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Leonard David looks at how others are looking at the OSP program: Defining, Designing and Defending NASA’s Post-Shuttle Spacecraft

Posted on November 22nd, 2003 under Space Technology. Comments Off

The HoustonChronicle is reporting that, in the new NASA policy under consideration, everybody wins. We get Moon missions. We get Mars missions. We get Orbital Space Planes Which Are Really Capsules. We get jumbo cargo rockets. The whole space enchilada.

Hmm. Right. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Posted on November 19th, 2003 under Space Policy. Comments: 2

Beagle 2 is Going To Mars For Christmas

Posted on November 17th, 2003 under Space Science. Comments: 1

I had an interesting conversation with a coworker about an interview he saw with actor Christopher Reeve this past week. I didn’t see the interview myself, but apparently he took a poke at the American scientific establisment for no longer producing anything useful — in effect, for increasingly focusing on pure science rather than practical applications. His conclusion was that America will not be able to maintain technological leadership in the future, because we have lost the motivation to develop new technologies while other countries are moving ahead in this direction.

This dovetailed with something astronaut Bonnie Dunbar talked about in a presentation to the Houston Mars Society last week: China and India have been producing more engineering graduates over the past decade or so than the United States (even adjusting for population). This suggests a tortoise-and-hare situation, in which these countries (through sheer force of numbers) may overtake us in technological leadership.

It also fits with what many space advocates bemoan with regard to NASA’s mission — the agency justifies its activities and projects primarily on the basis of science for science’s sake, and takes a dim view of applications of that science in what it regards as its exclusive domain. For instance, NASA is happy to spend billions of dollars building a laboratory in space where they can study the medical effects of prolonged spaceflight, but is loath to actually plan and propose any mission where that science might actually come into use. This same mindset, in more subtle form, underlies the strenuous objection to space tourists visiting the station — it’s perfectly acceptable to send “scientist-astronauts” of dubious scientific value into space on the Shuttle (or to ISS via Soyuz), but sending tourists along on Shuttle flights is unthinkable and sending them to ISS is strongly frowned upon, as if it somehow sullies the purity of the image of astronauts and NASA projects as being science-focused and above such banal, real-world interests as entertainment and enjoyment.

Granted, this is partly motivated by the instinct of all bureaucracies to protect their turf, but to my eye this is drowned out by the ivory-tower scientist’s elitist disdain for applied versus “pure” science. Such a view echoes the “mind-body” problem: science is of the mind, and thus pure, while technology is of the flesh, and thus corrupt.

And while I’m taking a poke here at NASA, it is only to illustrate a mindset which has infected society in a wide variety of fields. For example, it’s more “respectable” to study economics than to be an entrepreneur, to map the genome than to modify it, and to produce hairsplitting critiques of literature than to actually write it.

It used to be the case that America valued the application of science as much as (or perhaps a bit more than) the expansion of it. Nowadays, I wonder if we have the same level of willingness to get our hands dirty with practical applications. This is one reason why, despite my attitude towards NASA and government vs. private programs, I support establishing manned missions to the Moon or Mars as the agency’s new long-term focus, and allowing increased private involvement in NASA activities generally. Such a shift in the agency could shift with it the Wissenschaft über alles attitude, and thereby open up the door to space as a realm for everyday human activities instead of an elite laboratory for pure science.

Posted on November 16th, 2003 under Space Policy. Comments: 4

Okay, so I’m probably the last to see this, but man, that’s just plain weird.

Posted on November 14th, 2003 under Space Science. Comments: 3

Things are looking even less good for Nozomi. At least it’ll finally get to Mars, one way or the other.

Posted on November 13th, 2003 under Space Science. Comments Off

If Keith is right, and Mars is off the table, and the President ends up choosing the Moon as a destination for NASA’s long-term efforts, what happens then to the Mars Society?

Should the Moon be chosen, it would effectively guarantee that no manned missions to Mars would occur within at minimum the time frame envisioned for the new lunar undertaking (at least not US missions, run by NASA…private, foreign, or multinational missions to Mars are another matter). If so, the Mars Society would seem to have little to do — no amount of letter writing will convince Congress to fund a mission to Mars until after the lunar enterprise (whatever it may be) is completed/in operation, which could take a decade or more. Will the organization remain viable for that long, with members and potential members knowing full well that no matter how much time or money they contribute, no such mission will materialize until some finite and not-soon point in the future?

One purpose of the organization is to develop technology and experience — a knowledge base — which will be useful if and when someone decides to mount a manned mission to Mars. Even absent any near-term possibility for such a mission, the organization can continue along this path, and can benefit substantially from experience gained from a return to the Moon (imagine a “Mars Crisium Research Station”). Indeed, the Mars Society may need to shift its primary focus to this sort of activity, becoming less a grassroots body and more like, say, SAE — sponsoring projects for young engineers, developing industry standards, performing practical research and development, etc.

The problem with this path is that it’s hard to see such an organization getting the kind of support it would require to be effective. There is a great deal of public interest in the ongoing robotic exploration efforts, and beyond the flotilla currently approaching Mars there are several other missions in planning and preparation, which will periodically refresh this interest for some years to come. But is this interest enough for a modified Mars Society to gather enough money and members to survive and make a successful transition to this new form?

The sense of power and the faith in the future which sustain a mass movement would both be undermined, in the case of the Mars Society, by the decision to return to the Moon. Faith in the future would be shaken, paradoxically, by knowing just how far in the future the goal of the organization might be — it’s one thing to think it might take us twenty years to get to Mars, but another matter entirely to know for a fact that it will be at least that long before such an undertaking can even be considered. The sense of power would be dramatically weakened by the knowledge that no amount of letter writing or editorializing or political outreach could change the immutable fact that we were going to the Moon first — that all such efforts would be impotent and wasted given the clear, fixed priorities of those whose support would be required to send humans to Mars.

Hopefully someone in the Mars Society is thinking about this, and formulating some sort of contingency plan in case the President does decide to go for the Moon.

Posted on November 12th, 2003 under Mars Society. Comments: 6

Keith Cowing writes that the new destination for NASA is unlikely to be Mars.

Mars would certainly be nice, but hey, the Moon makes a fine consolation prize.

Posted on November 12th, 2003 under Space Policy. Comments Off

…through Sunday. Posting/commenting will be light to nonexistent.

Though, I may run into some of you in Houston tomorrow evening…

Posted on November 5th, 2003 under Uncategorized. Comments Off