Here are some ideas for what to write about in your letters (note that I used the plural form there) to newspapers, Congressional representatives, and the President.
- The One-Shot Message: jump right in and use as your theme the three-point argument I’ve given in previous posts: America needs a space program, the space program needs a focus, and that focus should be Mars.
- Point-by-Point Message Delivery: send a sequence of three letters (more is always better when contacting a representative), each focused primarily on one part of the three-point argument and tying into the other two:
- America Needs a Space Program: remind the reader of the benefits of space exploration — not the threadbare and suspect “Tang and Velcro” line, but rather the social and technological benefits which accrue from pushing into the frontier. Expanding into space brings economic benefits in the form of new products, new technologies, and new industries. It improves our society by giving us a productive (rather than decadent or dissipative) outlet for our creative capacities. By simply existing in the public consciousness, the space frontier provides us with a positive antidote against cynicism about current events and pessimism about the world’s future. To retreat further from the frontier, or to withdraw from it altogether, would seem an admission of failure, a confession that we no longer have what it takes as a nation to do great and forward-looking things.
- NASA Requires a Focus: NASA is, at present, the American space exploration program. Space entrepreneurs should be given assistance in the form of streamlined (and minimal) regulatory procedures, so that they may eventually build up a private, market-oriented alternative. In the meantime, however, NASA’s many institutional failings need to be addressed. The soon-to-be-released CAIB report will expose many of the agencies managerial problems, but the root cause of much of NASA’s troubles of late and its decades-long string of failed programs and lack of progress stem from the lack of a specific, consistent, and time-bound goal around which the agency can arrange its efforts. Many good ideas and potentially-useful technologies and concepts have been developed at NASA over the years, but with no goal to which to apply them, these promising developments have limped along aimlessly or been terminated altogether. Plan after plan after plan has come and gone, along with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money and decades of lost time, with little tangible progress in getting humans beyond low Earth orbit. An ambitious goal for the agency, such as sending human explorers and settlers to Mars, would harness NASA’s various disconnected efforts towards a common purpose, provide it with a yardstick against which to judge the value of its various programs, and give the agency an opportunity to return the taxpayers something of value for their decades of investment. NASA is spending $15 billion every year, and getting very little to show for it — if that money is going to be spent anyway, it ought to be spent on doing something.
- NASA’s Goal Should Be Humans-To-Mars: We have sent more robotic missions to Mars in the past ten years than to any other planet — why? Because Mars is the most interesting planet (besides Earth) in the solar system. Being Earthlike, even more so in the past than today, Mars has the unique allure of being a potential abode of life — either indigenous life from a second Genesis in the distant past, or human life in the form of a new branch of civilization leading us into the future. We can learn to live on Mars, and in so doing, learn how to live better on Earth. The Moon may seem an easier, cheaper, closer alternative, but it’s that very simplicity and proximity which make the Moon less attractive as a frontier, and the Moon’s barrenness would make it less of a bargain than one might expect. And having once visited the Moon and abandoned it, it would seem to a public interested in and eager for a new space frontier to be treading a familiar path. While the Moon may be a worthy interim target or stepping stone to Mars, it isn’t in itself a suitably ambitious goal. The focus needs to be on Mars.
- Other Messages:
- Preserving the Heavy Lift Option: Remember, where applicable, to recommend the conversion of the Shuttle stack (and related facilities, contractor teams, suppliers, etc.) for use as a heavy-lift launch vehicle when Shuttle is eventually phased out — or even earlier. If NASA is given a new goal such as sending humans to Mars or the moon, a heavy-lift vehicle will be required, and the Shuttle stack (solid rocket boosters and external tank) is the perfect basis for building one, quickly and affordably. We have made an enormous investment in the Shuttle system and its supporting facilities and infrastructure over the past forty years (counting hardware reused from Apollo), which it would be foolish to simply throw away in a fit of shortsightedness. Considering the long lead time on materials and components, preserving this resource needs to begin now, not when the Shuttle’s final flight is looming.
- Wings Aren’t Everything: Whether or not you see a need or a justification for it, the OSP program exists. Unfortunately — and predictably — it is following the all-too-familiar path towards becoming a bloated boondoggle. If OSP is to avoid the same fate as all of NASA’s post-Shuttle vehicle development programs, two things need to happen. First, the program needs to be reined in, such that it provides a simple, reliable, inexpensive, no-frills vehicle tailored to taking humans to and from orbit. NASA needs to be restrained from turning OSP into yet another advanced-technology dream-boat — LEO access is not the place we need to be applying our best resources and pushing the limits of technology. Second, this simple OSP should be of a form which allows it to be adapted later to other missions, such as trips to the moon and Mars. Why spend several years and tens of billions of dollars developing a vehicle which can only be used for one type of mission? The Navy and Coast Guard realize this, and are developing common hull forms and interchangable mission modules to improve flexibility and lower development and procurement costs. This is another area where having a goal will help the agency — knowing what it wants to do in space will inform its procurement programs, and increase the odds that OSP (if it should actually be built) might be more than just a taxi to ISS.
I think that’s enough for now. What suggestions do you have for letter topics or supplementary points?