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John Carter McKnight advises us to get over our bashfulness and just come right out with it: We want space settlement. Interestingly, this essay indirectly touches on some of the same themes as I have been covering here in the “Hoffer on Space” series, in his list of reasons why space settlement is a good idea in itself (rather than as a positive side effect of some high-minded, ivory-tower “exploration” program). [via Mark Whittington] U.S.-Russian Rift Over Iraq May Spur Fallout in Space Arena International cooperation: bringing us closer together (so as to more easily drive in the knife). On the bright side, perhaps this will spur NASA to actually do something about alternative access to space…something more than killing trees and wasting time, that is. Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log summarizes the Mars is radioactive!” news from earlier this week, and puts it in perspective. My reaction when reading about these new findings was…”Well, duhh.” What I missed in the initial reports on this was the fact that the measurements were of radiation in Mars orbit, rather than projections or interpretations of the radiation environment at the surface, where levels are certain to be attenuated to some degree by the atmosphere. The problem with reporting on such discoveries is that most people have an unhealthy paranoia regarding radiation. The take-away from these reports, for most people, will likely be the notion that Mars, and interplanetary space between here and there, is too radioactive for us to visit let alone colonize. However, the radiation environment on the lunar surface is likely to be much more severe (I’d know for sure, if I could get Acrobat to work here)…and no one really questions whether that would prevent us from colonizing the Moon. [via Mark Whittington] Another op-ed, this one from Tad Daley, suggesting Mars as the destination for the post-Columbia space program. It starts out as a decent recounting of the familiar reasons for choosing Mars, but I think he starts to shoot himself in the foot with a quote from Shelley:
The full passage from “Ozymandias” goes thus:
The poem is meant (in my reading) as an indictment of hubris and self-importance, a reminder of the impermanence of even those things which seem mighty and immortal. Which is the exact opposite of the point he was trying to make by citing it. Ouch. He then makes the same mistake that the Mars Society itself often makes: he assumes that the first mission should be about scientific exploration, of as wide an area as possible.
Why should the first mission be about science? Why not send — in place of geologists, meteorologists, and biochemists — civil engineers and construction workers to build a base camp, which can be used to support wide-ranging and much more capable long-term surface operations on follow-on missions, and which will serve as the nucleus for a permanent presence on the planet? Not to mention that thirty years of piously pursuing science for its own sake has gotten us nowhere with respect to settling space. Science is not the reason for sending humans into space. Daley himself lays out the reasons why earlier in his own article, so it’s surprising to see the “space is for science” meme resurface here. While the article showed promise at the beginning, it all goes downhill from there — it’s a descent into the naive realms of One Worldism, with the usual platitudes about seeing us all as One People and a few swipes at the military tossed in for kicks. It ultimately veers into the full-fledged transnationalism and cliched politcal-correctness espoused by the space movements and science fiction of the 1970s. Why does this sort of collectivist tripe always seem to seep into the discussion of colonizing space? It strikes me that there is a dangerous undercurrent in this sort of philosophizing, a notion that whatever is done in space has to be done for the benefit of all of humanity. While it may seem a noble premise, it suffers from the same problem as the notion of equality: the unintended consequences of inexact language. What constitutes a benefit to all of humanity? Who makes that decision? Pursuing such an ideal carries the very real risk that all of humanity will benefit “equally” by not being allowed to benefit at all. A real-world demonstration of this inversion of the Tragedy of the Commons can be found here. Glenn Reynolds has a little bit on Mars over at his other site. Tom Lehrer has some rather blunt opinions about the Columbia disaster, and manned spaceflight in general:
Rand Simberg has an interesting (and plausible) proposal for getting the U.S. space industry out of its present rut. I know that some people will not like this idea, but the fact is, we already have plenty of military activity in space, and have had almost from Day One (recall that the first man-made object to reach what is generally defined as “space” was an offensive weapon). Rand cites GPS as an example, and wisely so: like the internet, GPS technology has become enmeshed in so many civilian applications as to be inseparable — imagine the economic impact of a suitably-motivated enemy detonating a small nuclear device on the fringe of the atmosphere, and destroying a good chunk of the GPS constellation via EMP. And whatever can take out the GPS constellation to any significant degree can even more easily take out the less-hardened commercial satellites on which global communications, resource management, and weather prediction depend. It isn’t merely the need to protect and (if the need arises) replace space assets because the military depends on them, but because the civilian economy does as well. He is also right in the significant impact an affordable, reliable, high-rate, and rapidly-deployable launch system would have on satellite design. By removing the need to make satellites simultaneously lightweight, powerful, ultra-capable, and heroically robust, the cost of satellites will drop dramatically — and the same would apply to the construction and maintenance of manned facilities in orbit. Building a military-civil space transportation system could be a suitable means for turning around the demographic erosion of the aerospace industry. And if the military takes the lead, it might actually stand a chance of coming to fruition. In this more-or-less weekly feature, I will explore the applicability of Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer — Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements to space exploration and the space advocacy community in particular. I will follow the format of the book, with a summary of Hoffer’s arguments in yellow highlight followed by my comments on their applicability to space advocacy. Some chapters may end up being combined with others or skipped over entirely. A move guaranteed to raise the credibility and respectability of the Mars Society:
Well, as they say in Hollywood: “All publicity is good publicity.” But really…Art Bell? I’m guessing he’ll spend more time handling cydonut calls than explaining Mars Direct. It could be worse, I suppose…he could be appearing on Chuck Harder’s All-Moonbat Revue. The National Space Society has an online petition out:
While the text of the petition refers explicitly only to “space exploration” and support for the ISS and Shuttle, the op-ed from Brian Chase accompanying the NSS email on this topic goes further, to the real point of going to space:
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