Book Review: Strategy

Following closely upon my reading of The First World War by John Keegan, I decided to read B(asil) H. Liddell Hart's book, Strategy. Hart, an English army captain, was a military historian and strategist who had a great influence upon the military campaigns of Germany and the Allies during World War II.

World War I demonstrated the problematic nature of direct assault upon one's enemies, especially in the era of automatic weapons and industrialized warfare--in short, if you're an attacker, and you aim for the direct approach in going for your target, you make it easier for the enemy to defend against you and cut you to pieces because he knows exactly what you want and where you're going, and so can concentrate all of his forces in that one particular spot.

Here's how Hart puts it in his preface:

When...I first came to perceive the superiority of the indirect over the direct approach, I was looking merely for light upon strategy. With deepened reflection, however I began to realize that the indirect approach had a much wider application--that it was a law of life in all spheres: a truth of philosophy. Its fulfillment was seen to be a key to the practical achievement in dealing with any problem where the human factor predominates, and a conflict of wills tends to spring from an underlying concern for interests. In all such cases, the direct assault of new ideas provokes a stubborn resistance, thus intensifying the difficulty of producing a change of outlook. Conversion is achieved more easily and rapidly by unsuspected infiltration of a different idea or by an argument that turns the flank of instinctive opposition.

The first three parts of the book uncover examples of successful indirect warfare throughout European history, starting with the Greeks, and moving forward to World War II. For instance, the conquest of Sparta by the Theban general Epaminondas is covered, as is the overall military work of Alexander the Great. One of the most interesting and entertaining sections is the history of the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius. Belisarius managed to achieve many victories under less-than-ideal conditions, for example, when the Emperor Justinian deprived him of reinforcements for fear that the general might become too popular or a political rival, or on more than one occasion when he was outnumbered, but still managed to overcome his enemies. One of the few times Belisarius lost was when he allowed himself to be persuaded by his officers to attack the enemy directly.

Unlike Victor Davis Hanson, a civilian, Hart is more concerned with describing strategic or tactical victories and is not so concerned with the particular moral codes advanced by said victories. For instance, Hart offers up his admiration for Hitler's strategic and tactical insights--which are obvious, given his initial successess, while Hanson is more concerned about the victory of "the good."

One thing that was curious to me, as a civilian, was Hart's de-emphasis on battle per se. This differs from Clausewitz, one of the great European theorists of war, who believed the primary canon of military doctrine was "the destruction of the enemy's main forces on the battlefield." Instead, as part of his indirect approach, Hart's idea is that "the true aim is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achieve this."

Hart also addresses matters of "grand strategy," which is the bigger picture of national policy, of which military force is but a part. He describes the aim of war as simply "to attain a better peace," meaning your nation ends up in a better situation (however you care to define it) after the war than you were before it. This view of grand strategy includes such no-duh ideas as not wearing yourself out so badly from war that you're unable to enjoy the peace once the war is concluded. Another bright idea Hart advances is not engaging in acts of war so egregious that they are bound to backfire on you once the peace is settled. He cites as one example the "strategic" bombing of civilian targets like Tokyo and Dresden, which did not necessarily advance the Allies' cause, break the will of the enemy, or leave the devastated populations in a state of civilization after the conflict.

Hart was writing in the midst of the Cold War, but his views on strategy are as relevant today as they were then. For instance, he devotes a chapter to "guerilla war," which is for all practical purposes what we've been fighting in Iraq for the last five years. Hart seems to have been particularly interested in this aspect of warfare, as he was friends with T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), and Lawrence's tactics were taught and spread throughout the world by Winston Churchill as a means of combatting the Axis. Hart's comments are prophetic for our own times:

[T]he prospects and progress of a guerrilla movement depend on the attitude of the people in the area where the struggle takes place--on their willingness to aid it by providing information and supplies to the guerrillas by withholding information from the occupying force while helping to hide the guerrillas.

Since 2003, the U.S. military had to overcome the willingness of the Iraqis to hide and support the insurgents. New tactics, plus "the surge," have done much to reduce violence in that country. When the population trusts the "occupying force" more than the insurgents, the insurgency crumbles.

So who is the "audience" for Hart's work? I would recommend it--though I doubt he'd read it--to Barack Obama or any other incoming U.S. President. Generals, of course, should read it, as should the officer corps, and perhaps NCOs and the whole frickin' army, so they know what their leaders are getting them into. Hart offers direct advice for the military man in clear, non-bureaucratese sentences. For instance,

In general, the nearer to the force [a cut in the enemy's communications] is made, the more immediate the effect; the nearer to the base, the greater the effect...while a stroke close in rear of the enemy force may have more effect on the minds of the enemy troops, a stroke far back tends to have more effect on the mind of the enemy commander.

There are also a couple of appendices regarding the Allied campaign in North Africa during World War II and the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 that would probably be of practical benefit to the battlefield commander. Even if al-Qaeda's leaders have not read Hart's work, it's clear that they've grasped the essence of his "indirect approach," as may be seen by the recent attacks in Mumbai. It is equally clear that al-Qaeda suffers serious losses when they engage in direct attacks, as they have done in Iraq. It remains to be seen who will win the long war between the West and fundamentalist Islamism. If the West is to win and remain true to its military and political traditions, it will have to give Strategy more serious thought.

Sorting Out Engineering Reality

A recurring problem I have in my line of work is judging what’s “true” and what’s not. It’s not so much that I think people are lying to me about what’s going on in the space business, it’s just that I was too lazy in junior high, high school, and college to get myself a serious education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This is a problem for me and, I fear, for many more Americans, as more and more of our nation’s future choices will be STEM-based. This is part of the reason I’m such a fan of Darlene the Science Cheerleader: she’s a strong advocate for science education among the non-scientific masses, and gosh knows we all need it.

Now mind you, the space business has, as one of my previous employers put it, “plenty of engineers; what we need is a writer.” So that’s been my role: technical writer. I translate Engineerish into English. I’m able to do this without understanding the work 100% because I understand how words work. They aren’t paying me to understand it all. I do my level best, of course, to educate myself so that I do understand it. And I understand enough about political philosophy and policy to be an advocate.

Sometimes, however, it’s difficult to know which technologies, among the many I’ve supported over the past 8 years, stands a solid chance of succeeding. That leaves me the option of taking things on faith or getting myself a better education. The following narrative, then, is a review of the hot technologies space advocates support, how they’re supposed/claimed to work, and what the objections to them are. I can explain them clearly, as you’ll see, but I can’t for the life of me sort out all this.

Space Solar Power (SSP) / Solar Power Satellites (SPS) / Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP)
How It’s Supposed to Work
A solar power satellite is a large array of solar cells—say, a mile across—placed in orbit. Because it is above the atmosphere and in the sunlight for longer periods of time, the theory is that the SPS would collect more solar energy than ground-based solar. The energy collected from these solar cells would then be transmitted, projected, or beamed down (pick your verb) to a rectifying antenna (rectenna) on the ground. The power would then go out from the rectenna to a nearby electrical grid. The potential output of such a system would be in the 1-10 gigawatt range.

The Arguments Against It

• It’s too expensive to get the hardware into orbit.
• Even if you could bring down launch costs, the operating costs would still not make SSP commercially competitive with any ground-based energy source, including ground-based solar.
• Even if you could get the hardware up there cheaply and get it to provide power competitively, any usefully scaled SPS is too big to fit on any known launcher (except, maybe, Ares V).
• Even if you could get the hardware up there cheaply and on a properly sized rocket, it wouldn’t work for the following reasons:
  --Beam attenuation; i.e., the microwave or laser transmitting power to the ground rectenna would lose too much energy to be worthwhile.
  --The SPS would be so big and so lightweight that solar radiation pressure alone would cause it to keep drifting along its orbit. This is how one powers solar sails, which are meant to travel.
  --Even if you could get the hardware to work, it would never be accepted by the public because:
  o Environmental activists would go bonkers protesting it because it uses radiation as its primary output (even if that same radiation is also used to power ground-based solar cells).
  o Government environmental regulations would stifle the technology somehow, with or without encouragement from the environmental lobby.
  o “Someone could use it as a weapon.” (See the James Bond flick “Goldeneye” for a sample of what that might look like.)
  o It wouldn’t provide much more energy than ground-based solar power.

Fine. I would submit a bit of my own hardheaded criticism, if I may: All of these objections come before anyone has even tried to build, field, and test a single SPS. We should at least try the bloody thing before trashing it or dismissing it out of hand. The cynics and skeptics might be right, but I’d feel more confident of their verdict if they had hard data to back up their assertions.

Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) / Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) / Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO)
How It’s Supposed to Work
A Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) is just what it sounds like: a rocket for getting to space that you can fly more than once. An RLV is supposed to be completely reusable, operating like an aircraft. No stages are dropped into the ocean, the vehicle flies multiple times, and costs are thereby reduced through mass production and repeat flight cycles.
The Arguments Against It
NASA has spent a great deal of time and money trying to develop precursor technologies or actual RLVs for the last 20 years or so. The Space Shuttle system, designed in the early 1970s, is partially reusable. Its solid rocket boosters return to Earth by parachute and splash down into the ocean. The orbiter, which houses the crew and cargo, lifts off like a rocket, its fuel tank is discarded and dropped into the Indian Ocean, and the orbiter then completes its mission, reenters the Earth’s atmosphere, and comes in to land like a glider. The orbiter is then refurbished and refitted for another mission.

The failed or incomplete RLV or partial RLV programs include the National AeroSpace Plane (NASP), Space Launch Initiative (SLI), Orbital Space Plane (OSP), DC-XA, X-33/VentureStar, and X-34. For want of budgetary support or technological feasibility or both, NASA has not been able to do it. Does that mean RLVs are impossible? No, but they are really damned difficult, and the work has been attempted by some very bright people, both inside and outside the world’s premier space agency. Jerry Pournelle is more optimistic on this score than I am. He believes that the problem with RLV/SSTO has not been the technology so much as the organizations running the programs. He believes if the old NACA “X program” model is followed, then technology development could happen—not immediately, and not with billions and billions of dollars spread around a number of big contractors and important states—but with single contractors, small budgets, shorter timeframes, and more humble goals. Unfortunately, I don’t think our government is up for small and humble anymore.

Space Elevators
How It’s Supposed to Work
A space elevator (also called an “orbital tower” or “skyhook”) is a structure that stretches from a point on Earth all the way out to geosynchronous orbit. The centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation counteracts the elevator’s tendency to fall, so the tower stands straight out from the planet like a giant radio tower. The structure becomes an “elevator” when you attach climber vehicles capable of transporting people or cargo up and down the tower’s surface—the most common imagined climber would be a maglev (magnetic levitation) train. The maglev climber would require only electrical power to move, and would not produce sonic booms or require explosive chemicals, as rockets do.
The Arguments Against It
The structural materials strong enough to build a self-supporting elevator were only theoretical until the late 20th century. Then companies began experimenting with artificial diamonds, carbon “whiskers,” and now carbon nanotubes. Unfortunately, no one has made enough carbon nanotubes (which are molecule-sized) to build load-bearing structures. At present, they’re simply too expensive to mass produce.

Another interesting argument I’ve heard is that the elevator would act as a massive short circuit for the entire planet’s ionosphere, which would essentially fry, melt, or disintegrate the tower. The argument here is that the large amount of charged particles in the Van Allen Belts would follow the elevator all the way down to the Earth, becoming the world’s largest lightning rod.

The last argument against the elevator comes from my own experience observing the Space Elevator Games in Las Cruces in 2006. These Games are sponsored by NASA as a means of generating competition to create technologies that could lead to a space elevator. Rather than a typical wound cable (the original concept for the elevator), these experimental crawlers all had to make their way up a six-inch-wide, 60-meter (~197 feet) tall industrial belt suspended from a crane. We were in the desert, mind you, so winds tend to be a little fickle, but the best guess was that winds were gusting to 10-15 miles per hour. Even in that slight breeze, the belt was whipping about in the wind like a crazed sail or weather flag in a full gale. Several teams had difficulty just attaching their crawler to the belt, much less getting their vehicle to climb the twisting belt. My verdict: even at great tension, atmospheric effects on the Earthbound side of the elevator would prevent any vehicle from traversing the distance safely, to say nothing of what sorts of oscillations might develop when moving through orbital space.

Asteroid Mining
How It’s Supposed to Work
Planetary science professor John S. Lewis makes a pretty compelling case for mining the metals of nickel-iron asteroids to fulfill resource needs here on Earth or for building settlements in space. These asteroids include massive amounts of iron (obviously), platinum-group metals (useful for fuel cells), water and ammonia “volatiles,” and the equivalent of natural stainless steel.
The Arguments Against It
We’ve landed a couple of robotic spacecraft on asteroids. They weren’t designed for that, but the gravity on asteroids is so small (measured in thousandths of a gravity) that they could just about turn off their thrusters and drop onto them without a jar. That microgravity will be a problem for humans working there, of course, as we’re learning from the International Space Station.

Next, we have never developed the technical tools for mining, extracting, and refining materials in micro- or zero gravity. (An obvious answer, of course, is “why don’t we?”) However, most mining and refining processes done here on Earth require high heat and gravity effects to separate different components from each other.

Finally, returning to Lewis’s book, he made a point that if all of the useful metals and other materials were mined from a single Amon-class asteroid and sold on Earth at current market prices, their value would be $20 trillion. It’s a great theory that ignores economic reality. Let’s say we found an asteroid that really did make platinum as common as sand on Miami Beach. Even if the platinum were put to work building catalysts for a worldwide fleet of fuel cells, the price of the commodity would drop to about what you’d expect to pay for a handful of sand in Miami Beach. The materials of the Asteroid Belt may be abundant, but they’ll have to make people rich in space because they sure as heck won’t be on Earth.

Space Tourism / Personal Spaceflight
How It’s Supposed to Work
Civilian excursions into suborbital space by Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, etc., could generate enough demand and traffic to produce mass-produced rockets, experience in operating RLVs (see above), and capital for a functioning space economy in orbit.
The Arguments Against It
Space tourism has been “just around the corner” since 2004, and it looks like it’ll be another year or two before Virgin Galactic is able to fly paying customers aboard their Burt Rutan-built Spaceship Twos. A lot of operations have folded since the X Prize was won. Others are working in secret. Many things can go wrong, and the American public is not quite as willing to embrace risk as it was 40-50 years ago. One bad accident, and some believe that lawsuits will all but kill the “personal spaceflight” movement.

The more sarcastic individuals within NASA are quick to point out that SpaceShipOne did not make it to orbit, but “repeated something the X-15 was able to do 40 years ago, and Rutan did it using technology developed by NASA.” Aside from the sour-grapes and elitism in those comments, they are technically correct. Yet work on personal spaceflight continues because there still are people willing to shell out the big bucks ($250,000 for a flight on Virgin Galactic, if and when) to fulfill their dreams of space travel.

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And these are just some of the issues to be addressed in the space business. I haven’t even touched on the Ares vs. EELV or DIRECT/Jupiter 120 debate (nor will I comment publicly on activities where I have a vested employment interest). I know a little more about the government vs. private sector debate, but feel that that’s an argument for another night. In any case, this evening I wanted to focus on technical issues because these are the bigger questions that I do not have enough basis in theory or practice to answer properly. Political questions are another matter.

So, seriously: if there are any technical folks out there who know a reasonably quick way to get smart on the big engineering questions floating around the space business today, I’d be happy to hear it. In the meantime, I can only help the ones who DO know the facts and theories behind their pet projects frame their arguments in better language. The rest, unfortunately, I have to take on faith.

I'm Thankful For...

I had another posting in the hopper, which I'll finish later, but I went to church this evening, and Pastor said something (specifics now vague) that made me realize that I needed to write this.

I'll try to put this as straightforwardly as possible, but it really is true: I'm grateful to God for the fact that I have managed to live all of the biggest dreams I had when I was a kid. Really. I had a lot of dreams as a kid, as do most of us, some of which are unlikely to happen (I'm still waiting on that life-size, working Millennium Falcon), but the ones that were serious to me--the ones that kept me going when I was dodging bullies and trying to not get a wedgie in the locker room--those stayed with me, and were wondrously fulfilled.

• I wanted to work at Disney World. Not all of it was good--in fact, at least one of those jobs was so bad, I told a friend that I'd see myself in Hell before I ever did it again--but I made and have held onto some great friends who helped me grow up into the world of work. I checked that box for 12 years, and lived in what was, for me, the greatest weather on Earth.
• I wanted to be in the Army. Okay, I had to fudge this one, because the Army wouldn't take me for medical reasons (taking daily medication for thyroid problems, if you must know). However, I wrote proposals for a defense contractor for two years, and so got to help a company that was building fuel, water, add-on armor, power, and other necessary systems for soldiers in Iraq. Washington, DC, was not quite my town, but I learned a great deal, and had the privilege of working on important, serious things. Checked off that box between the ages of 34 and 36.
• I wanted to work in the space business. I got my first opportunity to write for the National Space Society when I got a call from the (now) late Chris Pancratz, Public Affairs Director on September 11, 2001. I was stuck in Nashville on a connection, freaking out over the state of the world, and this guy wanted me to write a presentation for NSS to "sell space to normal people." From there, I've gotten to do all sorts of advocacy papers and projects, and there I remain today. Through these activities, my incessant writing of letters to the editor regarding space, and some freelance writing for Space.com, I finally got a job with NASA in Huntsville, Alabama, where I've been blessed with good friends, a welcoming church, interesting and challenging work, and smart coworkers. I've checked that box every day for two and a half years now, and I don't regret a day of it.

I've know people who have jobs they don't like or who don't know what they want out of life or who never really figured out what they're good at. For good or ill, I've never had those latter two problems, and now live the career I wanted when I was too young to know what that career would entail. So I'm overweight, topped with grey hair, and don't have what you would call an existent dating life--so what? The winding path I've traveled has brought me to a place where I'm happy. For that I am truly thankful. May your journey be just as rewarding.

More on the Economy

Maybe I'm able to be detached about this because I haven't lost my job yet, but at some point you just have to laugh at the actions of our government. Again, this deserves to be quoted.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.
Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion (Note: this would be the TOTAL cost of all annual expenditures over 50 years.)
  TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

I mean, really...damn.

I Thought Everybody Was Worried About the Bush Deficit

http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=arEE1iClqDrk&refer=home

This one deserves to be quoted:

U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.

What other bright ideas will we encouter in the next year? The world wonders.

Boy, I'm Sure Glad We Got That $700B Bailout!

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"
--Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene 4

So here we are, the Obama election plus 16 days. The stock market has continued to tank, despite an election supposedly geared toward "change" and getting rid of the "failed policies of the Bush Administration" (never mind that the economy only turned seriously sour in the last two years). Now the Dow and the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ and every other major market indicator is heading for record-low territory, at least by current standards. The Dow Jones Industrial Average settled at around 7,500 today, and volatility continues to run amok.

Where the heck is Obama's big plan for fixing all of this? Shouldn't he be out there calming the markets by promising--oh, something? Anything? Tax cuts? Tax increases?

If a bailout is such a great thing for America, why is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid so concerned about a Republican filibuster? The Republican Senators are not the rebellious ones--those are the House Republicans. So to blame the GOP for his party's failure to pass a bailout bill when they have a ruling majority is a bit of chutzpah and prevarication, in my opinion.

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And while that foolishness is going on, we've got Somail pirates seizing oil tankers in the Indian Ocean. Does anyone know where they're taking these ships? What they're doing with them? And why are these acts not tied to al-Qaeda, when they have a base in Somalia? If al-Qaeda can seize control of four commercial airliners, they can certainly find a use for a supertanker filled with two million barrels of crude oil.

Weird world out there. I don't have any brilliant thoughts or solutions to any of this except, perhaps, to send the U.S. Marine Corps to deal with the pirates--that was one of their first jobs 203 years ago, on "the shores of Tripoli."

And, as I posted on my Twitter account, I wish Obama well because I wish the country well. Gosh knows we'll both need every prayer and good grace we can get in the coming year.

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Oh yeah, and the IAEA now reports that Iran has enough nuclear material to make a small nuclear weapon. Let's be careful out there.

Leadership in the Public and Private Sectors

One of the advantages of living and working in Huntsville, AL, is getting to meet or hear some of the bright bulbs in the space business. I've had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Rex Geveden, President of Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE), and former Deputy Director of Marshall Space Flight Center and Associate Administrator of NASA. Today he was speaking at the Marshall Association's monthly luncheon, this time located at the Redstone Arsenal Officer's Club. Geveden's talk for today was about the functional, strategic, and performance differences and similiarities between leadership in the public and private sector. I found the comments most insightful, and a good reflection of life in the space business specifically.

Functional Differences
Geveden started by explaining the emphases of each type of leader. Government leaders, in his view, are concerned with maximizing/optimizing "mission value," that is, getting the most bang for your programmatic buck. A private-sector leader is more concerned (not surprisingly) with maximizing profit for the company or its shareholders. As he put it, "the business is about the business," sort of like Calvin Coolidge's comment that "the business of America is business."

Geveden recommended that government avoid "Total System Performance" or "Lead System Integrator (LSI)" contracts, where an outside entity/company is responsible for the overall performance of a program/project. His reasoning is simply that business leaders don't have the same interests or goals as the government (see above), and that those interests are incompatible. Also, if government turns over an entire program over to an external contractor (examples: Space Shuttle, Space Station), then the government agency overseeing things is adding little to no value and might as well just get out of the way. Geveden was even more specific: "That model does and will always fail."

By contrast, Geveden offered up the Ares Project as a good model for program management, as it allows the government to take responsibility for the final result, which offers a good compromise between government oversight and its needs (maximizing mission output) and private sector needs (performance and profit).

One of the advantages the private sector has is that the decision cycle time is shorter simply because the motivations are simpler (profits). One of the big challenges for government, Geveden acknowledged, is that it has to answer to multiple constituencies, so that every action and decision feels like an unsatisfactory compromise.

Strategic Planning
Government agencies have a specific burden that private-sector operations do not: they do not control the allocation of their resources. Any strategic plan becomes more like a "wish list," more often controlled by the President or Congress. "This is a brilliant model for government," Geveden said, "not strategic planning."

In the private sector, resources must be allocated in accordance with the strategic plan in order to ensure accurate/relevant measurement of performance. There are three ways companies can choose to focus their resources: economies of scale (e.g. Wal-Mart), product/service focus (e.g. FedEx), or product differentiation, as TBE is doing.

Performance
In the public sector, civil servants' performance is "nebulous," as Geveden put it, and "hard to measure." The private sector's performance can be measured easily, he joked: "Here's your check." In other words, all performance is tied to the bottom line.

Geveden closed by comparing the culture of NASA with the Russian space program. He believed that there was a common idealism and belief in the value of space exploration. That sense of community is not shared everywhere. For instance, Geveden did not believe that the idealism of space exploration held inside the Beltway, "where people scarcely know that Goddard Space Flight Center is nearby and that the International Space Station is still in orbit." Huntsville, he noted, "loves space," as it's part of what has made the town what it is.

Moving to the Q&A, the most important question Geveden answered, in my opinion, was, "What does NASA need to do to get the resources it needs to do its job?" I liked his answer, mostly because it's similar to my own view: "NASA needs to chose to do the very hard things. They need to look a little more toward relevance." The specific example he cited was energy independence and space solar power, suggesting that NASA should do a full-scale test mission of some kind.

I think Geveden's remarks deserve consideration, given his experience on both sides of the fence (public and private sector). If we are going to have a fully functional "space economy" in the future, we need to make sure that government is doing the sorts of things that best reflect its expertise and motivations, while the private sector should do things that will produce the best results through their profit motives. In my view, that means leaving "exploration" to government and "operations" to the private sector. We shall see what the future brings.

Book Review: The First World War

The great conflict of the last century has been World War Two; yet that worldwide bloodletting would not have occurred without the First World War. John Keegan's remarkable history, The First World War, provides the reader with a dark, comprehensive view of this conflict, which is often overlooked or remembered more for Ernest Hemingway's dramatized version of it. Earlier this year, I had read histories about the beginning of the war and the Treaty of Versailles, but still remained relatively ignorant about the war itself. The primary images or collective "memories" our civilization has of The Great War are of mud-filled trenches or hundreds of plain-uniformed soldiers in tin-pan helmets running through fields filled with barbed wire and artillery explosions.

There is a great deal to learn from Keegan's narrative. For instance, he posits a convincing "what if?" alternate-historical choice that explains how the War need not have happened. There is a general consensus that the diplomats of the era were unable to cope with or stop the war preparations made by each nation's military establishments. The nations that became known as the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia, Serbia, and, later, the United States) had overlapping treaties and agreements of support should any of them be attacked by another party.

When Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by Serbian militants, Keegan points out that most of the nations of Europe might have simply stood aside and let the Empire punish the Serbians through a punitive, one-on-one attack. However, he points to a failure of nerve at the highest levels of the Empire, which more or less made the widening of the war inevitable. Worried that Russia might support Serbia if they were attacked, Austria-Hungary invoked its alliance with Germany as a way to check the Russians. Once the Russians started mobilizing its forces, the French, as Russia's allies, were required to do likewise to ensure that Germany would face a two-front war if confronted. From there, Great Britain wasn't far behind in the mobilization game, and from there, once declarations of war were made, all the dominoes fell, and the most civilized, advanced continent in the world at that time plunged into a brutal, mechanized, four-year bloodbath that would eventually take 10 million lives.

Keegan introduces and finishes his history by pointing out the ultimate tragedy of the conflict--the civilization and the men who were lost--and the lingering hatreds and "unfinished business" of the war that would bring Europe to fight a larger, even nastier war 20 years later.

While the war is known mostly for its immobile frontiers and trench warfare, it did not start out that way, and some battle lines were very fluid. Germany set the strategic pace for the early stages of the conflict. They planned a massive flanking maneuver through neutral Belgium, which would march quickly southwest and the south and east to surround the French armies concentrated on the French-German border. This defeat, it was assumed, could be accomplished in six weeks, giving Germany plenty of time to then transfer forces to the east to face a much larger Russian army. The Schlieffen Plan would be stopped through the bravery of French and British soldiers, who rolled back the German advance somewhat, and then were themselves stopped from outflanking the German right in a "race to the sea." The Western Front then more or less stabilized for the next two years.

The battle losses of the Great War (as it was then called) were incomprehensible, even after the hundreds of thousands who had died in the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War of the previous century. In the intervening years, the machine gun had come into its own, as had massed artillery, mines, railroads, and chemical warfare. However, some technologies, which might have stopped bad plans from going forward or thousands of young men from being slaughtered needlessly, were not yet available or decisive on the battlefield, such as the telephone, the portable radio, tanks, jeeps, military aviation, or precision artillery.

The Battle of the Somme stands as one of the worst examples of leadership in the War, where over the course of four months, over one million men were killed or wounded in an allied attempt to break through the German lines. When Hemingway or Gertrude Stein spoke of the "Lost Generation," this is part of what people mean. Keegan is careful, however, to explain that while the Allied generals had their faults and misjudgments, much of the carnage and chaos was simply a lack of understanding into the nature of the war being fought. Heroic charges by cavalry were no match for millions of pounds of artillery shells or machine-gun bullets. The Somme changed the generals' appreciation for their predicament, but they were determined to go on--there was too much pride and (by then) too much blood involved to simply give up. The Germans believed they were in control of the situation, which was definitely the case in the East, while the French would not accept German occupation of their territory.

Meanwhile, in the East, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians fought pitched battles with the Czarist Russian Empire. The Austrians faced a weakness in that many of its subject peoples (and thus military service men) were Slavic, like the Russians, and so became less inclined to fight. The Germans eventually took over leadership in the East after Austria sustained some defeats. The collapse of the Russian army came about due to the economic pressure of the war back home, eventually leading to the Bolshevik Revolution. Keegan covers some of the military aspects of this struggle as well, though it is clear that once the Russian army left the field, they ceased to be a player in the Great War.

In reading this book, I was confronted again and again by the sheer number of casualties inflicted on one side or another. The numbers are so staggering, it is often difficult to make much sense of them. And perhaps because of Keegan's attempt to cover the entire war in one book (475 pages' worth), it is difficult to get a feel for what was going on. He takes the general's-eye-view, discussing topography, army locations and routes of march, as well as tactics and armaments used. However, there are only a few places where one can get a good "feel" for what the war was actually like to the average combat soldier. Here's one passage, however, that caught my attention:

Up the road we staggered, shells bursting around us. A man stopped dead in front of me, and exasperated I cursed him and butted him with my knee. Very gently he said, "I'm blind, Sir," and turned to show me his eyes and nose torn away by a piece of shell. "Oh God! I'm sorry, sonny," I said. "Keep going on the hard part," and left him staggering back in his darkness...

This is not a particularly pretty or, despite the rhetoric that led up to it, glorious war. It was, quite simply, the worst example of industrial civilization turned on itself. World War Two would produce more casualties and even more frightful weapons, but the First World War, in my view, is the worse of the two conflicts because it was this war that destroyed Western Civilization's confidence in itself. It would take a couple more wars before a similar loss of faith in Western rightness afflicted America (World War Two, Korea, and especially Vietnam). The cultural and political vacuums created by World War I would give rise to totalitarian governments in Russia, Germany, Italy, and Japan. The industrial, economic, and artistic progress of Europe were all diminished by the loss of so many of its young men. And, of course, the worst part of it all is that it need not have happened.

Keegan's book, together with The Guns of August and Paris 1919, deserves to be read, if only to give Westerners a better understanding of what created the mass wars, movements, and attempted genocides of the 20th century. Perhaps, by learning, we might learn better how to prevent such catastrophes in the future. One can, at least, hope for such an outcome.

Too Much Government in the Economy?

Before President Bush starts lecturing the G-8 about abandoning capitalism and using government as a cure-all for economic problems, perhaps he should start by lecturing his own Secretary of the Treasury. Dude? Who the heck hired Paulson? Is it too late to give the guy some concrete guidelines on who or what warrants a bailout/handout/government takeover? Oy. But then, McCain wouldn't have done much better. He stopped his frickin' campaign in a grandstanding play to demonstrate that he was willing to put aside his political future to put government into action on behalf of the country. Sigh. Despite the current financial mess and boneheaded approaches to "fixing" it, I'm still going to Europe. I'm just wondering if I need to shop for real estate while I'm there. No, no...that'd be about as smart as moving to Iran to protest theocracy in America.

The Bailout Widens

I was chastened recently about the government policies in the current financial crisis not being truly "socialist." A fresh reminder....

From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

[Socialism is a] social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. (Emphasis mine)

Now the Treasury Secretary has released a PDF for businesses looking for a piece of the $700 billion bailout action. The $700B is going toward purchasing troubled assets. Translation: it's a form for people requesting government ownership of their assets.

President-Elect Obama's party is pushing for the federal government to buy "equity stakes" in The Big Three automakers. Translation: government ownership.

American Express (my latest credit card provider, thank you very much) just had its shares drop 10 percent because word got out that they were seeking $3.5 billion in funds under the government's plan to directly invest in financial firms. Translation: they're asking for partial government ownership.

This ain't over.

*

I've got a serious question: why is it that people inside and outside the media are so willing to think the worst of private individuals with money, but are perfectly willing to trust government--which is a collection of individuals no different from you or me except that they can use the law to enforce their wishes--to use money wisely?

Space Advocacy in the Age of Obama

The National Space Society Board of Directors met here in Huntsville this past weekend, and it was quite illuminating, as always. NSS is not, of course, uniform in its demographic or ideological makeup. That's why we have committees and votes and officers--to keep things reasonably orderly. We are a consensus organization, more or less, and unlike some organizations, bipartisan in makeup. This makes life more interesting for the Policy Committee and other groups, as we have to craft documents that will reach the bulk of the American public.

Anyhow, because of this diversity of opinion, we are faced with many different perspectives on, and reactions to, the election of Barack Obama. There is obviously a great deal of uncertainty. This is common with any new presidential administration, I think. There's a a difference between electioneering and governing. Will Obama deliver on the lofty things he said regarding our nation's space program? Will he be able to?

Regardless of the speculation, space advocates must go forward accepting that Obama and his party's ideology will soon have firm control of the government. My positions were:

1. Space is not a priority for Obama (nor was it a priority for McCain, if it came to it).
2. The economy, foreign affairs, and education will be his priorities.
3. Space advocates need to tie the value of space exploration to the things that DO matter to the incoming administration.

This is probably rather pragmatic of me, but the alternatives are uglier. My libertarian friends, who advocate that space exploration be placed completely in the hands of the private sector, overlook the political popularity of NASA. The odds of having NASA disbanded? Zero. The odds of the private sector (SpaceX, etc.) getting additional support for their efforts in space? Better than even (IMHO). The odds of getting Constellation replaced by some other architecture? Slim.

So that's the political reality. That still doesn't prevent NSS from "going bold." One might hope or push for a Kennedyesque call for a return to the Moon or a human mission for Mars. Advocates can lobby for Obama to call for American greatness, technological leadership, energy independence, quality education, and peaceful international leadership, using space exploration as a vehicle. I've suggested as much in my blog on mass marketing. Could it happen? Maybe.

We also have a "friend at court" of sorts--Lori Garver, a former NSS Executive Director and NASA Associate Administrator, is Obama's space policy advisor. She speaks the advocates' language, and she had a hand in crafting Obama's most recent space policy. So: there's hope that Obama's policies can be made more pro-space.

This conversation is probably moot until Obama is sworn in, so I'll drop it for now, but "always in motion is the future," as Yoda might put it.

Tip for This Weekend

I'm off for the next 3-4 days to discuss ways the National Space Society can advocate for a spacefaring civilization during the Obama administration. I suffered pretty badly from Clinton Derangement Syndrome in the 1990s, and I refuse to succumb this year. There's too much work to do, for one thing. If your candidate did not win, take heart from the fact that the Republic still stands, life goes on, and it's a good weekend for football. If your candidate won, revel in your moment and enjoy this time of hopeful promise. Be well.

/b

Thoughts on the Election of Barack Obama

First, to my African-American brothers and sisters: congratulations on a well-earned and long-overdue moment of pride and joy.

Next, to my fellow Republicans: it's not too late to rediscover your conservative principles and start believing in limited government again. When you tack left and spend like drunken sailors (or worse--sailors eventually realize when they run out), you become indistinguishable from your opponents and weaken the case for your party.

To Senator Obama: guard the Republic well. You represent all of us now, not just those you wish to.

*

As to my own feelings: I still do not trust this man. I have serious questions about his ideas and his past, and I can see the potential for really bad things happening, but in the end, the choice was others', not mine, and I must hope and pray for the best. Unfortunately, the entire country will be living with the consequences of this choice. No one man can possibly match all of the aspirations or dreams with which this man has apparently been imbued. Again, I pray that there won't be serious cause to regret this decision.

And finally, to those of you in the white community who believe that only people with our particular skin tone should hold power, I would caution you to think before you do something stupid. The man is going to be president now, with the Secret Service around him at all times. The two plots to kill Obama uncovered so far speak ill of you and, quite frankly, of all of us. The Republic still stands, the armed forces are just as powerful, and our economy is still the largest and most prosperous on Earth. The worst Mr. Obama can do is weaken, not ruin it, and he won't hold onto office long if he does either. Attempts to resolve your anger or mistrust through violence will irreparably damage this country, and that I would not forgive.

Getting Involved in Space Education and Research

Hat tip to Darlene the Science Cheerleader for developing yet another cool way to help private citizens get involved in and practicing science. I thought I'd post the suggestions I sent here as well. There are many ways to get involved in science or engineering projects. Below is just a partial list from the space exploration perspective.

Some of these probably count as engineering projects, but I thought I'd include them anyway. I know, you're shocked, but these are all space-related.

SETI@Home (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/)
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

Planetary Society projects related to advocacy and education, extrasolar planets, innovative technologies, international missions, Mars exploration, near-Earth objects, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) (http://www.planetary.org/programs/list/)

Mars Society University Rover Challenge (http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/urc)
For the third year, teams of university students will design and build the next generation of Mars rovers. May 28-30, 2009 the teams and their rovers will face off at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah.

Mars Society Pressurized Rover Challenge (http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/pressurizedRover)
A contest was started by the Mars Society in 2000 to design analog pressurized rover concepts that could be tested at the Society's analog stations. The contest is officially over, but in typical Mars Society fashion, teams have been continuing to work on rover designs since.

Mars Society Mars Analog Research Stations(http://www.marssociety.org/portal/groups/AnalogsTF/index_html)
This Task Force is responsible for the design and development of our Mars Analog Bases. This task force will work on all phases of project development and provide The Mars Society with periodic detailed reports of progress.

The Mars Foundation's Mars Homestead Project (http://marshome.org/)
The Mars Homestead™ Project, the main project of the Mars Foundation™, is developing a unified plan for building the first habitat on Mars by exploiting local materials. The ultimate goal of the project is to build a growing, permanent settlement beyond the Earth, thus allowing civilization to spread beyond the limits of our small planet.

Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program (http://www.marsgravity.org/main/)
The Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program is a ground-breaking undertaking to study the effects of Martian gravity on mammals. We are taking the first step towards human missions to Mars - and beyond. Data from this mission will make a significant contribution to our understanding of fundamental space biology and greatly advance human space exploration. To find out how students are advancing human space exploration, please check out the rest of our website!

Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5) Project HALO (http://www.nsschapters.org/al/HAL5/HALO_Index.shtml)
Working in our spare time, we are currently working on our next hybrid rocket. It is a derivative of the old ARCAS sounding rocket that we dubbed Tube Launch 1 (TL-1). Working part time one night a week. For additional information about Project HALO, meeting location, and tax-deductible donations, please Just drop us an email . We currently have needs for avionics / data instrumentation and tube launcher volunteers.

NASA Student Launch Initiative (http://education.nasa.gov/edprograms/descriptions/Student_Launch_Initiative.html) and NASA University Student Launch Initiative (http://education.nasa.gov/edprograms/descriptions/University_Student_Launch_Initiative.html)
The NASA Student Launch Initiative, or SLI, involves middle and high school students in designing, building and testing reusable rockets with associated scientific payloads. This unique hands-on experience allows students to demonstrate proof-of-concept for their designs and gives previously abstract concepts tangibility.
The NASA University Student Launch Initiative, or USLI, is a competition that challenges university-level students to design, build and fly a reusable rocket with scientific payload to one mile in altitude. The project engages students in scientific research and real-world engineering processes with NASA engineers. Students propose to participate in USLI during the fall. Once selected, teams design their rocket and payload throughout the school year. USLI requires a NASA review of the teams’ preliminary and critical designs. The project also requires flight readiness and safety reviews before the rockets and payloads are approved for launch. After launch, teams complete a final report to include conclusions from their science experiment and the overall flight performance. The Preliminary Design Review, Critical Design Review, and Flight Readiness Review are conducted by panels of scientists and engineers from NASA and from NASA contactors and external partners.

NASA Faculty Research Programs (http://education.nasa.gov/edprograms/frprograms/index.html)

NASA Educator Programs (http://education.nasa.gov/edprograms/eduprograms/index.html)

Flying to Europe

I moved a step closer to Europe yesterday by finally booking my airline flight. My big thing was that I was willing to pay full fare if I was able to use my frequent flyer miles to upgrade to business class. This meant flying on Northwest, Delta, or one of the airlines affiliated with them. Well, after I finally found a travel agency that was open in Huntsville on a Saturday, I managed to book a flight on Northwest AND get the upgrade to business class to both sides of the pond.

HUZZAH!!!

For reasons that are probably easy to figure out if I gave the matter some thought, Delta does not accept NWA's WorldPerks miles, even though Delta just bought NWA. No problem: the NWA flight was cheaper anyway. The only downside of the flight is the return portion. Outbound, I fly to Memphis and then head to Amsterdam from there. The return flight is Paris (CDG) to Minneapolis, then Minneapolis-Memphis, and THEN Memphis-Huntsville. The other icky part is that I leave Paris around noonish, arrive in the States around 4 p.m., and finally get home around 9 p.m. Sort of like a time travel episode of Star Trek, as written by a sadistic airline scheduler. There has to be a way to get an overnight flight back to the U.S. doesn't there? Well, maybe it won't be so bad. If I sleep in that day, get to the airport, and stay awake through the flights, I should be able to get home and crash hard...just in time to go into work the next day. Oy.

Anyhow, I'm jazzed. After half a dozen years of shoehorning myself into a bunch of RJs, it'll be a frickin' novelty to be able to sit in a decent seat and not pay $5 for a cocktail. I might even learn to like airline travel again, even if it means getting to the airport two hours before flight time. Might have to buy that Kindle. I could be doing a lot of reading on these flights.

I suppose the next thing I'll need to do is to start nailing down what I need to pack--Rick Steeves provides a recommended list--try to pack all that stuff into the suitcase, and then see how far I can walk with it before collapsing under the weight. Oh yeah, and I need to learn how to wash my clothes on the road. Yippee.

Book Review: Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

In my continuing efforts to broaden my mind, I decided to pick up another book on philosophy, in this case, William James' 1906 work, Pragmatism, with the long subtitle noted above. James originally articulated these ideas in a series of university lectures as a new means of approaching philosophy that was different both from "tough-minded" empiricism, which focused mostly on facts, and "tender-minded" rationalism, which focused on ideas. Pragmatism was the "third way" of its day, offering as it did a way of incorporating abstract philosophical notions with the "real world." Here's how James puts it:

The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable.

Mind you, many or most metaphysical disputes can be interminable if you've got a sufficiently boring philosphy professor. James, however, is an engaging writer (and, presumably, speaker if his prose is any judge). He often lapses into Latin, French, or German in such ways that he assumes his audience understands. It's a reflection of the times--or maybe just me--that I understood little to none of his foreign-language asides.

Be that as it may, what does pragmatism do? There is a certain negative connotation to the word because it is usually associated with political pragmatism, which is often translated as a willingness to compromise principles for personal gain or to avoid conflict.
Returning to James...

The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion (rational or empirical) by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other's being right.

...

In what respects would the world be different if this alternative or that were true? If I can find nothing that would become different, then the alternative has no sense.

There is a bit more to it than that, of course. Pragmatism is also an approach to thinking. For instance, James says that "ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just insofar as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience." I translate that to mean, "If it [an idea] works, then it is good." This idea could be "I believe that human beings should pursue the good," which is a rationalist notion, or "I believe that the physical world is composed of atoms," which is something derived from empiricism."

Upon this basis, then, James addresses such questions as the creation of the world (and its likely future), the existence or purpose of free will, the existence of Truth (with a big T), et cetera. This notion of playing with ideas until they work--or don't--has an almost scientific feel to it. He is proposing that we apply the scientific method to philosophical ideas: form the hypothesis, set up an experiment, test the results. If no experiment is possible, the question/hypothesis isn't worth pursuing, at least according to James.

This is a very American way of thinking. Not being an especially philosophical people, we nevertheless must interact with the world of hard, empirical facts as well as loftier, more tenuous ideas like The Law, or Justice, or Truth, which are rational notions upon which our society depends. Americans tend to pursue "what works" rather than "what's been done before." This approach of using "what works" is partially a result of European settlers moving West and encountering landscapes, people, vegetation, and animals previously unknown and thus outside of previous experience; and is partially the result of a lack of classical or formal education along the frontier.
If I have any complaint with this book, it is its approach to ethics:

The way to escape from evil on this system is not by getting it "aufgehoben" [waived] or preserved in the whole as an element essential but "overcome." It is by dropping it out altogether, throwing it overboard and getting beyond it, helping to make a universe that shall forget its very place and name.

According to the scheme outlined in this book, good and evil are very contingent and situational, and it is up to each of us to choose the good (which James does, at least, prefer) and leave behind the evil. This is, as he puts it earlier in the book, the "ultimate protestantism." However, this is also as close to a Godless, rudderless moral universe as one can imagine.

James offers hope in the form of a universe wherein human beings are at least offered a chance at salvation, however you care to define the word, through individual choice and effort as opposed to a perfectly "good" universe, where the only freedom would be to be worse and a perfectly "evil" universe, where any action taken won't matter worth a plate of dingo's kidneys.

I kept thinking of Robert A. Heinlein as I read this book. Heinlein might have been the ultimate pragmatist science fiction writer. He wrote several stories and books depicting this very pragmatic, practical approach to human behavior. In Starship Troopers, he offers up a society in which only individuals who serve in the military or civil service for a minimum of three years are allowed to vote. At one point in the book, a teacher challenges his student on why the society has been set up this way. When the student starts reciting the philosophical, "textbook" answers, the teacher comes down on him and says, "No, our society is the way it is for one simple reason: because it works."
In a nonfiction essay entitled "The Pragmatics of Patriotism," found in the collection Expanded Universe, Heinlein discusses the functional (pragmatic) purpose of patriotism--why we need it, what its value is to society, and how it ennobles the individual. In other books, such as Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein's viewpoint character Jubal Harshaw sees the protagonist, the Man from Mars, radically changing society and its mores. Rather than rail against the changes, Harshaw examines the advantages of the changes, and accepts them because they work--at least within the context of the story.

This is not a philosophy that will make great inroads with cultural conservatives, who believe that morals cannot or should not change. Pragmatists, of which there are many in the science fiction writing community, at least recognize that morals, mores, and cultures are subject to change. And these changes are often based on "what works." In the end Pragmatism might offer the reader some insight into metaphysical thinking. It might even make sense. However, as with any philosophy--even pragmatism itself--one should be careful about judging the potential results or implications of the thoughts being presented.

In Defense of Mass Marketing

I almost called this posting "Undoing my Thesis." Seven or eight years ago, I was hunting around for a thesis topic for my technical writing master's program at UCF. I knew it would be something to do with space exploration advocacy, I just didn't know exactly what. I was looking for a new approach for space advocates to use to make their line of advocacy more of a mainstream activity like, say, advocating for environmental protection or affordable healthcare.

A lot of what fed the thesis was my dismay at the various National Space Society conferences I attended, where the primary audience was white males. Few minorities, few women. I managed to hit upon the notion of targeted marketing, and figured that environmentalists would also make a good, large audience for space advocacy messages. My advisor, Dr. Kitalong, was won over by my enthusiasm or by the sheer goofiness and strangeness of the topic. Obviously the fact that it had a real-world application to technical writers was the deciding factor. The general thrust of my thesis can be found here: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/795/1, though other variants of the topic can be found here as well:

• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-on-gen-y-and-space-friend-sent-me.html
• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/07/apollo-11-39-ares-i-x-etc.html
• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/07/should-disney-get-retired-space-shuttle.html
• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/03/selling-space-to-science-fiction-fans.html
• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/03/marketing-space-to-baby-boomers-ive-put.html
• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/03/marketing-space-to-gen-x-okay-enough.html
• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/02/useful-travel-links-and-marketing-to.html
• http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2007/10/targeted-marketing-vs.html

My basic premise was simply that technical communicators/advocates should focus on specific, target markets rather than try to use "mass marketing" sell space to "everyone" (or at least the entire voting public in the U.S.). Once I had my topic, I could find material easily enough. I had some problems with the approach, though, and those problems didn't go away just because I got my M.A. For instance, I do not consider myself a "groupist" or hyphenated American. Yes, I have English, Irish, German, and Polish relatives, but I consider myself--and was raised as--an American, a nationalist. That's it.

The problems with targeting specific groups, however necessary, are many:

• It assumes that all individuals in a particular group (women, minorities, environmentalists) have the same views/opinions/outlooks on life.
• It facilitates balkanization of the culture.
• Arguments that appeal to one group might not appeal to another.
• Targeting multiple audiences/markets runs the risk of trying to please everyone, in effect watering down the message.

It is probably (but not necessarily) easier to target age groups than ethnic minorities or other divisions. Ethnic targeting leads to excessive political wind testing and constant "tacking." For instance, I recall hearing about a corporate class in multiculturalism that had to constantly be rewritten and eventually scrapped because no two managers could agree on what "multiculturalism" or "diversity" really meant.

NASA, like the National Space Society, has to walk a fine line because it is supported by both major political parties. I also would like to think--though this might be naive--that the exploration and settlement of space offers benefits for all people, regardless of additional affiliations or even nationality. Mind you, I happen to be a supporter of the U.S. first, and I understand the American viewpoint(s) best, and I'd like to think that space exploration is something that Americans could share as a common source of pride, unity, and aspiration. So perhaps I ought to give up on the "targeted marketing" business. It's difficult enough trying to put out one message the appeals to one nation, let alone all the subgroups within that nation.

I can dream, anyway.