Space Exploration

Alternate ISS, rendered in Skybase; click for larger version

Space, the final frontier...

One of my earliest memories was from the Summer of 1969, when I was just over two years old. I was in the living room of a tiny apartment in Cortland, New York, with my parents, watching Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. take the first human steps on the moon. I remember the television picture being fuzzy, the sound being choppy, and (given my tender age) having absolutely no idea what was going on. All I could see was two guys in funny white suits climbing down a strange ladder, and walking and jumping around on some dusty field in the middle of the night. But my parents sat me down in front of the TV anyway, because they wanted me to be able to say that I watched the first manned landing on the moon.

I wasn't old enough to understand that I was watching something happen 250,000 miles away. That dusty field was the Sea of Tranquility, and those two guys in funny white suits were the first humans to ever walk on the moon, something that until that day had been the stuff of science fiction stories. Some day, my parents thought, I would understand. They were right.

Today I am a supporter of space exploration, both manned and unmanned. Traveling to other worlds can fire the imagination. I believe that one day humanity will travel between the planets with ease. Some day we may even be able to travel between the stars. Space exploration has proven itself as a forum for scientific growth. It can also fuel the inherent human need for adventure, and the need to go a little further. On a more practical note, space exploration can also provide a means of economic growth. Hundreds of consumer products have been derived from space technology, while the moon, planets, and asteroids may hold enough mineral wealth to satisfy even the most ambitious mining tycoon.

There is literally a universe of possibility up there. So, what are we waiting for?

A lot of things.

Time to rant and rave!

I may be a supporter of space exploration, but my current view on the matter is rather jaded. Space exploration is very expensive, and exceedingly dangerous. For proof of the former, just look at the budget sheet for the International Space Station project. For proof of the later, just ask family members of the Challenger, Columbia, Apollo 1, or Salyut 1 crews.

International Space Station Atlantis, a Columbia class Space Shuttle
Impressive, overhyped, and overpriced

  1. The first thing we need is better budgeting. The Space Shuttle and the International Space Station programs are riddled with pork-barrel funding practices that cause them to go over budget: Way over budget, as in 130 percent and rising.
    2. Obviously that can't continue, but the institutional inertia of NASA and it's counterparts around the world make reforms very difficult to implement. To make matters worse, a lot of these large cost overruns are tied to inefficient and often unreliable technology. The continued use of this technology stems from political concerns, not technical or scientific ones. Which brings me to...
  2. A change in the political climate. Did you know that NASA wanted to phase out the Space Shuttle in the mid 1990's, and replace it with a more modern vehicle? The Space Shuttle is very expensive and inefficient to operate. Each launch costs about $500 million, which is much higher than the original design specifications predicted. NASA, wanting a more efficient budget (see above), wanted to introduce a launch system that was less expensive (same results for less cost) and/or more efficient (same cost with better results). Numerous projects have been proposed, and many of them have had very innovative ideas. Considerable research has been put into the development of new launch vehicles, but none of them have come through. There is a strong lobby to keep the shuttle running simply because it is so expensive. A lot of people make a lot of money keeping the shuttle running, and they are going to do everything they can to make sure it keeps flying, no matter what. All of NASA's attempts to get a new vehicle running have been stopped by what I call the "shuttle lobby." Many astronauts call the Columbia-class space shuttle The Flying Brick. It's also a flying pork barrel, and that's where the political climate has to change. Pork barrel projects are, sadly, part of most government operations. Once they are in place, they are very difficult to uproot, and even more difficult to stop.
  3. A change in how people view space exploration.
    "Space exploration is fine, so long as I don’t have to pay for it!"
    This is probably the most difficult problem facing space exploration today. Simply put, the average American doesn't want a single penny of their tax money going to space exploration, and it's not hard to understand why. From the perspective of the average guy-on-the-street, the space program hasn't done anything practical or even interesting since the Apollo program put Americans on the moon, brought back moon rocks, converted them into rotten eggs, and hurled them at the Soviets. For most people, the most newsworthy thing the Space Shuttles have ever done is blow up. Add to this an ongoing series of budget problems, revelations of mismanagement by NASA program directors and contractors, a national space agency riddled with beaurocratic inertia, and crossed political motives at every step of the game. The end result should come as no surprise: the average American doesn't give a damn about space exploration. The average American has more immediate concerns, like the lingering threat of another September Eleventh, the possible use of nuclear or chemical weapons in the Middle East, the unstable tightrope that is holding the world's economy, the disturbing surge of reckless American adventuring in foreign affairs, putting food on the table, keeping a roof over their heads, and keeping clothing on their backs. When stacked against the queue of social, political and economic issues that are facing the world right now, something as seemingly frivolous and trivial as space exploration doesn't even place.

    I can't speak for the citizens of the European Union, Japan, or Russia, but I'm willing to bet that they have similar feelings on this matter.

    Many folks like to talk about the possibilities of space travel, but when it comes time to allocate funds or other resources to it, they start backpedaling. A lot of space activists try to bring space exploration to the forefront of the national agenda. Based on what I've observed in the political hotbed of Washington, DC, that will never happen. Furthermore, NASA and the rest of the national space agencies, collectively, have very poor publicity departments. If they could do some decent marketing, and show the general public how space exploration really can benefit the average person on the street, public opinion might begin to change.

If humanity is ever to move beyond this rock, all of this will somehow have to change.

These situations tend to feed one another, which makes finding solutions even more difficult. There are many very effective arguments that demonstrate how space exploration can help solve the problems facing the world today, and speaking only for myself, I think that's true. World hunger, poverty, stagnation in technology, economic imballances, and shortfalls of useable resources, can all be aleviated, perhaps even solved, by the various resources that are available in space. Space farms, space cities, factories on the moon, and mining the asteroid field, to name a few, could all help alleviate problems that currently exist on Earth. However, most of those solutions require a fairly extensive space-based infrastructure, far beyond anything that any government program is planning at present. The International Space Station doesn't even scratch the surface of what would be needed, and may in fact be a detriment.

If the space development programs of the 1970's had been allowed to continue, then the needed infrastructure to exploit space would largely be in place by now, and the options of using space to help conditions on Earth would be available today. But, those projects did not continue, and the infrastructure does not exist. Building such an infrastructure would require a lot of work, time, and resources to implement. The results would be spectacular and ultimately beneficial to everyone on earth, but it won't happen overnight, and the up-front costs will be very high. Selling this to a skeptical public would prove very difficult, and given the current global situation, is probably impossible.

For every compelling argument in favor of space development there is an equal and often more compelling argument against it, and currently those arguments are winning. The current system of space development relies on government co-operation, and during the last three decades, governments all over the world have become pre-occupied with other, more urgant and more immediate socio-political concerns. These concerns are likely to keep the world's political machines occupied indefinately. They don't have the time or the resources to truly explore and develop space, and it would probably require a Lucifer's Hammer scenario to change that.

NASA put a shuttle into orbit in 2005, and plans to do so again in 2006, but the flying brick's design flaws are still causing trouble. There is still hope of finishing the International Space Station by 2009, even though interest in it has all but dried up. These are all part of President Bush's ambitious space initiative, but the chances of the shuttle getting overhauled or of the station being completed are actually very small. Bush's space plan is totally unrealistic and will probably amount to nothing. A more likely outcome is that the shuttle fleet will be permanently grounded, the International Space Station will eventually burn up in the atmosphere, and NASA will fade into obscurity. Government space programs, at least in the short run, are not the answer.

Currently, the best option for space development lies in individuals, and groups of individuals, who have taken matters into their own hands. Scaled Composites, a private aerospace firm, recently developed a prototype rocket plane called Space Ship One. This rocket plane is launched from a special high altitude airplane called The White Knight. The idea is a simple one that dates back to the 1950's: the airplane carries the space capsule to a high altitude and releases it, where the rocket engines on the capsule push it into a suborbital trajectory. Many of the early X projects, like the X-15, used a system like this. The Pegasus XL booster, a small, unmanned payload carrier widely used by the Navy and Air Force, uses a variation of this concept. Even the original designs of the Space Shuttle used a system like this!

White Knight with Space Ship One

Burt Rutan, the chief executive officer of Scaled Composites, first gained media attention with his Voyager airplane, which circumnavigated the globe on one tank of fuel. He also worked with NASA (and its contractors) on several projects, including the construction of new launch vehicles. It was the continual cancellation of these projects that inspired his company to "go solo" and develop the White Knight. Scaled Composites plans to initiate a non-government funded, manned space program for the private sector. On June 21 of 2004, White Knight and Space Ship One successfully launched a man into space, and less than two weeks later, won the X-Prize. It remains to be seen what effect, if any, Space Ship One has on spacecraft development, but the early results are encouraging.

On a related front, hotel tycoon Robert Bigelow is offering a large monetary prize to the first firm that can loft a privately produced and financed orbital platform. His target market is space tourism, which could become a very lucrative market if any of the X-Prize projects are successful. If Bigelow's challenge ultimately results in an orbiting space hotel, then further space development shouldn't be far behind. Many agree that the largest obsticles to space development are 1) finding a reliable and relatively inexpensive to reach orbit, and 2) making it possible for people to live and work in space for long periods of time. Space tourism may be able to overcome both of these obsticles.

Burt Rutan is an example of an individual who has taken the matter of space development into his own hands. He drew up a workable plan of action, and is following through on it, without relying on NASA or ESA. Robert Bigelow's challenge should encourage others to follow Rutan's example, and come up with new plans to reach further and higher. If enough of these private programs succeed, then public opinion about space exploration may begin to improve. When that happens, the cycle I described above should start to break down. It is unlikely that any private organization, or even a group of organizations, will ever be able to attempt something as massive as an interplanetary mission or a large-scale space habitat. Projects on that scale will still require several governments working in tandem. Right now, that isn't likely to happen. But if private industry is able to change the public perception of space development, then one day, perhaps it will happen.

Now that I'm (mostly) finished ranting, here are some space exploration links.

National Space Agencies

Companies Resources for News

In addition to news that can be found at company and agency web sites, these sites provide space related news in nice, easy payloads.

Organizations

Before you start browsing these sites, be warned: a lot of people in the space community are obsessed, and their web sites reflect that. Don't be surprised if these sites are filled with fiery (and impractical) rhetoric, coupled with apocalyptic predictions. They may have good ideas, but they tend to be full of themselves. Look at their ideas and dreams, but don't send them any of your money, and take what they say with a grain of salt.

For an explanation of why I recommend guarding your wallet, I suggest two articles by John Carter McKnight, which appeared in SpaceDaily: The Blue Pill Choice, and Smells Like Teen Spirit. McKnight explains the frivolity of their views far better than I ever could.

As a closing note, I mentioned that one of my earliest memories is of the first moon landing, which happened near the beginning of my life. I used to dream that before the end of my life I would see a human walking on Mars. That isn't likely to happen. There have been proposals for a manned mission to Mars since the mid 1980's, but none of them have received serious attention. It will probably be a least a decade before the idea of even returning to the moon is taken seriously, never mind going to Mars. The timetable for the exploration of space will be measured in decades, perhaps even centuries.

Many of the people who currently advocate space exploration tend to want the future for themselves. They want to personally walk on other planets and see humanity reach for the stars. And they don't want this to come about at some far away point in the future. They want this to happen today, or at least within the lifespan of the current generation. The cold truth of the matter is that the current generation isn't likely to live long enough to realize these dreams. It's possible that the current generation will see a human walk on Mars, and perhaps see manned missions to other planets in the solar system. But that's about as far as we'll get on a fifty-year timetable. The future they advocate belongs to the very young, and those who haven't been born yet. For the current generation to try and seize the future would be exceedingly selfish; they aren't going to live long enough to see it. But, to lay the groundwork for the future, and perhaps begin to build it, would be very noble.

I used to want the future for myself, but the future doesn't belong to me. By the time a human walks on Mars, I fully expect to be well planted under six feet of soil. But perhaps my daughter, or one of her children, will watch a fuzzy broadcast of a man in a funny white suit walking around on a barren, dusty red field on the edge of Serina Planium. I'm going to try and do what I can to make sure they do see such a broadcast.

Even if they aren't yet old enough to understand it.

For some of my additional thoughts on this issue, check out my essay Moving to the Stars. My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that space research should focus on solving problems of the hear and now, and stay focused on the hear and now, because the here and now is what most people are concerned about. The long term future, and the grand plans in includes, will have to wait until the world is more stable.

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Last Updated: 11/8/2009