Experts on the Future of Space

For a space geek like me, the nice part about living and working in Huntsville, Alabama is the ready access one can have to hearing and speaking with some of the eminent voices in the human spaceflight community. This week, a former program manager, former Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Director, and former NASA Administrator held forth at a lunch-and-learn session at MSFC's Activities Building titled "The Evolution of Space Flight from Government to Private Sector."

The talk actually mirrors the careers of Steve Cook, Dave King, and Mike Griffin, who were leading NASA, Marshall, and the Ares Projects a scant four years ago and are now all in the private sector to one extent or another. Cook and King are senior managers at Dynetics while Griffin has been an engineering professor at University of Alabama-Huntsville.

Much to my surprise, the gentlemen did not prepare any remarks. This was a straightforward ask-the-experts panel, with the audience members asking questions on a microphone or on 3X5" cards. Given the stated topic of the appearance, the questions quickly honed in on where government would most likely play and where in the space business.

Getting Started

Griffin started off the discussion, stating that he believed government should most likely fulfill the role of providing the first guaranteed market(s) for private industry, which would attract private investment. Another future role would be for the government to build what it thinks it wants first, then license the intellectual property so others could build it. However, right now Griffin believes that, "Regrettably, the market's not big enough." The biggest barrier to private-sector entry into space right now was the prohibitive cost of RDT&E (NASA-speak for Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation).

Cook answered the rhetorical question, "Do we (commercial entities) have the ability to launch cargo into space? Of course. Crew? Hasn't been done yet." For Cook, the issue wasn't capacity, but market size. "Committed investment by the government could provide that and it would justify the investment."

Griffin's ideal choice of a guaranteed, lucrative government market would be providing cargo for an established lunar base. Yet he cautioned enthusiastic supporters of commercial space, stating that human spaceflight carries with it huge risks, and that while large commercial firms like Boeing might absorb the damages from a catastrophic failure, smaller firms could get wiped out.

Cook suggested future needs for the super-heavy-lift Space Launch System, including the lunar base Griffin alluded to and space solar power systems, both of which would require large payload space initially. Cook likened SLS to the Transcontinental Railroad or Interstate Highway System: a large investment made by the government for the benefit of all.

Government and Private Sector Roles

Griffin pointed out that venture capitalists like investments that give them a return on investment (ROI) ten times their initial input. Proven space-based investments like communication satellites only provide 13 to 15 percent. He pointed out that space investments are on the high end of risk for business investments. This fit well with my own personal view, and the card with my question came up next, which was "What activities do you think it's crucial for government to do in space, and what activities are crucial for the private sector?" Griffin responded that "Nobody is stopping anyone in the private sector from doing what they want in space. If they've got a proven business model, they should do it." A self-described fiscal conservative, Griffin did not think government should have a say in where the proper balance point is, that's for the citizenry to decide and for the private sector to conduct as much private activity as the market will bear.

King felt government should help the market along, taking the lead on strategic capabilities and ensure that commercial capacity is a going concern. He did point out the need to get access to low-Earth orbit (LEO) at a lower cost, but didn't make any specific recommendations as to how to effect that outcome.

Cook shifted gears a bit, talking about the regulatory environment and how government should ensure consistent safety standards for astronauts and passengers. He felt that safety standards should be the same whether someone was flying aboard a NASA spacecraft or commercial one. He also noted the difficulty in defining "commercial" missions right now (I suppose an example would be something like NASA astronauts flying aboard a private vehicle to the International Space Station--the launch provider might be getting paid, but is the flight really "commercial?") In any case, Cook felt the rules should be the same, and that would take some negotiation among NASA, the FAA, and private industry.

The Long View

The panel also touched on international affairs, with Griffin stating emphatically that "Space is a strategic human frontier for the future" and that the only way to ensure that Western values and practices such as freedom and capitalism are continued as human civilization expands outward is for the United States to participate. However, the entrepreneurial investments would not occur without a long-term commitment by the U.S. government to space activities.

The Local View

Someone asked what Dynetics' new rocket-launching partnership with SpaceX and Scaled Composites, Stratolaunch, would mean for Huntsville. Dave King felt that the Stratolaunch vehicle would be able to transform how we view space tourism, space launch, and other activities. Stratolaunch is based in Huntsville, and Dynetics has responsibility for a major component of the system as well as systems integration. One side effect would be to bring more commercial space activity to Huntsville, which King felt was too dependent on the government dollar anyway.

Life "Outside the Gate"

Marshall Space Flight Center is situated in the middle of Redstone Arsenal, which is the property of the U.S. Army and thus "gated" off from the general public. A member of the audience asked the panel about the difference in their lives outside the gate. Cook was the first to answer. He talked about the similarities first, emphasizing the need for a manager to communicate a clear vision and to get employee buy-in for what you're trying to do. He also felt the employees' passion for the work was kindred. The biggest differences he cited were the smaller bureaucracy and the lack of distinction between "institutional" and "project" functions. King felt that privately held companies could make longer-term decisions with fewer rules and less institutional friction when it comes to making decisions. Griffin added that there was less work in the private sector related to "grooming the institution."

One thing King suggested to anyone interested in jumping outside the gate was that the individual should pick an environment where the values match yours. Along similar lines, Cook stated that you need to "hold onto your core values, but be willing to change everything else" to adapt to the market environment.

What Next?

Someone had to ask the magic question: "How do we assure long-term support for programs that take 20 to 30 years to execute?" Griffin, typical of his sense of humor, responded, "Why are you asking me when I'm obviously inadequate to the task?" Still, Griffin felt that long-term support for large national programs are possible. He cited examples such as the Transcontinental Railroad system, which took over 50 years to complete; the Social Security system; and maintaining funding for the armed forces. He believes NASA has long-term public support. However, Griffin did not agree with the administration's call for a mission to an asteroid: "You're not going to have long-term support for a vision when the goals make no sense."

Another question concerned keeping the workforce motivated in periods of institutional or programmatic uncertainty. The advice wasn't too unfamiliar: decide what you want to be passionate about, focus on what you can control, and "Run to the fire, go find some hard problems to try to solve and be bold about it."

Parting Thoughts

Returning to themes that began their discussion, the panel members reiterated their belief that the future of commercial spaceflight wouldn't be too promising without a guaranteed government market as a matter of public policy. Griffin noted that "Europe sees the strategic value of owning the space launch market. What's wrong with us that we do not?"

Dave King had one of the closing comments of the afternoon in responding to the ongoing rivalry between government and commercial space, stating that people were focusing on an unnecessary conflict. He wished "we could see value in each, concentrate on the genius of the 'And' instead of the tyranny of the 'Or'."

We'll see what happens next.

Potpourri CXL

Science, Technology, and Space



Buy James Bond’s car…with gizmos! http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/autos/1006/gallery.james_bond_car/index.html

Down in a hole in Guatemala: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/storm-agatha-hole-guatemala

Intriguing question: what will you say if SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch fails? http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1636/1

Interesting NASA spinoff…long-duration underwear: http://online.wsj.com/video/not-quite-rocket-science-2-week-underwear/E670662E-7041-42D3-8FE1-549FFB808FC2.html


Effects of oil spill on wetlands: http://www.sciencecheerleader.com/2010/05/brief-review-effects-of-oil-on-wetlands/

Web 2.0 at the Department of Defense: http://www.sciencecheerleader.com/2010/05/gov-2-0-emerges-at-the-department-of-defense/




Real-life version of Minority Report’s user interface: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/01/real-life-version-of.html


Sony has developed a device that sends Twitter postings for cats by monitoring their activities…at least until the cats figure out a way to remove the things (my guess): http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/01/sony-makes-tweeting.html


Mega projects under consideration in Japan. There was a time Americans thought ambitiously in this manner: http://pinktentacle.com/2010/06/futuristic-mega-projects-by-shimizu/


The Navy is testing a laser weapon: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/05/31/navy.death.ray.wired/


The Sunlight Foundation has announced the winners of the “Design for America” competition, which was developed to suggest cool things to do with the U.S. Government’s new “open data” feeds: http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2010/design-america-winners/


There’s a new line of robot vacuum cleaners out there—I really need one of these! http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/msi-robot-vacuums-invade-computex-set-sights-on-roomba/

EA has come out with a hockey stick for the Wii: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/eas-nhl-slapshot-packs-gretzky-approved-wiimote-hockey-stick/


What sorts of space missions could we do if we had unlimited funding? Try this: http://gizmodo.com/5552488/we-could-get-to-neptune-and-back-in-5-years-for-a-mere-4-trillion


The 747-mounted SOFIA telescope has taken its first infrared pictures of Jupiter: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/flying-telescope-sofia-nasa-photos-100601.html




The U.S. Air Force had the first flight test of the X-51 Waverider aerospace craft, which is powered by a scramjet, flying up to Mach 5: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/awst/2010/05/31/AW_05_31_2010_p27-230271.xml&headline=X-51A%20Team%20Eyes%20Results%20Of%20Scramjet%20Flight&channel=awst


Domestic Politics



Peggy Noonan, Mark Steyn, and Jerry Pournelle on Obama’s handling of the oil gusher: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269204575270950789108846.html, http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/27/were-too-broke-to-be-this-stupid/, and http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2010/Q2/view624.html#Friday

The Dow dropped 112 points on word that Attorney General Holder is going to start criminal investigations into the BP oil gusher in the Gulf: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9G2N1M00&show_article=1


Foreign Affairs


Iran has enough fissionable material to make two nuclear weapons: http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=177064


Euro hits a new low: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100601/D9G2FC8O4.html


Canada is reassessing its healthcare model: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100531/hl_nm/us_health_3

So while I was out of town for the weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces intercepted aid ships heading for the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip because they were bringing in weapons. The activists who weren’t killed in the raid are to be deported. http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177178

Culture


A stop-motion animation video game. Cool! http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/01/video-alex-varaneses.html

A man repeatedly called 911 after his mother took his beer. Brilliant. http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/01/1657707/pasco-man-charged-after-911-call.html

A psychology professor has written a paper on why “self-experimentation” is unusually effective. Uh, yeah, BUT… http://sethroberts.net/articles/2010%2520The%2520unreasonable%2520effectiveness%2520of%2520my%2520self-experimentation.pdf

So we’ve had it wrong all these years: they’re not mad scientists, they’re mad engineers! http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/01/the-dark-side-of-eng.html

For Doc: a Lovecraftian art exhibition… http://observatoryroom.org/2010/05/26/exhibition-opening-a-love-craft/

SpongeBob Square Pants at age 50: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/31/spongebob-age-50.html

Was there really a need for this? Ewok karaoke: http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2010/05/may-schwartz-be-with-you-ewok-karaoke.html

Here’s something for aspiring SF writers to try: a virtual “write-a-thon.” http://www.theclarionfoundation.org/writeathon/wrtn-home.htm

Actually sorry to hear this: Al and Tipper Gore are separating after 40 years of marriage. Tipper made Gore a nice contrast to Bill Clinton. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-gore-separation,0,2616256.story

The NASA Budget, Continued

This is a follow-up to my blog from yesterday on President Obama's budget. I've finally gotten caught up on my news reading, and assuming the reports are correct, here is my take on things. Please refer to the disclaimer above as far as the relationship of my opinions to NASA, my employer, or any other space-related organization...this is Bart, Private Citizen, writing.

• Killing Constellation: The President has proposed a budget that would drastically scale back or delay the schedule of the Constellation Program, which was tasked with going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Constellation has several major components, including launch vehicles (Ares), a crew exploration vehicle (Orion), a lunar lander (Altair), surface systems (hardware like power and habitat systems needed for living and working on the Moon), extra-vehicular activity (EVA--spacesuits), and ground systems. It takes a lot of money, in normal-person terms--not Department of Defense terms--to design, build, test, and field all this stuff. It also takes time. The less money you give these activities, the longer they take or the less likely it is that they will be done at all. Having not seen the budget, I can only guess that Constellation has either received a total cut or enough of a cut that any NASA-run return to the Moon would not happen until my five-year-old niece is old enough to start complaining about her kids' taste in music.
• Increasing Funding for Commercial Launches to the International Space Station (ISS): This is actually a smart idea and could/should have been done by the Bush Administration. Right now the only way to get human beings and the stuff they need to live and work on ISS is by the Space Shuttle, which will be retired after ISS is completed; crew/cargo launches by the Russians; or cargo launches by the Europeans' Automated Transfer Vehicle or, soon, Japan's cargo vehicle. But really, once Shuttle is retired, the only nation capable of flying people to and from the space station after 2011 will be Russia. This reality is just now occurring to normal (i.e. non-space) people. So what are the options?
  --Build a new rocket to replace the Space Shuttle. NASA has been doing this since 2005, in the form of the Ares I crew launch vehicle. Ares I, on its current development schedule, will not be ready to send astronauts to ISS until 2015 according to NASA plans. A presidential review panel thought that it would be more like 2016-2017. That would mean depending on Russia, et al., for at least five years, but at the end of that time NASA would again be able to send people up there.
  --Rely only on international partners until the ISS retires.
  --Encourage/pay for American private-sector aerospace companies to build launch vehicles (rockets) and spacecraft (crew capsules) to get astronauts and cargo to ISS. Some of this is already being done under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which was designed to help new companies--outside of the usual big players like Boeing and Lockheed Martin--develop these capabilities. Two companies are getting money under COTS, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences. SpaceX is the only company of the two developing both a launch vehicle, Falcon 9, and a spacecraft, Dragon.
  
  If the Obama administration is proposing more money for COTS, which seems like an easy funding vehicle since it already exists, that money could go a couple different directions:
  --Accelerating SpaceX and Orbital's work.
  --Paying to modify Boeing/Lockheed rockets (now built under a joint operation called United Launch Alliance) to launch a Dragon or Orion capsule to ISS. This money, reportedly $6 billion, could go toward "human rating" the Atlas or Delta launch vehicles, essentially adding some more bells and whistles to them to make them safe and reliable enough to put humans on top of them.
• Extending ISS Operations: This, too, makes sense. Under current plans, ISS would be completed in 2010 and then only enjoy four or five years of full-scale science and engineering operations before being closed down and deorbited (dropped into the Pacific). This presents several problems, including the difficulty of safely deorbiting a 400,000-pound space station and violating the international agreements the U.S. signed, which said that we would keep ISS operational for ten years after full assembly, which would be 2020.

Now a more ambitious person might ask, "Why don't we fund Constellation, COTS, and ISS?" A more pragmatic person--say, a politician--will stick his or her finger in the air, try guess which way the political winds are blowing, and guess (correctly) that the public isn't interested in government spending on a Moon mission "when there are so many more important things to be done here on Earth," like creating jobs. Let's pause for a moment, and savor the tragic irony of that position. Contrary to the public perception that money spent on NASA is wasted on "space," money spent on space hardware is spent mostly on salaries for people, products, and services on EARTH: high-education, high-paying jobs that would result in industrial and consumer spending now and technology advancement and spinoffs in the future.

So where does this leave us? If the President gets his way--and don't count on that--the extensive launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center would be converted to support Falcon 9, Atlas V, or Delta IV launches to ISS. The rocket-designing workforce in Huntsville, which is eager to build Ares I and the much larger Ares V for exploration missions, would be looking for jobs at ULA in Decatur. A bunch of people in Houston currently supporting Space Shuttle missions would lose their jobs, but those helping build Orion would keep theirs, and eventually NASA would again need mission control operations to support Orion missions to ISS. But for now, a lot of jobs in Florida and Alabama and Texas would be shifted to other duties or cut outright. In an economy with 10 percent unemployment, such a decision, on top of killing America's long-range ambitions for space exploration, would not be particularly popular with some segments of the electorate.

Others, like my friends at the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), are thrilled that the government is finally getting out of the "space operations" business. I've had my moments of doubt on that issue myself. In an economy that is healthy and with a workforce that's aging, retiring the Shuttle made sense--the older folks could retire and make room for the young punks eager to prove their stuff in the marketplace. And yes, there are things the private sector can do better, like keep their eyes on the ball programmatically. They don't argue every year as to whether their goal is to make money or not. Even if management and employees change regularly, everyone knows the business is there to make money.

The government, meanwhile, has an argument about the budget every year. Some years, they want to focus on increasing employment in Florida; other years they want to spend more on environmental monitoring; in more forward-thinking years, they want to spend money on fundamental research into aerospace, space science, planetary science, and other forms of astronomy; and sometimes they think it's a good idea to send people into space. It's a chaotic way to run a business, which is why governments are not the natural mechanism for exploiting space as a long-term concern. However, exploration is an iffy proposition for businesses. Payoffs are hard to determine. Obtaining funding for purely speculative ventures is difficult or impossible without a guaranteed return on investment. Governments are also now the only organizations willing or able to fund blue-sky engineering projects like single-stage-to-orbit rockets, in-space nuclear propulsion, or large-scale outposts in orbit or on the Moon.

The previous two paragraphs explain why I have no problem with a "mixed fleet" or "mixed economy" in space. There are things government does very well, like fund basic research and development, which offer no payoff or incentives to the private sector to accomplish. This would include things like building new exploration launch vehicles or launch vehicle technologies. Government also can fund basic infrastructure, like the first outpost in low-Earth orbit, on the Moon, or at the bottom of the sea. It is also responsible for maintaining the peace, collecting taxes, and regulating things like civil law and consumer protection. The building of ISS, Constellation, space telescopes, and NASA research centers, along with setting up the Office of Commercial Space Transportation fit these functions quite well. However, there are things that private enterprise can do much better, like improving efficiency in routine, known services, such as launching cargo and (eventually) crews to ISS. The private sector can better design, build, test, and field smaller products and services for known applications, like spare parts, accounting services, or employee cafeterias. Private businesses are also best at improving upon and mass-producing new technologies once the basic principles are known.

The sticking point for the SFF is Ares I, which they see as competing with Atlas, Delta, etc. And on a purely apples-to-apples comparison of capabilities, they might have a point: Ares I and human-rated commercial rockets would both be able to launch human beings to ISS. However, while the private sector sees that capability as redundant (true), government sees that as a strategic (national security) capability, which exists outside of questions of profit or loss. Let's say, for example, that Russia and the U.S. start a diplomatic tussle, and the U.S. government no longer considers American crew members on ISS "safe." Uncle Sam would want the on-call ability to launch a rocket to ISS to retrieve those crew members. Would a private-sector comapany, its investors, or its insurers allow a private rocket and spacecraft to head into a situation that likely spelled a danger to, and loss of, company property? Possibly--but only if government was the insurer--at which point we've got a nationalized space prgoram, which was exactly what the private sector guys are trying to avoid. So: there are reasons to have a government-built and -operated rocket that can go to ISS.

But SFF overlooks the primary purpose of Ares I, which is to support missions, in tandem with Ares V, to the Moon, asteroids, Mars, or wherever. If Congress can get access to ISS more cheaply via Delta IV, they will take it...but others will still want Uncle Sam to be able to do it, just in case.

And lastly, the big point I hear the rocket guys in Huntsville argue all the time is that no private company has launched a crew or cargo ship to ISS, leaving out the important word: yet. Until that "yet" happens, the private sector needs to cool its jets, so to speak, on making claims of superiority over NASA; meanwhile, NASA needs to accept that eventually they will lose their monopoly on human access to Earth orbit. Assuming the 2011 Obama budget passes as written, the private sector will have to, as my friend Tom Olson put it today, "put up or shut up." And in the meantime, a bunch of aerospace workers in Florida, Alabama, and Texas could be facing a very tough 2011.

This ain't over.

Potpourri CVI

I have been accused of neglecting this blog of late, to which I can only plead guilty. I have been rearranging my priorities--partially to make room for someone else in my life besides me and my oversized glass writer's ego and partially because I've experienced a corresponding lack of interest in the hot issues of the day. Those who make talk radio or other political hot topics the center of your day should probably take note...there is a life outside of politics, and it is very good.

From Father Dan, a link to something called the Social Security Death Index, which lists (as near as I can tell) the deaths of all U.S. persons since 1962.

From the Sapporo beer label, a specialty item: beer made from space barley (i.e., barley that has been in space).

Interested in learning how to learn your fancy new Apple hardware? Check out this site. Apple provides seminars, which you can search by zip code.

My favorite rocket scientist, Les Johnson, has a new book coming out soon called Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Planet Earth. It looks intriguing--using space resources as a way to reduce the strain on Earth's environment by accessing space resources. If it is like Les's other books, it will be highly informed and clearly explained for even the English majors in the reading audience. Looking forward to reading it!

From Lin:

• An article from the U.S. Geological Survey on a potential 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil lurking beneath North Dakota and Montana...one wonders if the folks advocating for energy independence in the Obama administration are listening/reading.
• An article from Commentary Magazine, which I have but haven't read yet, on why Obama is wrong in his approach to missile defense.
• Lin had a question about this article regarding the release of environment/climate data from NASA and one person's effort to extract it from the agency. It sounds like a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request got ignored, and the complainant is using the occasion of the climate data fracas at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press his case.

On another personal note, I have been worn down by the sheer complexity of 21st century reality, and will soon be purchasing a smart phone of some kind. The folks responding to my request for inputs on Facebook have mostly recommended the iPhone, which I've rejected out of a knee-jerk anti-Apple attitude more than anything else. However, if it does what I want, I might relent. That doesn't mean I'll go out and buy a Mac next (as Father Dan might say, "Get a grip!"). Another hot item on the market right now is the Droid, which is Motorola's answer to the iPhone and features a hard-key popout keyboard that I lilke, being less than savvy with touch screens. Most of my friends and family members who have these toys use something out of the BlackBerry. What interests me is that they all use different models, and all seem equally happy with them, so I guess I might end up taking one friend's advice and just going with what looks cool. :-)

How do you keep a space geek in suspense? Tell you you'll get back to him after the next NASA program study. The Obama administration wants to emphasize international cooperation. Great. Can they at least allow Constellation/Ares/Orion to continue building hardware in the meantime?

This was a pretty good interview on NPR regarding current goings-on in space.

From Martin...an opportunity to market your own blog via t-shirt/sweatshirt. Might have to look into that. Not that I don't love the 15 of you who check in on a daily basis, but eventually I might need to pay bills with this site, ya know?

A Business Week article on the Singularity University giving lectures to CEOs about the future. Sounds cool. Anyone got 25 grand they care to loan me?

From Gwen: An Arizona public school teacher lost his job for running the SETI @ Home application from his work computer.

From D2:

• On a slow day, I was wondering aloud what I could do to make myself more useful or marketable in my current line of work. Dede suggested looking at the IRS tax credit available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, a.k.a., the stimulus) for lifetime learning expenses. I'm far from a pure libertarian on such things--I got through my M.A. with a federal loan--but a) I'm not sure how long ARRA money will be available, and b) I can probably find better ways to spend my time and other people's money.
• Xerox is offering the opportunity to send "thanks to the troops" postcards. Worth checking out.

A good editorial by Patti Grace Smith (former FAA person in charge of Commercial Space Transportation and now an aerospace consultant on why commercial rockets to the International Space Station are not inherently unsafer than government-built vehicles. I go around and around with my coworkers on this issue. The usually concede that commercial entities could do the job, but they haven't done it yet; ergo government must continue to do it. Yeah, I contend, but for how long? At which point the conversation peters out, as I hear vague terms like "human rating" and "flight rate." The federal budget is not endless, and NASA will not get much past the Moon until it is set free from low-Earth orbit and ISS operations. Just sayin'.

That's about it for now. Be good to yourselves and each other. There's a lot of weirdos out there.

Some Other Space Items

Hat tip to Martin for finding this Washington Post survey on the usefulness of spending on NASA: http://www.dailytech.com/Survey+9+Out+of+10+Americans+Think+Space+Exploration+Still+Important/article14413.htm

*

I got into an interesting discussion with Tom Olson, an expert on space entrepreneurship and one of the contributors to Space Cynics. First, you can read his original post: http://spacecynic.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/i-am-a-lost-cause/

Not able to leave this alone, I felt that I must respond:

You’ve got excellent reasons for being a “lost cause” on all of the topics you mentioned. However, since you’re not a Kool-Aid drinker for SBSP, low-cost launch, He-3, etc., what does interest you in space still? What do you think will work, given all the aborted or downright silly ideas?
I’ve seen a few posts like this, here and on N’Watch, bashing this or that dumb idea, but often find few positive recommendations. Are those found on a different blog?
/b

To which Mr. Olson responded:

I’m interested in all of space, Bart. Have been since I was a kid. I want to see people live and thrive everywhere from the moon and Mars to the asteroids and beyond. I want to see tourism and orbiting hotels. I want to see the private commercial space sector one day dwarf the government sector, as is the case with all other areas of our economy. (Well, up until recently. --BL)
My problem is the nutty ways that people propose to achieve that goal - ways that are impractical, full of “unobtainium”, have 8 or 9-figure upfront costs, or ways that hide their true costs (this is also known as being untruthful).
So the real question becomes, “How do we get from here to there?” I have a few ideas - I’ve even shared them for those who’ve cared to listen (that would include ISDC last year, Bart, and I didn’t see you in the audience - pity, that…). (He's right. My bad. I was elsewhere when his talk was going on because I got rerouted to another room.)
I think in the short run, strategic investments in “enabling” technologies will get us much farther in the long run than trying to throw down everything into grabbing the entire brass ring in one swoop. For example, I believe that lower-cost launch is possible - but not using the materials we presently use to make rockets - but getting that material requires new methods, hence my focus on certain nanotech startups. But that means to get there we may have to wait awhile, and that is unacceptable to those with limited patience who think they can get it all now, if only they can convince someone with a really deep pocket to fund them.
To be fair, I’m very supportive of SpaceX, because they’re doing it all with private money, and had to raise all their own capital before getting a single NASA check. But Elon himself admitted that the only “efficiencies” would be “at the margins”. In other words, no huge reduction in launch cost was coming anytime soon. That’s the world that exists today. But if you could “grow” the bulk of your rocket components in a vat from nano-assembled diamond, the rocket equation changes because the empty lift mass is a lot lower, but still as strong. That means more payload.
I’m looking at “smart materials” that may one day find themselves in better spacesuits. I’m looking at something called an “axial-flux” electric motor that claims 80% efficiency, available for transportation, regenerative braking, and wind generation, something I also see on a Mars rover.
There’s a ton of ideas being developed, and tons of potential money to be made, right now, on materials, products, and services that may seem unrelated at first, but will all one day become key components of a thriving space-commerce infrastructure.
But it’ll take patience, a long term plan, and a solid grounding in reality.

I like the cynics. They make me think. I reacted to one of their more provocative discussions soon after ISDC, which took on "The Church of the Trillion-Dollar Asteroid," "The Church of Cheap Access to Space," "The Church of Space Solar Power," and "The Church of Spaceports." The point of picking on all these groups was to bring a little financial realism to the wild dreams of space advocates. Of course the problem with all this thinking is that I've found myself wondering, as a non-engineer, non-scientist English major, who is right? What path will really get us to space?

Anyone who wants to become a space advocate, as I obviously do, must set themselves on a quest for lifelong learning. And I've got to state here that I don't want to do all the math. I'm an advocacy writer, I'm not paid to do rocket science; but I want to have a layman's understanding of the various technologies. I want to know that I'm supporting the right things for the right reasons. Never mind. I've got more reading to do.

Jim Benson Dies

http://www.spacedev.com/press_more_info.php?id=285

This is a shame. I had occasion to meet, interview, and write about Benson a few times. He was one of many IT execs who made a ton of money during the dot-com boom and decided to reinvest his money in the space business. He dreamed big. If he didn't reach all his goals, my hat's off to him for at least setting some worthy ones. Requiescat in pace.

SpaceX Has First Successful Falcon 1 Launch

This is huge: SpaceX has had its first successful launch of a payload to orbit. The launch video can be found here: http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/09/spacex_update_2.html

Why does this matter? Simple: it brings the U.S. one step closer to not having depend completely upon the Russians or anyone else, for that matter, to get cargo or people to the International Space Station. This is the first privately developed launch vehicle to achieve orbit.

Mind you, this is the Falcon 1, the smaller of Elon Musk's launch vehicles. Falcon 9 is the one that would take cargo to ISS, and the Falcon 9 Heavy variant is supposed to launch crew (aboard the Dragon spacecraft) or cargo to ISS. No doubt SpaceX will face more challenges with Falcon 9, as it did with Falcon 1, but I would hope that the commercial doubters out there have enough good grace to wish SpaceX congratulations. I'm not counting on that 100%. I know a few people who will say, "Yeah, but they haven't put up a working payload, reached 99.9999% reliability, launched heavy cargo, gone to ISS, split the fifth dimension, altered time, sped up the harvest, or saved the galaxy yet." To which I want to respond, "Well, jeez, you've got to start somewhere! And how many launch failures did NASA have when the space program first began?" [Take a look at The Right Stuff book or movie for an answer to that.] An example of this attitude can be found in response to a book review about a book on SpaceShipOne:

So called "Spaceship One" was not in any way a space ship, did not go into "space", did not go into orbit around the Earth, nor was it an achievement in aerospace technology at all. The vehicle was a rocket propelled engineering stunt circa 1955 that burned old rubber tires for fuel! How far are you gonna get on that stuff? The age of freeboot space pioneers financed by freeboot capital has yet to dawn but when the light shines those that go into the High Frontier won't be burning rubber!

I've got to wonder about that sort of psychology: when national capabilities are increased or great achievements are made, what purpose does it serve to put them down or minimize them, except to feed or soothe the egos of others? Still, I take this flight a good sign after three failures.

Am I a little too gung-ho for the commercial sector? I'm not quite sure how. Why should anyone wish them ill, or wish to doubt their abilities? If the private sector can get stuff into space, that is only to NASA's benefit, as the agency will be able to use other providers and eventually to reduce costs to the taxpayer. This launch will increase confidence in Falcon 1, in SpaceX, and in "commercial space" in general. And quite frankly, the space business (and the nation) could use all the confidence it can get right now.

Why Space, Et Cetera

In my voluminous day-job reading today, I came across this article on "The Value of Space Exploration." This was a collection of answers by assorted bloggers on the topic. Being a part-time blogger myself, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Mind you, some of the reader responses to the bloggers were pretty darned depressing, but I need to think positively if I'm going to keep on this space-advocacy-as-a-lifestyle thing. (Yesterday, I briefly considered praying for intercession from St. Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.) So, here I go...

Why Human Beings Should Explore, Develop, and Settle the Solar System

The human willingness to create technology is based on several beliefs:

• That we are rational creatures.
• That we have and can cope with the environment around us.
• That we can make our temporal lives better here in this existence.
• That we can make tools or take actions that will make that better life possible.

This all sounds rather lofty for a bunch of geeky guys and gals who just want to get off the planet. However, there have been plenty of human philosophies throughout history that deny one, several, or all of the ideas above. The combination of these ideas has been made possible only in the West, through a combination of Greek science and Christian epistemology. Space exploration represents the ultimate expression of these ideals.

Now obviously Western beliefs in human rationality and free will are not unique, nor are they absolute requirements for putting human beings into space. Russian communists and Chinese communists after them have done so. Japanese collectivists and European socialists have launched satellites and planetary orbiters into space as well, as the laws of physics work for anyone, even Nazi fascists. Consider: if the United States had not won World War II, Wernher von Braun would have launched a German rocket and put the flag of the Third Reich on the Moon. That is reason enough to believe in a better, more uplifting philosophy.

What matters in the end is the type of society we, as humans, manage to put into space. Do we want a future where the government owns and controls everything, do we want a future that maximizes opportunity to the individual, or do we want a future that ensures the welfare of every individual? I believe, if the United States is to prove its worthiness to history, we must go farther, faster into space than any other society. The winner of the race will be seen as the wave of the future. If we allow the paranoid nationalism of China or Russia to beat us to the first Lunar settlement, or the regulation-bound European Union to control the resources of space, then we will be in no position to shape the future.

And here's the bottom line for yours truly: the only way I am going to make it into space is as a paying passenger on a commercial flight. If I wait until I have the credentials and NASA has the astronaut space to allow me aboard one of their rockets, I might as well wait for Doomsday as wait to get to the Moon. Only a free, rich society capable of supporting a middle-class-accessible space economy will enable an English major and "space fan" like me to get up there. And right now only America, for all its berserk politics and social upheavals, is likely to lead and create that society. And when all is said and done, I want to go!

OmegaCon - Lessons Learned

I have to give OmegaCon two ratings, one for my personal experience and one for my professional experience. I did, after all, attend with ulterior motives: I was looking for ways to reach SF fans in such a way that they'd become more interested/involved in space advocacy, which is different from fandom. Personally, I had fun. But then I don't mind talking SF with like-minded fans or dressing up like a damn fool as a means of joining the fun. Professionally, I have a lot of thinking to do. A comment from Ben Bova, who is both an eminent SF writer and space advocate, gave me pause. I explained my mission, more or less, saying, "There are more SF fans than space advocates. How do we get all these folks to be advocates?" He smiled and said, "I have no idea. I've been trying for 50 years. If you figure it out, let me know." How scary is that?

I wasn't nearly as pushy at this conference as I could have been. I'm probably more comfortable dealing with people my age or older, and maybe half the con was under 30, and as a lady in the elevator said, they were more interested in costuming and playing video games. I did talk to a couple of Xers and listen to a lot of people in and out of my panel sessions, and here are the "magic words" I heard in passing:

• "It needs to be fun."
• "NASA is too stodgy."
• "A lot of people are more interested in the commercial aspect, even if it's from the self-interest angle. They're imagining themselves going up into space. You can't do that with NASA."
• There was a lot of concern in the Moon, Mars, and Beyond track about the progress the Chinese were making and what, if anything, NASA was doing about it. (Answer, given the current administration's budget and priorities: zip.)
• One gentleman was upset that there were no official Ares I or Ares V model rockets available. This same person felt the commercial space thing was "dangerous," as it could lead to a de-scoping of NASA if proven successful.
• A couple of SF editors and writers expressed the opinion that commercial industry was better equipped to handle space transportation issues. I noted that those expressing such opinions were Xers like me. There is a strong libertarian streak in a lot of hard SF (begun by Heinlein), which probably feeds the libertarian ethos in some aspects of the space advocacy community today.
• Nanotechnology was of much greater interest than the space program. What, if anything, is NASA doing with nanotechnology? Ah, the glories of Google. Ames Research Center is working on this stuff. Is there any way to incorporate nanotech into Constellation?
• There were a couple of rooms full of kids playing video games. NASA is taking steps in this direction, but one hopes that those steps will be taken in the company of people who have actually played video games.
• The discussions I had with the English professors was interesting, as one of them suggested that their students, despite getting a lot of PC miseducation, might still get behind space exploration if it was doing things that were relevant to them now, like global warming or energy production. Is Constellation set up to do that? No, not necessarily...

These answers shouldn't really come as a surprise. If SF fans are into exciting adventures that either offer hope for the future or expand their horizons, surely the space program can offer them both, right? Um...well, maybe. I mean, I think going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond is cool, but if you want to sell space to the more hard-headed pragmatists out there, even the SF fans are going to want to know that the space program is about more than just keeping the existing infrastructure employed.

The challenge, of course, is that NASA has such a limited range of control over its destiny. On the one hand, advocates are saying, "If you guys do something cool, we'll support you." Meanwhile, the reality is that NASA can only do something cool if the general public persuades the nation's elected officials that they want to see them done. Thus the chicken and the egg face off once again.

*

From a freelance writer point of view, I picked up some useful information in the event I ever find the time/inclination to write SF professionally. Some choice bits of intel include:

• "If you have a manuscript [novel], expect that someone will hold onto it for two years."
• "No simultaneous submissions."
• "Writers must know the business end of writing."
• "About half my money goes toward taxes." --David Drake
• "Set up a post office box to force yourself out of the house." --Drake (again)
• "I've written more books under pseudonyms than under my real name." --Mike Resnick
• Most of the best paying professional magazines are now online.
• SF is now taking over all forms of entertainment and is becoming part of the mainstream.
• "Knowing what to steal is a lot of this business."
• "The greatest threat to writers isn't piracy, it's obscurity." --Cory Doctorow (quoted, he wasn't at the con)
• "Don't write according to trends. By the time it's a trend, it's already dead."
• Gen Xers seem to have taken over the editorial chores in the SF world.
• Listening to the science professionals talk in the Hard Science track made me realize why I'm an English major. Some of that stuff just zoomed over my head.
• Cover art matters a great deal in the ability to sell a book. The writer often has little to no control over the cover art.
• There are more than 2,000 new books every year in the fantasy and science fiction genre.
• Books generally remain on the shelves 30-60 days.
• Borders distributes books based on national sales numbers. What this means in practical terms is that they will buy the same number of a particular author's works for every location despite local or regional increases or decreases in interest.
• "If you're going to get rejected, it'll happen immediately." --Eric Flint
• Publisher consider a hardcover book doing well if it sells 70% of its print run; 55% for paperbacks.
• Entry into the fiction world is determined by writing quality; entry to the non-fiction writing world is based more on credentials.
• When dealing with agents, don't pay reading fees. "Money should flow to the writer."
• Editors see agents as "bastions holding back the slush pile."
• "Most of the bestselling authors at Baen came from the slush pile.
• Editor Lou Anders on deadlines: "I have fake deadline one and fake deadline two."
• American authors earn more from American customers buying books from American publishers than from American customers buying editions of their books from overseas.
• There are mixed opinions about self-publishing. Aside from one writer, most of those who have sold through large or small presses believe that self-publishing works against you.
• Agents are valuable because they know the market and have the contacts necessary to get stories into the hands of the right editors.
• "Make sure you understand your temperament and get along with your agent."
• It's okay to check back with an editor after a six-month gap if your manucript hasn't been rejected right away. If a story hasn't been rejected right away, it goes into a "guilt pile." Those are the stories that are good enough to survive the first cut ("Editors are looking for ways to eliminate you up front"), but not urgent enough to be read right away.
• The top performers (Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, etc.) get the most attention because they bring in most of the money. First-time authors are an unknown quantity, so the system is not set up to support them until they become a known quantity.
• Conventions are a good opportunity to meet fans and sell a few books, but they are not a cost-effective way of selling a lot of books.
• "Opinions are like assholes: everybody's got one." Publishing industry corollary: "Editors are assholes, but everybody wants one."

Book/Story/Reference/Web Site Recommendations

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
Murray Leinster, A Logic Named Joe
David Louis Edelman, Infoquake
Dean Koontz, Lightning
David Walton, Terminal Mind
Joy Ward, Haint
Baen Free Library
Jodee Blanco, The Complete Guide to Book Publicity
Miss Snark
L. Sprague DeCamp, The Incomplete Enchanter
Travis Taylor, Warp Speed, One Day on Mars, Von Neumann's War, and Quantum Connection
A.E. van Vogt, World of Null-A
Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late
Hal Duncan, Vellum: The Book of All Hours, Ink: The Book of All Hours
SFWA.org
Steven Erickson, The Malazan Book of the Fallen