“You Just Don’t Fisk Me Like You Used To…”

It’s been a while since MarsBlog’s luddite punching bag Bruce Gagnon gurgled up something worthy of a fisking, but here he is doing his best to make up for lost time.

Recent news brings us the story of ?space pioneers? launching privately funded craft into the heavens. A special prize is offered to the first private aerospace corporation who can successfully take a pilot and a ?space tourist? into orbit.

This first paragraph, despite its brevity, is a cleverly-worded opener which sets the tone for the rest of the article. Let’s deconstruct:

• The phraseology is selected to convey condescension towards space entrepreneurs. “Story” is chosen to suggest that the notion of “space pioneers” is something from a fantasy tale, and the story being told is that of Phaeton, who also launched his “craft” into the “heavens” — the province of the gods, not men — and met with the unfortunate consequences of his hubris. Thus, we are left to infer that the notion of mere humans accessing space on their own initiative is a hubris guaranteed to bring nothing but misery.
• The term “special prize” subtly trivializes the goal being pursued by some of these companies, placing a large cash incentive pursued by the concerted efforts of many serious-minded adults on the level of a child’s gold star for good behavior.
• “Private aerospace corporation” makes use of a loaded but imprecise term to provoke the desired emotional response in the target audience. While some or all of the groups pursuing the X-Prize may be “incorporated”, none of them are “corporations” in the commonly-understood sense: large, publicly-traded businesses with multi-level management structures and diversified lines of business. The target audience is verbally encouraged to see these small businesses in the tophat and tails of Gilded Age editorial cartoons.
• The use of scare quotes on “space tourist” and “space pioneers” add a patronizing touch to the condescension, as if each is a patently ridiculous notion being momentarily stipulated as serious for the sake of the discussion.
• Unfortunately, after this promising beginning, he destroys the whole rhetorical construct with the very last word of the paragraph — the prize involves suborbital flight, and suborbital is by definition not in orbit.

So much for literary theory.

Is this ?privatization? of space a good thing?

Yes.

Is there any reason to be concerned about the trend?

Only with regards to what might derail it.

Three major issues come immediately to mind: Space as an environment, space law, and profit in space. We?ve all probably heard about the growing problem of space junk where over 100,000 bits of debris are now tracked on the radar screens at NORAD in Colorado as they orbit the earth at 18,000 m.p.h.

Ooh, scaaary. But how fast are a given piece of debris and its potential target moving relative to each other, as opposed to the ground?

Several space shuttles have been nicked by bits of debris in the past resulting in cracked windshields. The International Space Station (ISS) recently was moved to a higher orbit because space junk was coming dangerously close.

While it’s not a negligable matter, 100,000 bits of space debris in the enormous volume between LEO and GEO is not a showstopper, either…and the bigger the debris, the less of a problem it is, because it is easier to track and avoid. Note that in constructing his argument, Mr. Gagnon implicitly admits that debris is tracked, is trackable, is of a finite quantity, and that spacecraft can move to evade collisions with known debris and survive collisions with small debris they don’t see coming. (As commenters to Rand Simberg’s post on this article point out, there was one recorded incident of windshield damage on an Orbiter, and the ISS orbit was shifted as a precaution on one occasion…hardly space-junk dodgeball.)

As we see a flurry of launches by private space corporations the chances of accidents, and thus more debris, becomes a serious reality to consider. Very soon we will reach the point of no return, where space pollution will be so great that an orbiting minefield will have been created that hinders all access to space.

Reading this paragraph, I can imagine laypeople (and luddites) having a mental image of spacecraft and other items in orbit as traveling in a flat disk about the equator, with each launch adding another umpteen bits to the increasingly Saturnian rings surrounding our planet. This two-dimensional conception of Earth orbit would make the space debris problem seem far more serious than it is — which only helps (falsely) strenghten Mr. Gagnon’s implicit suggestion that Earth orbit, like fossil fuels, is a nonrenewable resource needing protection from irresponsible, predatory capitalists.

Here again he indulges in the use of loaded terminology, with another instance of the deliberately misleading “private space corporations”. More importantly, he coins the phrase “space pollution” — to the target audience, “pollution” is a highly negatively-charged term, guaranteeing an emotional response. Linking the concept of space debris to the more familiar concept of pollution (of air, soil, or water, for example) triggers the audience’s knee-jerk, zero-tolerance, gut-level reaction to pollution as an existential bad which cannot be tolerated in any environment. Furthermore, the use of the two loaded terms in close proximity leaves the impression that, like all other forms of pollution, “space pollution” is the result of corporations acting irresponsibly, when in fact most space launches have in fact been performed by, at the behest of, and/or under the direct supervision of government entities which therefore bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for the creation of existing “space pollution”. And we mustn’t overlook the term “minefield” — along with nukes and clusterbombs and culturally-insensitive MREs, mines are symbols of the gratuitous and sadistic bloodlust of the American military-industrial complex.

The second sentence here is a colorful flourish of Chicken Little doomsdayism. But Mr. Gagnon is apparently unaware that Earth orbit is self-cleaning…one need only look at the fate of the ultimate piece of space debris, Skylab, for evidence of this. Or Cosmos 954, a spacecraft with which I would expect Mr. Gagnon to be quite familiar.

Indeed, this doomsdayism directly contradicts his arguments against nuclear material in space. The phrase “point of no return” defines the problem as something permanent, irremediable — once in orbit, debris stays in orbit, creating an eternal hazard to future spacecraft. Yet…his arguments against spacecraft carrying nuclear material, such as Cassini, are based in part on the possibility of an uncontrolled and unintended reentry. So, which is it? Will items placed in orbit stay there forever? Or will they eventually, inevitably fall to Earth? Is there something magical about the radioactive materials that guarantees reentry? If so, maybe the solution to the debris problem lies in this mysterious propensity: put a speck of plutonium on every component of every new spacecraft, and thereby guarantee, by the mysterious physical laws of Gagnonian Orbital Mechanics, that the material will reenter of its own accord.

But seriously, Mr. Gagnon seems to be contradicting himself on the larger point he’s making here: he bemoans that private space compa— excuse me, corporations, will end up blocking all access to space, yet the gist of his oeuvre is that humans shouldn’t go into space anyway. It’s like a prohibitionist complaining that a distillery is polluting a nearby pond, when the company would be putting itself out of business by doing so.

When the United Nations concluded the 1979 Moon Treaty the U.S. refused, and still does, to sign it. One key reason is that the treaty outlaws military bases on it, but it also outlaws any nation, corporation, or individual from making land ?claims? on the planetary body. The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty takes a similar position in regard to all of the planetary bodies, arguing that the heavens are the province of all humankind.

Damn right. Tranzi worship of international agreements and institutions notwithstanding, just because it’s an international treaty does not make it an unalloyed Good. Likewise, refusal to sign a treaty does not in itself constitute proof of nefariousness. One reason the Moon Treaty wasn’t signed was that the L5 Society pushed hard to block accession because they recognized the dangers in the restrictive and redistributive provisions of Article 11. Even had it been signed — or in the case of the Outer Space Treaty, which was signed — the signatories are not eternally bound by its provisions. Treaties, like laws, are subject to modification or even withdrawal as circumstances change.

It is incorrect, however, to state that the Outer Space Treaty takes a similar position on property rights to that of the much more restrictive Moon Treaty — it does forbid military fortifications, stationing of nuclear weapons, and other military activities, but the only reference to land claims is in Article II:

Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

Note that it forbids national appropriation, but does not preclude private property rights, nor does it contain the redistributionist/collectivist language of the Moon Treaty’s Article 11.

While the redistributionist “common heritage of mankind” language of Article 11 sounds like the sort of altruistic, idealistic futurism dished out by Star Trek, in the real world the effect would be to block all development of space resources. Which, indeed, is the true point of the exercise, no?

As the privateers move into space, in addition to building space hotels and the like, they also want to claim ownership of the planets because they hope to mine the sky. Gold has been discovered on asteroids, helium-3 on the moon, and magnesium, cobalt and uranium on Mars. It was recently reported that the Halliburton Company is now working with NASA to develop new drilling capabilities to mine Mars.

Here we see an interesting “confusion” of terminology. “Privateers” were private vessels sanctioned by government in wartime to interdict enemy shipping — licensed pirates, in essence. Mr. Gagnon is drawing a moral equivalence between entrepreneurs and pirates. How nice. And he follows it with a throwaway reference to “space hotels and the like”…one is apparently expected to roll one’s eyes after reading that aside.

“…they also want to claim ownership of the planets because they hope to mine the sky.” Ummm…WTF?

Gold of course is the ne plus ultra symbol of greed. Left unsaid is that where gold is discovered, a gold rush is sure to follow (with all that entails: environmental devastation, economic inequalities and exploitation, oppression of the native population…). Uranium mentioned for emotional effect, since the principal uses for uranium are in nuclear power and nuclear weaponry.

And what lefty rant would be complete without the obligatory reference to Halliburton, the Great Corporate Satan, the apotheosis of the evils of capitalism? NASA couldn’t be working with one of the world’s premier oilfield services companies because their expertise in drilling in hostile environments might be useful or something…no, that’s just too simple an explanation, there has to be something much more nefarious afoot. Of course he doesn’t say what that might be, but he doesn’t have to: the “H-word” says it all.

One organization that seeks to rewrite space law is called United Societies in Space (USIS). They state, ?USIS provides legal and policy support for those who intend to go to space. USIS encourages private property rights and investment. Space is the Free Market Frontier.?

Yes, and we all know how dangerous freedom can be. Especially economic freedom. Can’t have that leaking out into interplanetary space.

The taxpayers, especially in the U.S. where NASA has been funded with taxpayer dollars since its inception, have paid billions of dollars in space technology research and development (R&D).

NASA is a federal agency. This may come as a shock, but federal agencies do tend to be funded by taxpayer dollars.

Note his failure to mention that that “special prize” belittled earlier is privately funded, and being pursued (by definition/design) by companies which are privately funded.

As the aerospace industry moves toward forcing privatization of space what they are really saying is that the technological base is now at the point where the government can get out of the way and let private industry begin to make profits and control space.

Yes. And…?

Thus, after the taxpayers have paid all the R&D, private industry now intends to gorge itself on profits. Taxpayers won?t see any return on our ?collective investment.?

No, of course not. Those greedy private space corporations will rake in the profits and stash them in their corporate mattresses, never to be seen again. After all, that’s how business works…only fools reinvest their profits, issue dividends, pay salaries, and all that other silly stuff that only serves to put money back into the economy and boost economic activity and wealth and job creation elsewhere in even far-flung, seemingly unrelated sectors. No self-respecting corporate henchman wants that.

So let?s just imagine for a moment that this private sector vision for space comes true. Profitable mining on the moon and Mars ? who would keep competitors from sneaking in and creating conflict over the new 21st century gold rush? Who will be the space police?

Aha! See? “Gold rush” — I told you so.

Here we see a nice example of a strawman argument — he’s defined a “vision” held by the private sector which in fact isn’t held by them, and now proceeds to attack it.

The answer to his question is simple: self-organized local governments sanctioned or recognized by governments on Earth. In short order, settlers will organize governance among themselves — it will be in the best interests of everyone to do so, including the competing companies. It’s been done before — how did ungoverned territories develop in past centuries? How did the US come to be? Perhaps that is what he’s really worried about: the Moon and/or Mars becoming another US, only “more so”. It won’t be perfect the first time, bad things will no doubt happen, but that’s always the case and always the risk — crime is always with us, even on Earth and even with well-formed police forces ostensibly provided to prevent it.

In the congressional study published in 1989 called ?Military Space Forces: The Next 50 Years,? we get some inkling of the answer. The forward to the book was signed by the former Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), among others. The book stresses the importance of military bases on the moon and suggests that with bases there the U.S. could control the pathway, or the ?gravity well,? between Earth and the moon. It notes, ?Armed forces might lie in wait at that location to hijack rival shipments on return.?

Note how the ambiguous quote implies that our armed forces will be the ones doing the hijacking.

Plans are now underway to make space the next ?conflict zone? where corporations intend to control resources and maximize profit.

And another ambiguous assertion: we’re going to “make” space the next conflict zone? As in, intentionally create military conflict there? I suppose that would fit with the implied premise that capitalism thrives on conflict and impoverishment — it’s those dirty capitalists, always starting wars and strife to make a filthy profit.

The so-called private ?space pioneers? are the first step in this new direction. Ultimately the taxpayers will be asked to pay the enormous cost incurred by creating a military space infrastructure that would control the ?shipping lanes? on and off the planet Earth.

How is paying for military space infrastructure to secure the “shipping lanes” (as if that concept were at all meaningful in the context of surface-to-orbit transportation) different from our already ensuring the tranquility of the high seas for commercial shipping by anyone and everyone?

I find it interesting that ensuring the tranquility of the commons is not legitimate if it is done to protect economic activity, but is perfectly fine if it is done to prevent economic activity, ie: blocking development of space by commercial interests, as the Moon Treaty would do in practice. Either one would involve some form of enforcement entity, but if he doesn’t want a US military space service to do it, who does he think will?

Maybe the UN could enlist the aid of Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

After Columbus returned to Spain with the news that he had discovered the ?new world,? Queen Isabella began the 100-year process to create the Spanish Armada to protect the new ?interests and investments? around the world. This helped create the global war system.

The global war system. Mmm-kay. Someone’s been reading Chomsky again…

Privatization does not mean that the taxpayer won?t be paying any more. Privatization really means that profits will be privatized.

As opposed to the nationalized profits produced by public space enterprises? I could really use a dividend check from NASA right about now.

Privatization also means that existing international space legal structures will be destroyed in order to bend the law toward private profit.

But this begs the question that existing space legal structures are valid, viable, worth preserving, best possible arrangement, etc.

Serious moral and ethical questions must be raised before another new ?frontier? of conflict is created.

Perhaps, but not the ones raised in this article…the ones he doesn’t want to see raised, such as whether we ought to replace the obsolete, outmoded treaties he clings to in favor of a smarter regime that would allow for private development and property rights in space.