbing toward or beyond what your human base would cost even at today’s high costs, and, as the HST analysis showed, probably still give you a lower probability of success.

    Once you’ve actually found the water, automating its extraction probably will make sense. Determining whether it exists, where it is, and how to extract it, may well not even on financial grounds, unless we are very lucky.

    — Donald

  • Robert Oler

    Donald. I am not the guy to talk about in “remote sensing” but my impression is that the “machines” are pretty good and that if it can be found by humans “easily” or even at all…it can be found by machines and their sensors far easier…indeed short of simply digging until one finds it, the humans will use machines to look for it…which tells me that the process can be automated a great deal.

    Indeed I think that the “discussion” is far more about “where humans are in the loop”. They are even doing surgery now where most of the “heavy cutting” is done by machines in the body controlled by humans “outside it”.

    None of this of course addresses the cost of having humans “on site”. Right now I cannot see a single thing that is worth having humans on the Moon to do, given the cost that it takes to get and keep them there.

    I am pretty persuaded by Jim Oberg’s argument on this. We have to have a near earth space industry that allows the frontier to be pushed back from near earth to well the Moon.

    Robert Oler

  • Robert: None of this of course addresses the cost of having humans “on site”.

    Okay, without conceeding that small blocks of deeply buried ice are unlikely to be remotely sensed from orbit, how about finding that bit of a terrestrial continent? Unless it is on the surface and big, you won’t be remotely sensing it from orbit or anywhere else. Like a fossil, you have to physically find it. And, that is where humans shine. We don’t automate archaeology or paleontology or most exploratory geology on Earth. What makes anyone think we can do it at far more difficult locations where it is hard to impossible to repair broken machines or correct them if something is wrong (e.g., Phoenix). Sure, it is “cheap” to send a clockwork robot to spend $2 billion and five+ years determening that they probably was standing water on Mars at some undetermined date in the past, but if we spend that kind of money and time for each simple fact, we will be a very long time indeed until we understand much about the Solar System except in the broadest “reconnaissance” sense.

    In every one of your examples, the key word is “routine” or some variation thereon. Unfortunately (or perhaps “fortunately”), truly exploring the planets in a way that will greatly expand our _detailed_ knowledge of their history and any past biology is unlikely to be “routine” any time soon.

    The key advantage of a lunar base is, first, that we can get there relatively easily with today’s technology, and second, that it can turn a number of fields of planetary geology (and even cosmology by, for example, mining deeply buried “fossil regoliths” under the maria for solar and galactic particles and ices; and the formation of life by finding an early terrestrial fossil splashed up during the bombardment) into real experimental sciences with actual samples to work with. That is the kind of science that could revolutionize our understanding, but are not practical to automate.

    — Donald

  • Robert Oler

    Donald

    “The key advantage of a lunar base is, first, that we can get there relatively easily with today’s technology”…..

    that is one of our points of disagreement. I dont think that either getting to the Moon or staying there is “relatively easy” I am very persuaded by Jim Oberg on this. I think that looking at what it is taking to keep the station “going” tells me that the Moon would be several magnitudes harder and much much more expensive.

    Now that might change as the ingenuity of private enterprise is brought to the equation but so far we cannot even recycle the water on the space station all that well, much less figure out how to mine the moon and use those resources.

    Plus and this is I think critical. I dont see the rush to go back to the Moon or go to Mars.

    I do see the rush to grow a space industry in this country (and perhaps world wide but I am mostly interested in the US) which can bring the same multipliers to the infrastructure government builds in space…that government infrastructure gets on earth. The origins of the Moon might be very interesting for instance, but I would far more like to see the start of a microgee manufacturing industry then answer that burning question.

    There might or might not be some form of ‘life’ in the solar system that is not from earth, but right now…that is not the burning issue of our time. The Country is in trouble. It needs new industries to create jobs and to change our way of life.

    Robert Oler

  • Robert: I think that looking at what it is taking to keep the station “going” tells me that the Moon would be several magnitudes harder and much much more expensive.

    I don’t dispute this, though it will be somewhat balanced by the ability to “live off the land” to some degree, which you cannot do (beyond energy) at the ISS. And, it will be fully ballanced (in my opinion) by the extraordinary science that would be possible. I said “relatively easy,” compared to, say, going to Mars’ surface, which isn’t in the cards (in my opinion) at the present time.

    but so far we cannot even recycle the water on the space station all that well,

    Again, I agree, but we wouldn’t be able to do it at all if we hadn’t built a Space Station that requires recycled water, just as there wouldn’t be a COTS if we hadn’t built a SS that needs to be supplied or learned to grow plants in microgravity without a Mir and ISS to do it on. “Doing” drives innovation far more than “studying,” and the water problem will get solved, but only if we maintain bases in space and keep trying. Also, learning makes things cheaper. The last three Apollo missions “only” cost some $3 billion. If we had continued those, amortizing our prior investment, we would be achieving a lot more science at less cost than we do by spending $0.5 – 1 billion each on automated missions like LRO or future robot landers.

    Comparing the $3 billion cost of an incremental Apollo mission to the > 0.5 billion cost of a incremental robotic flight puts things far more in perspective than does the usual comparison of one incremental robotic flights to the entire development cost of relearning to go back to Earth’s moon.

    do see the rush to grow a space industry in this country (and perhaps world wide but I am mostly interested in the US) which can bring the same multipliers to the infrastructure government builds in space

    I agree, but I strongly disagree on how to get there. The ISS is demonstrating through the successful political and possibly economic justifications for COTS that building a base may get you industry, in the same way that building the Highway and Freeway networks enabled and encouraged the private automobile industry in its present vast scale. It is worth noting that, other than adapting ICBMs to launch comsats, commercial space transportation got exactly nowhere until the ISS was built to give it a poltical and commercial market. And, none of these technologies critical to our future in space — e.g., to use your example, water recycling — would have got anywehre without Mir and the ISS (or, lest I be misunderstood, a cheaper base in orbit which would have been just as effective; I think after the loss of Columbia the Shuttle should have been abandoned and the ISS frozen at its current configuration, and supplied with EELVs and something like COTS).

    In exactly the same way, if we want industry to expand out of LEO, we need a lunar base (or something similar) to provide a political and commercial market for it.

    This lesson has been learnt throughout history (e.g., the transcontinental rail road was not built to an empty interior; San Francisco was built first using the transportation available, and the rail road was built to a pre-existing “base.”

    Build a lunar base or some other permanent infrastructure, and industry will come; don’t, and it won’t.

    — Donald

  • Robert Oler

    Donald.

    A few points

    First I dont think that Apollo could have “continued”. Ignore the lack of political will…I am with Oberg that the technology was to frail to do much before we ran into serious trouble.

    The problem with Apollo (and Rand Simberg and Oberg and others have tackled this well) is that it was a “forced” effort which was well beyond not only the political support to sustain it, but also the technological support to do it. 3 billion s launch even if only the incremental cost count is just to expensive for the results we were getting or likely to get from the effort.

    I dont think that the technology is anywhere close to “living” off the land if one is talking about the Moon…

    What happened with Apollo is that space advocates and others got use to single point technical achievements that had little “tail” and that has become the norm. With “the vision” it finally got to far ahead (and to expensive) for the American people.

    As for the station. Very little that government does is cheap and ISS is one of the largest pork projects around (and I am on record in many venues as having oppossed this and some other versions)…but it is the devil we have and I think that events are summing to make some good use of it in developing “the next frontier” which is to my mind “near earth space”.

    Once we get an industry that functions and is self sustaining in that venue (and I am persuaded that it is possible) then at some point we will be ready for the next step…which is the Moon…in the meantime I have no problem with “exploration” by uncrewed vehicles and even some “interesting” voyages of discovery to NEO and the like.

    That keeps the “game afoot” works some interesting technology experiments and gives NASA something to do (albiet at a very reduced infrastructure).

    But I will predict this. When we will go back to the Moon it will be because all the pieces but just a few are already in place…there wont have to be a lot of rocket design or even vehicle design…it will mostly be adaptions of what is already “earning a living” in space. That is when we build a lunar base.

    I am quite hopeful that The Obama administration is going to stumble into something useful in human spaceflight

    Robert Oler

  • We could be back on the Moon by 2016 if we chose the Sidemount-HLV and fully funded the Altair lunar lander starting in 2010. The delays are caused by limits in funding.

  • Mike Shupp

    Robert Oler: “I think that looking at what it is taking to keep the station “going” tells me that the Moon would be several magnitudes harder and much much more expensive. ”

    Likely you’re right, drat it. Assuming we do return to the moon, there seem to be two options: (a) build a small base (“outpost”), or (b) visit a series of different sites, a la Apollo. Apparantly, the Augustine people feel just getting back to the moon is enough of an accomplishment and that we should settle for site visits. Sure as God made little green apples, this is NOT going to be inexpensive, and this is NOT going to lead to local resource utilization, and this is NOT going to teach us anything about long term hababillity in space. It will teach us, all over again, about the marvels of Tang, and sleeping in one’s underware for two weeks, and keeping tabs on how much bottled air is left in the supply chest, for several billion dollars a pop. It’s a scheme devised by people who know — absolutely know — that human beings are never going to “live” in space anymore than scuba divers “live” in oceans. It’s the worst of all possible strategies, so I am just about totally convinced the US government will embrace it with insane glee.

    Ferris Valyn, et al.

    The foot improves. Better a pain in the ankle than a pain in — let’s say I’m sitting comfortably.

  • Robert Oler

    Mike. The worst part of the current plans is as I predicted back in 2004 when the entire thing cranked up…1) its not going anywhere and 2) where it could go is pretty weak.

    There are several things in the “Apollo on steroids” that I dont get…why the “big lander”? unless one is going to “expend” (APOLLO LIKE) everything except what brings the people home (and that is not very inventive) why not use some ‘modest’ lunar lander to go to a lunar “outpost”…and if one is not ready to do a lunar outpost then why go back period?

    there are some other things, I dont want to step on someone’s thunder tomorrow…but the point of it is that innovative thinking is not the product of simply redoing something from the 1960’s that had a limited mission.

    Robert G. Oler

  • We could be back on the Moon by 2016 if we chose the Sidemount-HLV and fully funded the Altair lunar lander starting in 2010. The delays are caused by limits in funding.

    Yes, that’s right. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with NASA’s plans except that we haven’t been shovelling taxpayer money into them fast enough.

  • Robert Oler

    sometime tomorrow everyone should check MSNBC space page…

    Robert Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    “Note that the HST has well-known states, geomitries, and interfaces; it is an ideal target for automated repair.”

    Beg to differ. As did the robotic assessment team that considered such a mission. The well known things about HST are that you’d never design something that way if you wanted to service it robotically. That is very well known. The issue isn’t that robots can do more than humans (though we may well be approaching that capability), but that for jobs that are properly designed, robots (and we’re talking telerobotics here) can do it vastly more cheaply.

    This isn’t about how to best service HST. HST is all done with being serviced. This is how a new generation of science instruments should be designed, being fully cognizant of both autonomous and telerobotic capabilities that we now have and can forsee.

    As has been said very well, we’re all talking about humans doing servicing. The question is where those humans really need to be, and what things (imagers, suit gloves) separate their eyes and their fingers from what they are servicing. To the extent there is autonomy involved, the question includes when those humans have to be in the loop. This flippant characterization of “clockwork” robots is entirely misplaced. You have something against gears? In fact, because of the limited EVA time available, the humans who serviced HST were operating on very strict time schedules. They were watching that clock more than any robot would be. Tick, tick, tick.

  • Doug: This flippant characterization of “clockwork” robots is entirely misplaced. You have something against gears?

    I had decided to let Robert have the last word, but I do want to address this. “Clockwork” is not meant as flippant, and yes, I do have something against gears. One of the key abilities of humans, that is not going to be duplicated anytime soon, is the sheer flexibility of human joints. A geologist (even in awkward first-generation Apollo gloves) can casually hold a rock across a vast range of textures from lose brecias to obsidian, over a wide range of sizes and shapes, quickly rotate it in any direction, break or cut it along any axes, and so on. In spite of many decades of expensive effort, no robot or teleoperated device is anywhere near this kind of efficiency or flexibility. We can barely make artificial hands to pick up objects designed for the hand — which is exactly why automating the repair of Hubble proved improbable.

    More important and even harder to automate is efficient “hand eye coordination:” the ability to use near-instant pattern recognition to monitor and make decisions at every step described above.

    Until robots, or teleoperated devices more-or-less on site or with very short communication times, can do all of that and do it fast, no conceivable robot will find a fossil on Mars except by purest accident. No extant machine could find one on Earth at sites known to be “swimming” with them.

    Then recall, once you have found one fossil, you have to find more to have any hope of understanding an alien biosphere, and finding the second fossil is unlikely to be much easier than finding the first.

    Do we want to know whether there was an ancient biosphere on Mars and what it was like, or not? It is barely conceivable we could indirectly find an extant biosphere, but understanding the history of life on Mars cannot be automated with any foreseeable machines. It is okay to say we can’t afford to answer this question, so we will not know until that changes, but our scientific community has defined the search for life on Mars as one of its key goals. To pretend that the billions we are spending now are ever going to provide answers about Martian life is, quite simply, dishonest, not to mention largely a waste if that is your reason for spending it.

    Yes, any extant machine or machine conceivable with foreseeable technology, is a “clockwork device,” at best. It is pretending otherwise that I object to.

    — Donald

  • Robert Oler

    Donald. two points

    First I think that robots (or what I refer to as “human manipulation devices” are far more effective then you are giving them credit for. As I noted they are doing heart surgery now with robots being manipulated from “outside the body” by surgeons doing things that the surgeons would have had to have used tools to do anyway and in an earlier time been far more invasive.

    The Army is using “human manipulation devices” to defuse quite complicated bombs, doing just about everything a bomb disposal person could do, they just do it from the safety of the “trailer”.

    Almost all industries have gone through such “learning curves” when it comes to the appropriate place for humans to input “knowledge” (which is what humans at least for the foreseable future) do best. In airplanes there is a vast difference in how a pilot would manipulate a 737 200 or a 737 800…even though the later is not a fly by wire.

    The issue is as I see it is “where do the humans” interact with the machines.

    Second. I am not in a position to dispute your claims about looking for Martian life.

    I just dont think at this stage of the world it is that important. Indeed I think that the entire “there may be life on (Mars/Europa/Titan/who knows where)” argument is one that is a pretty lousy basis to base anytype of spending on.

    That is probably very important to you, and I have some interest in it, but it is not all that relevant to whether we go “there” or do not. I dont think that if we found microbial life “anywhere” in the solar system…it would change people’s view of space flight.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert, the search for life does appear to be very important to the planetary science community (far more so than to me, actually; I’m more interested in expanding “our” life out there). It is usually / often reason one given for their expensive activities.

    — Donald

  • Robert Oler

    Donald. this is I think where the discussion gets really interesting (and quite profitable).

    In reality “space” is no different then say the oceans (or at least the continental shelves)…in terms of people who want to “live there” or more importantly could actually “live there”…ie it is a small set. And it gets even smaller when one figures out “what do I do to make a living” there aka there being either place.

    The American west is frequently used as a model of how space could be settled…many years ago something called the “Turner” Thesis (I think Zubrin had a go at this) was making the rounds about why space was important. I even used it in a couple of Space News Op Eds…but on reflection IF it applies (and I am not for sure it does) then we are in my view a long way from that happening in Space because in my view we are a long way from people with “ordinary skills” going there.

    The closest we have to “space stations” for the masses are oil rigs (ignore nuclear submarines they are DoD related). People “live” on oil rigs but only as a function of their job…and that function is in almost all respects focused on energy provision (even the cooks). There is no group “immigrating” to old oil rigs to set up shop on the Continental Shelf (or off it) …and there are a lot of old rigs that this could be done on…

    why ? There are no jobs.

    I see the same forces will be at work in space for human flight.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert, I like your model (which, as you know, I’ve used myself), but you do not extend it far enough. If you are going to compare “space” with “the oceans,” neither is (necessarily) a destination to be lieved in. They are mediums to be traversed. You are correct, humanity did not colonize the oceans, so far at least. What we did do was spend 10,000 years learning to easily traverse the oceans, as a medium to more easily reach continents, and to colonize a large number of islands. In the same way, we will use “space” as a medium to get to planets and asteroids, where there are likely to be many jobs.

    Here’s one. You said earlier that we would not be “living off the land” on Earth’s moon anytime soon, but I beg to differ. Oxygen is the single heaviest item needed in quantity anywhere and for anything in space (for breathing, water, oxidizing rocket fuel, et cetera), and it is readily available on the moon and probably easily extracted from the soil — no polar water needed. Why lift this heavy stuff from Earth if you can find it on the moon and / or nearby asteroids? To this degree, whoever does more than a quick visit to the moon (and, maybe in the future, even those) will be “living off the land”

    We don’t “live off the land” in San Francisco or New York City today. Just about everything but air gets imported. Hell, we in this country manufacture almost nothing useful, yet (at least until last a year ago) we managed to scam our way to a high standard of living with “services.” Thus, even living off the land is not a requirement, it just makes things a lot cheaper.

    The real point, though, is that you don’t learn to live off the land by studying it alone. You learn by establishing a lunar base and trying things out — just like we are doing with the ISS where we are learning how to recycle water (your example), grow plants, and establish commercial transportation — and even trade, since that is exactly what the tourists are, an industry that would not exist save for the government investment in the ISS and that may well have a great (in every sense of the word) future.

    To go anywhere beyond Earth orbit, first and foremost, we need a base beyond Earth orbit. That drives everything else — unless you are going to posit a complete break with history and what has worked in the past.

    — Donald

  • Russell

    Robert G. Oler: “sometime tomorrow everyone should check MSNBC space page…”

    What “thunder” are you talking about? I guess I missed the lightening on MSNBC.com as well. :-)

  • Robert Oler

    Donald. The problem with “space” and the “ocean” are methods to get to actual places…is that the more on Earth actual places look less like where people live, the less people live there.

    There is little or no mass movement to Antarctica for all intents and purposes it might as well be the URSA/MARS rig complex that Shell has off the coast of LA. Yet it is a 100 or so more times easier to live at then say The Moon …and I bet that there is a lot more there which can be used by the rest of humanity.

    Now I think/know that there are resources on the Moon which some America can at some point in history “use” but right now I dont see a one that this America can use…which would be anywhere worth the cost.

    If Space Exploration were somewhere “in cost” near what it cost to keep Americans (and others) at the South Pole we would have a pretty solid base on the Moon…we are some distance from that.

    I dont see a “base” on the Moon until transportation cost really come down…and I dont see that happening until ISS transport is commercialized and that commercialization spreads to other venues of space flight (like Comm satellites)…once that happens I see a “modest” base (kind of another ISS) which might start the cycle over again.

    The irony of ISS (mainly for right wingers) is that While Ronald Reagan (who I just admire the heck out of) might have started it, Bill Clinton gave it a reason for the Pork spending…and that might be the lever to get us a space industry.

    As an aside I would note this. Everyone who tells me (and this is not aimed at you…we are having a delightful conversation) that they want to “live in space” I say “go join the Navy and see how you do eight months at sea”

    Most people who want to “live in space” really dont

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert Oler

    Russell. The piece I am referring to comes out (as I understand it now) coincident with the shuttle landing. It is a very interesting piece on exploration (and it is not mine)…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    “yes, I do have something against gears”

    That’s a pity. I have some real trouble with what appears to be an assertion that a teleoperated “hand” can’t turn over a rock. I guess that would mean that a geologist with limited use of his or her hands because of arthritis should not be funded to do field research, nor trusted to find seashells? No, that can’t be right.

    This can’t an argument about dexterity. We can make astonishingly dextrous, precise and powerful remote manipulators, and we can put them on Mars for a fraction of the cost of a human being. That capability is actually quite good, and it’s only going to get better. Nor can the argument be about teleoperation in general. Such a robot is just a tool. Nothing more. When I sit in my car and drive it down the street, I’m operating a robot tool, and that operation relies on eye-wheel coordination done from a several yard-long physical linkage. No big deal that I’m not pushing the tires by hand.

    What this is about is latency time — the fact that teleoperation from the Earth to Mars takes several tens of minutes and, mainly because of attention span, the human brain doesn’t work particularly well on a timescale that long. Technology advances are unlikely to be able to do anything about either that, or the speed of light. So for that reason, and until we can make robotic explorers that are largely autonomous, I wholeheartedly agree that having humans close by is important. Just that they don’t have to be on site. Concepts that have been floated about having humans on Phobos controlling surveyor robots on the Martian surface are thus very attractive. The feasibility and cost of such a mission for the purpose of finding life would likely be very much better than putting people directly on the Martian surface.

    The marine science people have crossed this bridge already. Most ocean floor research is now done telerobotically, with controllers on the surface. That’s a perfect parallel to a control station on Phobos. Alvin, and similar human- transporting submersibles have done wonderful work, but they are now largely understood by the marine science community as not being particularly cost effective. Yes, scientists are getting very enthused about telerobotics for venues that are swimming in targets.

    Can humans on site do better science than humans not on site but with low latency connections? Not completely clear. Robotic extensions of nearby scientists can, in principle, work 24/7, and can be operated in a wholly participatory manner with an array of sensors that are vastly more capable than the human eye. Can a human on Mars do more in a day than Spirit could do in a month? Sure, but that’s a strawman case with a primitive robot being operated with huge latency. A human on Mars would be hard pressed to do anything like what Spirit AND Opportunity could do, if just that we can easily afford to put such robotic craft on opposite sides of the planet.

    It all depends what he goal is. If the goal is to colonize Mars, well, landing people on Mars is pretty much what you have to do! If the goal is looking for life (present or ancient) there, and to do it in the most economical way, telerobotics is hands-down the best way to go, though ideally with low latency. From a science perspective, at least, gear-phobia doesn’t get one anywhere.

    “To pretend that the billions we are spending now are ever going to provide answers about Martian life is, quite simply, dishonest, not to mention largely a waste if that is your reason for spending it.”

    Quite probably wrong. But of course you’re comparing the billions we’re spending now with the hundreds of billions we’d be spending to put people there. A more honest comparison would consider what one could do telerobotically with hundreds of billions of dollars at ones disposal.

    To relate this back to the subject of the thread, the issue that has to be defined
    is exactly what we’re trying to do with the human spaceflight program. Where is the trajectory supposed to be pointing? If what we’re trying to do is find life on Mars, that points one in a different direction than if we’re trying to colonize Mars.

  • Chance

    “We don’t automate archaeology or paleontology or most exploratory geology on Earth.”

    Not that old chestnut again. The reason we don’t automate those functions is because it doesn’t cost several hundred million dollars to send a geologist and his or her grad students to an interesting site. If it did, and it cost a fraction of that to send a robot, (even one with lesser capabilities), that’s what every university would be doing instead. As mentioned above, that’s basically what has been happening in Marine Science over the last decade.

    “A geologist can casually hold a rock…quickly rotate it in any direction, break or cut it along any axes, and so on. In spite of many decades of expensive effort, no robot or teleoperated device is anywhere near this kind of efficiency or flexibility.”

    Flatly wrong. Here’s proof: http://boingboing.net/2009/08/29/lightning-fast-robot.html

    More proof. http://www.shadowrobot.com/hand/videos.shtml

    And apparently NASA doesn’t thinks they have potential: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119706&page=1

  • Chance

    Oops: should read “does think they have potential”.

  • Mike Shupp

    Robert and others —

    I’ve always been a tad cynical about space colonization as an outgrowth of purely commercial interests, but I’m being to be more cheerful about the prospects for colonization as lebensraum. Granted life in a colony might be uncomfortable at first, but the freedom to grow and expand in a community of like-minded individuals might come to seem very precious, well worth a few inconveniences. Surely we can find a few brave libertarians willing to virtually enslave themselves on Mars if Republicans and Democrats can be kept 35 million miles away, stout hearted British yeomen who want to get away from Jamaican and Palistani yeomen, Frenchmen who have tried of Arabs and Germans and ECU bureaucracts, ECU bureaucrats who’d like to build a better community “for all” from scratch without unruly Frenchmen, Moslems who want tall walls of distance between them and the failed secular Western world, Chinese eager to build and fill ricebowls in forever open lands ….

    Maybe that’s the dream of the future? A million gated communities? Kind of hard to sell as a “national” space program, I admit.

  • Robert Oler

    Mike. sadly I doubt (even though I am planning to live another oh 50 years or so) that anyone over 10 will see any real large “colonization” take place in space…but I would be curious to see what it looked like (and heck even participate in it to some extent).

    My guess however is that it looks more like life on a Flattop or oil rig then Waldon’s pond. I just hope that it doesnt end up looking like Alien (at least in how “life is” on a space platform).

    On a oil rig individuality is cherished as long as 1) it doesnt interfere with the job and 2) anyone elses individuality…and then its nailed down pretty fast. Its been “years” but I spent two weeks on MARS (the Mars of Mars/URSA large shell oil platforms). These are mostly Louisiana (south la) folks they all were a little “eccentric” (of course they all did very difficult things on the rigs…but well it reminded me of what life was pictured as on the oil rig in Abyss. (before the crane fell on the rig and the other folks went nuts…and the Alien came…)

    Robert G. Oler

  • Mike Shupp

    Robert —

    I did some thinking about this once, for a novel that didn’t get far alas, and found myself wondering just what the social structure of some far future planetary or extrasolar community ought to look like. And I came to the conclusion human beings were going to be a bit thin on the ground, because we no long need large numbers of humans to support civilization. (Think of Isaac Asimov’s novels using Solaria as an environment, but with imbedded microprocessors all over the place rather than human-like robots).

    Think of medievel France or England — “countries” with three million people — 2,950,000 of them peasants occupied by producing food, most of which they consumed themselves. We aren’t going to duplicate this type of society in space. We won’t use peasant farmers. We won’t use “industrial armies” for routine factory work. We won’t be using herds of lowly paid immigrants to mow our yards and clean our houses. With any luck, we won’t employ legions of social workers and prison guards and drug addiction counselors and school crossing guards and hospital orderlies washing out bedpans and …. and much more. Partially because our manufacturing techniques will have changed, partially because robot devices can replace most peon labor, partially because various social pathologies we take for granted on earth aren’t likely to last for long in colonies.

    My suspicion is that a world of say 10-30 million people, with most people gainfully employed in white collar or artistic/literary endeavors from say the age of 20 to 90, with “old age” beginning at say 100, would probably regard itself as fully populated. It would probably crank out as many novels or computer games or decent films or cathedrals or champion sprinters or pantyless film starlets as our own, rest easier on the environment, and generally offer what you and I would think of as a very comfortable life.

    Oh sure, even in Eden, people will find things to complain of, and serpents can appear on the damndest apple trees. But I think people will arrange a better life for themselves EVENTUALLY then they do now on oil rigs or in small Ohio towns in my youth.

  • Robert Oler

    Mike. One of the joys of my youth was knowing my great grandmother…who had helped settle west texas (think Lonesome Dove)…what I didnt understand then, but in middle age now fully grasp is that predicting what life will be “like” 30 years from now is going to be as hard as predicting 30 years ago what life would be like now…and we cannot even imagine really what life was like 200 years ago all our frames of reference are simply wrong. TV tries to depict that life, but mostly does it in frames (and female hair dos grin) that we are comfortable with.

    What life off earth for folks who never return to earth to live…will be in my view hard to predict. Everything is different. You just dont “pop outside” and on the Moon the scenary seems rather bland and similar…

    When my Great Grandmother was 30is they simply didnt have the resources to tolerate crime…and a lot of innocent people probably got axed in the rush to shut it down there is a series which I bet is kind of close..Deadwood…

    On the other hand while we might kind of have some issues with corpses being feed to pigs and the kind of “rough justice” of the frontier (and a lot of people who claim that they would love that life today really couldnt hack it) it was the life that they lived and I doubt a lot of them sat around saying “wow I can hardly wait until things get better”.

    I have as time as marched on come to view three accepted realities of American culture as really myths of politics.

    The first is the “core family”…mom/pop kids toughing it out on the prairie…the second is “rugged self reliance” and the third is the sort of “god fearing” legend of the west.

    The more I read and study (and get older) the more I think that people are about the same from one generation to the next AND are more shapped by the currents which govern the functioning of society …so in short my theory is that the rigors of life “off earth” will shape the character of the society more then anything else…

    Robert G. Oler

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