Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Woody,
I’m very much in favor of space exploration. Splitting exploration into pro-knowledge & adventure categories doesn’t mean the categories are mutually exclusive. Just the contrary, they complement one another.

Exploration of any kind is a risk, a roll of the dice. We can’t know until we try. History is full of examples where taking chances has paid off astronmical returns. This certainly holds true with space exploration. The lives saved by weather satellites alone has paid for all, never mind GPS, spurring computer technology, the national pride in landing a man on the moon, and other fantastic returns.

Looking upward for applications of research and development makes sense like few other ideas today, in terms of economic terms & in terms of the human spirit.

Woody, I am not in favor of any further space exploration of ANY KIND at the moment.
As a kid, I was enthralled, and I never thought I’d be saying this, but now, this is exactly my viewpoint.
I believe that NASA has become nothing but a waste of time and money. Human or Robot missions? Doesn’t matter to me. I say it’s all crap. A luxury we no longer have the serenity or the money to enjoy.
Bottom line, we simply can’t afford it.
First rule of business — cut back on anything unnecessary. NASA is clearly that thing. Currently there are plenty of more important things we need to focus on instead.

We are fighting a quagmire of a war — and our president cannot admit to his lies/mistakes in waging it. That fact is more dire than any thrill, any technolgical knowledge, any sort of patriotism, dammit.
Let us get our priorities straight.

I’d rather see every penny that has been going to NASA spent on protecting our troops. On giving them the very best healthcare, mental therapy when returning home from war, long range planning and guidance designed to help our amputees and permanently shell-shocked vets.
No matter how f*cked up this war has been/is still, we definitely owe our vets the very best.
Surely all of us realize that this is true, and can agree with me?

Above and beyond that we need to protect and save our environment on Earth far more than we need to explore the cosmos. If we can’t be generous and open-hearted enough to do right by our vets, then let’s do right by our planet. Spend that money on smart alternative energy research and development. Or failing that wisdom, do things the old fashioned way, just plant tons and tons of trees with all that cash — reforestate the entire planet — before everything simply burns to a crisp.

Or how about terrorism? Spend it on checking every cargo container that comes into every American port so we don’t find ourselves importing the means to our own destruction.

Whatever, but please, please, let us not continue to throw so many of our tax dollars away on some pipedream that has very little meaning or purpose in relation to the harsh reality of our current and very grave problems.

Times have changed, and we need to change with them — just as all intelligent people always have done.
Forget space, let our focus and our money now be placed solely upon saving life on Earth.

People are very ignorant about the benefits of NASA. Its not just Adventure and Outer Space. The secondary technologies developed to make NASA are incredible. Fiber Optics, better Processors and Medicine are just the tip of the iceberg.

Aldous, what good are inventions if the nation is bankrupt?

Woody, good article. The underlying theme of it is priorities, and I agree with you entirely. When and if we can secure our fiscal health for the foreseeable future, then, and only then, should we be investing in colonization of other worlds.

There is a 3rd group. Those who see no hope for this world and want another that their great grandchildren can escape to. That would be the rich and powerful I suspect. As if their great grandchildren will be able to master survival on alien worlds when the species demonstrates its willingness to the blow this one to hell and back with nukes, or suffocate this planet with the byproducts of its greed and lack of self-discipline and education of reality.

Priorities, pragmatic and factual education based on real world data and information and critical analysis, rational thinking, and historical learning, and self-discipline exercised in all areas of human endeavor, these the things that can save our planet, save our species, and save our humanity. They all exist, but in far too few people to make the difference that needs to be made.

If these are the qualities that will save us, what the hell are we doing electing folks like GW Bush to the leadership role of the nation. He partied through his education, failed in business, had no government experience or knowledge before becoming governor on Name Recognition alone, and carried his incompetence as governor to the whitehouse. And we rally behind him? We support him? We elect him, not once, but twice and then regret our decisions? This is a farce in search of a future that will never arrive!

Many would agree with Adrienne (as I am inclined to) that the NASA money could be better spent on “earthly” things and issues.

My projection/fear is that the country or group who controls outer space will be the eventual world power in every sense. Weaponry positioned in space affords obvious catastrophic advantages for the owner, ability to control and monitor international communications, the possibility of being able to alter weather patterns, etc. are things worth pursuing.

IMO we cannot abandon this space exploration project.

Wow.

The 4 Liberals/Democrats talk about the Economy, Health, Technology, Science and Adventure.

The Conservative/Republican talks about World Domination.

Anybody else find that funny?

Phx8,

Agreed that the two overlap. I think the technological rewards from manned space travel have been highly overrated, however. Obviously we would be a in different world without satellites, but most satellites are put in space with a plain old rocket. Most of the rewards have been things that are hard to measure, like national pride. As I said, at what price?

Adrienne,

I agree with you in principle, but budgets aren’t a zero sum game. Some things people are going to be willing to pay for no matter what. I think there will always be a budget for space exploration, so the question is how to spend it.

Aldous,

See comment to phx8. I don’t know the details of every invention attributed to space travel, but I think if something is truly useful it will be invented sooner or later.

Steve Smith,

Satellites are easy to put up. With the possible exception of SDI (which could be a whole nother post), I don’t see much use for putting weapons in space. And frankly, the whole idea disappoints me. The line is supposed to be, “We come in peace.”

As a general comment, it is always interesting to me how many conservatives want to invest a lot in space travel. As Adrienne noted, it really is a luxury.

We need to have projects. To repeat the old saying, our reach should exceed our grasp. We can talk about budgets and methods. We should always look for more appropriate technologies. More of the work can be done by the private sector. But we should never stop our exploring.

We will never solve the problems on earth to the satisfaction of many people. I am sure back in the paleolithic when someone suggested exploring the next valley, his troglodyte colleagues complained that there was still a lot to do in the home cave.

BTW – Woody, I do appreciate the images and metaphor. The shuttle as the Rolling Stones. Excellent post from the style point of view.

I think that we cannot forever live in the cradle of Earth, and that manned spaceflight will be a very capital intensive venture at it’s start. A revamped space program means employment and the literal beginning of a new civilization. The poor we will always have. The chance to get this started, we won’t.

American needs something they can do that we can be competitive about. We need a busines that folks will turn to us to handle.

My thoughts are as follows: loss of life in space exploration will be inevitable. What made the loss of Atlantis so much of a problem is not the loss of life. Thousands have died because of aircraft accidents, millions because of auto accidents. What makes the loss here so much of a problem is how few baskets we have to put the eggs in. If we were launching ten missions a week in craft only worth a few million apiece, rather than than ten a year at best, one or two incidents a year would not be so significant.

Instead, we launch only a few missions a year in multi-billion dollar craft that use tons of propellant to get very little into orbit. We need a manhattan project on cheap and efficient spaceflight, and means of getting out of our gravity wells beyond into the solar system. We need to pay less attention to airy goals of getting to one place or another in a certain time period, and more to the technology of getting there reliably, and efficiently.

I remember reading that brave astronauts would be heading to Mars by now. But that seems to be so far off. We made it to the moon once. Do we want to be the nation that never went back, that faded with history into the background as other countries explored the planets and the stars?

Stephen,

Agree with you on a couple of points. First of all, I hate to sound callous, but we do make too much of the fatalities associated with space flight. I think that about 20 people have died in the whole history of US space exploration. NASA really brought this on themselves by making unrealistic claims about how safe the shuttle would be. They really need to just level with people that fatal accidents are inevitable. Every death is a tragedy, but we need to accept them in a dangerous enterprise.

As you may know, the Space Shuttle was supposed to fly MUCH more frequently than it actually does. It was supposed to actually save money over rockets because the parts are reusable. From that point of view, the Space Shuttle has been a massive failure.

Jack,

Thanks. I thought it was one of my better metaphors. Agreed on private sector involvement. I hope that Virgin Galactic will put pressure on NASA to give us more bang for our buck.

Aldous,

You made a very interesting observation and it is very true indeed. I do not however find your comment funny, I find it inevitibly predictable.

Man by his very nature is an explorer. That which he finds he claims as his own. IMO space exploration has limited value unless what is found is used for the benefit of someone, maybe even the benefit of mankind.

I see weaponry in space as not necessarilly a means of world domination but, world protection and peace. Control of an undeniably true Weapon of Mass Destruction that includes in it’s technology a weapon of pinpoint accuracy on a very small scale may very well be a deterrent to any and all future conflict at the international level.

Further to be able to use this newfound asset one has to be able to protect it.

If we don’t establish this space claim we will be eating Chow Mein or North Korean “Kimshi” when we finally get there.

Deterrence lasts until somebody actually uses the weapon. At some point, somebody’s going to be stupid enough to do that. After that, people will just say that others have used it, therefore, so should I.

Besides, our ICBMS and submarine based missiles suit the purpose just fine, and we don’t give somebody a fixed target in range of a first strike attack.

SDI is an utter loss at the moment. Computers just aren’t smart enough to pick out the real war head from other objects We’re better off taking these things out at boost phase, when they’re having to accelerate skyward against gravity with a red hot rocket engine. This has the advantage of being ground based, which means the system can be maintained fairly well, since it isn’t miles up in space, has a way of identifying it’s target the target can’t easily hide or provide counter measures for.

Only in America can we freely discuss the pros and cons of an issue.

I am of the opinion that having such a weapon would prove to be an excellent deterrent to world conflict at ground level while ensuring the necessary security for us to pursue a broader range of space exploration activities. There is no reason for this/these to be in any more of a fixed location than a battleship or a submarine.

Other pursuits would include a search for areas to inhabit, develop food and fuel sources, establish a presence to discover other life forms, etc.

I see above comments reflecting no observance of priorities or the concept of budgeting, not surprising since that same lack of observance permeates our government’s legislation and policy.

How typically modern American to insist we can have it all by ignoring that which bothers us or tugs at our consciences. By all means let’s continue throwing trillions into colonies on Mars, SDI, the outdated Shuttle, government advertising of the virtues of marriage, and state and county roads and bridges while our national debt ever and ever increases to the breaking point.

It amazes me that obviously intelligent folks can’t see the wisdom of reaching a point of surplus revenues instead of deficits before undertaking such measures as above. Just amazes me.

There might be a “third way” to continue space exploration.

If you think back to the beginning of NASA, it was created in response to our “space race” with the USSR, and its initial successes were directly attributable to competitive nationalism.

Obviously, the international dynamic has changed profoundly since the 1960s, and NASA’s quasi-military function no longer exists. Therefore, why shouldn’t our approach to space exploration (manned and unmanned) change to reflect contemproary global realities, as well.

How?

Maybe we can forego our jingoistic approach, solicit the assistance of the other G-8 nations and convert NASA into IASA with the I for International. By distributing both the burdens and the benefits among the eight wealthiest nations in the world, space exploration would not only continue, it would improve and expand.

I firmly believe that we as human beings, not simply Americans, must continue our exploration of outer space. Heck, if it wasn’t for Sputnik, the internet (and even Watchblog) wouldn’t exist. No one can ever predict the ancillary and unintended benefits of scientific exploration, and since the eventual benefits will accrue to transnational corporations anyway, why not adpot a transnational apporach?

We could set up proportional funding based upon each nation’s Gross Domestic Product and establish a multi-national management team of scientists and engineers to supervise the organization. In this way the best companies and invididuals in the world could compete with one another for particpation in the exploration of outer space. After all, does it really matter if the next rocket contract goes to Arianespace instead of Gencorp?

I would overjoyed to see human beings walk on Mars in my lifetime, and I’d be just as thrilled if the first person to do so was Japanese woman instead of an American man.

I am very much for space exploration. The benefits are countless. Also, it’s our nature to explore. Some of NASA’s smaller unmanned missions and experiments are fascinating. Also, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn how to live in space, or populate some other planets, because this planet won’t last forever. And, catastrophic disasters have wiped out most of the life on this planet many times in the past. We may, someday, need other places to live; or otherwise, become extinct like so many creatures before us.

David & Adrienne,
Think of space exploration as research & development. As a nation, we invest in education & we invest in training. Neither offers guaranteed payoffs, yet in the long run the upfront costs more than pay for themselves. R&D works similarly; no one knows the ROI, but experience tells us the returns can be orders of magnitude higher than the initial investment. The same applies for space exploration.

In other words, sometimes you have to spend money in order to make money.

Innovation and flexibility are hallmarks of the US, and the best hope for being competitive & improving our standards of living. Innovation and adaptability have put the US in its current position in the world, along with an atmosphere of freedom & opportunity which allows it to flourish in the first place.

What have investments in space exploration provided?

Devices for measuring blood pressure & pacemakers are spin-offs from space exploration. (I never knew that. Interesting!).

“A moon initiative will require increased sophistication in, to name a few areas, solar-power generation, cryogenic technologies (cooling and storing liquefied gas), and human-robot interaction. These advances in the state-of-the-art will benefit energy, environment, health care, and many other areas.”
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N66/mattsilver.66c.html

In addition, the same article points out the benefits of international cooperation and good will. Imagine that.

Finally, here’s one last quote detailing benefits from space exploration.

“Every time you watch television news you are watching it via satellite as a result of space technology.” Tens of thousands of items can be directly attributed to the space program. Dental braces, rechargeable batteries, the cordless drill, reverse cycle air-conditioning, cardiac monitoring equipment, and systems to guide car drivers to vacant parking spaces are available to all thanks to space research. Millions of people are alive through medical breakthroughs attributed to space exploration. Pacemakers have come through the evolution of power and miniaturisation of space components. Cardiac monitors, tele medicine, artificial hearts, diagnostic instruments, robotic and remote surgery, infra-red thermometers and materials used to make lifelike artificial limbs are all space benefits. Astronauts living in zero gravity for long periods lose bone density similar to osteoporosis sufferers. Osteoporosis scanning and bone research instruments developed by NASA to monitor astronauts are now in widespread use. Devices built to measure the balance of astronauts when they return from space are used to diagnose and treat patients suffering head injury, stroke, dizziness and central nervous system disorders. Thousands of computer software developments have resulted from NASA projects.”
http://www.science.edu.sg/ssc/detailed.jsp?artid=5556&type=6&root=6&parent=6&cat=71

Ok, maybe the satellite tv thing has questionable value as a benefit!

But after reading that list, can you doubt that the benefits far, far outweigh the expense?

Chuck,

I’m with you in spirit, brother, but I don’t see this country making a big investment in space exploration if we can’t control the purse strings and get most of the glory.

A fine point: the so-called G-8 is NOT made up of the “eight wealthiest nations”. It is made up of the seven wealthiest industrialized nations (the G-7) and Russia. China is left out because it isn’t considered industrialized (too many peasants). Russia actually has a smaller GNP than Australia.

phx8,

I still think it doubtful that the cost of manned space flight can be justified by the spinoff technology. According to this Wikipedia article the Space Shuttle program will have cost $174 billion by the time it is retired. You can pay for a lot of basic research with that kind of dough.

The article also confirms what I had heard about promised vs actual costs

[The Space Shuttle] has been unable to meet its goal of radically reducing flight launch costs, as the average launch expenditures during its operations up to 2005 accumulates to $1.3 billion [1], a rather large figure compared to the initial projections of $10 to $20 million.

Ouch!

Agreed on private sector involvement. I hope that Virgin Galactic will put pressure on NASA to give us more bang for our buck.

Ditto. Good post Woody.

I read recently where Bush’s manned Mars mission is causing NASA to reprioritize. They’ve cancelled satellite launches for monitoring weather, global warming, and the loss of global CO2 sinks (i.e. - rainforests).

AP

Actual question – not polemic.

Are rainforests CO2 sinks? I understood that temperate forests, especially in their earlier stages of growth are sinks and that bogs are wonderful sinks, but that rainforests so quickly reprocess CO2 thorough decomposition that their net effect is negligible. That is also why the soil under rainforests is so poor. Very little organic matter gets a chance to remain organic matter. What do you know about this?

phx8, no expense outweighs the cost if the costs leave us vulnerable to economic demise and the pain and suffering of 10’s of millions of Americans here on terra firma!

Jack, any substantial biomass is a CO2 sink. Carbon is a main ingredient in not only plants but animals.

Yes, rainforests are CO2 sinks - though there is some evidence that increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere may be changing the dominant type of trees growing there, lessening the effectiveness. In any case, they’re better CO2 sinks than the farms and ranches that replace them.

There’s talk of including rainforest countries into the Kyoto cap & trade system as CO2 sinks. The idea is to incentivize these countries to preserve the forests by giving them carbon credits they can trade.

The really bad part is, NASA’s reprioritizing away from satellites that study the Earth is going to make it harder to collect the kind of data needed to make good policy.

Woody,

Sloppy work on my part. Your right, I meant G-7

Thanks,

Aldous: you stated this:

The Conservative/Republican talks about World Domination.

Anybody else find that funny?

Posted by: Aldous at July 31, 2005 10:58 AM

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION
The only thing I find funny with this, is that I agree with you…… hmmmmm Has the world come full circle, have the GOP and their constituents become the old “Cold War Era”, much feared, maligned and loathed “Communist Party”? The part of spreading Democracy beyond our borders, leads me to believe just that. What gives us the right to insist that the entire world follows us? We were always told that the communists were evil, because they wanted to take over the world and rule it from Moscow. Well, How is that any different from what we are doing now? Ousting leaders of all types and running the world from Washington. I hope we don’t get into a long drawn out conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq, with no end in sight, oh what’s that? We already are, you don’t say. Shame we don’t learn from history.

As Always,
Wayne

phx8:
“Think of space exploration as research & development.”

I’ve never understood why the same kind of enthusiasm hasn’t been brought to smart energy research and development and other kinds of environmentally protective innovations. It’s a much more logical and practical investment for such a large amount of our tax dollars, isn’t it? I think the real trouble is, it doesn’t seem as shiny and glamorous.
To give a metaphor, I’ve come to think of the space program as though we’re buying tuxedo’s and evening gowns when our work clothes are thread-bare and falling apart at the seams.
Stupid. Impractical. A High-Flown Fanstasy for generations of Startrek fans.
I think it’s time for us to grow up and face our reality. While the idea of space exploration, research and development is a wonderful one, it should obviously be put on hold for a while — until there aren’t as many other priorities that are far more pressing and important.

“As a nation, we invest in education & we invest in training. Neither offers guaranteed payoffs, yet in the long run the upfront costs more than pay for themselves.”

Think of our government like a business — a business that W has clearly been running into the ground. A smart business person wouldn’t think of investing in education and better training for their workers if they couldn’t even afford to keep the lights on, or pay their rent.

“In other words, sometimes you have to spend money in order to make money.”

That only makes sense when one has money to spend. Right now, we don’t. Thank’s to the bad head for business that is running our company (country), we’ve been spending money we don’t have and seem headed for chapter 11 any day now.
We are fighting two wars, our economy is in complete disarray, and as we know, our environment has long been hanging in the balance because of the greed and immorality of people who have refused to face the disastrous writing on the wall.

“Innovation and flexibility are hallmarks of the US,”

Right. Time to be flexible. Time to innovate where it counts.

“and the best hope for being competitive & improving our standards of living.”

I strongly disagree that the space program is currently our best hope for either of those things.

“Innovation and adaptability have put the US in its current position in the world, along with an atmosphere of freedom & opportunity which allows it to flourish in the first place.”

We know that due to our own ignorance and willful shortsightedness, our world is definitely headed for Environmental Disaster. Scientific innovation to preserve and protect the environment right now would be a much wiser investment — and our development of those kind of technologies would pay off much quicker than any we might find by going into space, in my opinion.

“What have investments in space exploration provided?”
“Tens of thousands of items can be directly attributed to the space program.”

Great stuff — good job. Been there and done that. Now it’s time to work closer to home on some other things that are also vitally important.
Like cleaning up and protecting the environment. Like giving our troops the best possible healthcare for their service to us, after they’ve been made to fight an optional war. Like making sure that terrorists don’t have a chance to turn a vast area or areas of our country into Chernobyl-like no man’s lands.

“In addition, the same article points out the benefits of international cooperation and good will. Imagine that.”

Don’t you think it’s possible that we could get the same benefits of cooperation and goodwill if we began seriously focusing on global environmental issues together rather than space exploration? I do.

Please don’t get me wrong here. It’s not like I don’t see how NASA has benefitted America, or that I don’t understand how our spending vast amounts of money on the space program in the past has lead to wonderful innovations for mankind. I just think it’s time to put that same kind of energy and excitement behind more earthly concerns.

Adrienne, excellent perspective IMO. For me it is all about priorities at a time when debt is a ball and chain around our economic future. We need to spend on space exploration. But, we don’t need to spend on it at this time. Far more important at this time is getting our fiscal house in order, and securing our future resiliency in the face of inevitable future economic shocks. Your conclusion above indicates the same wisdom.

Isn’t that also Woody’s point? That we don’t need to spend the extra premium for putting humans in space? That we can get the job done cheaper with robots?

AP,

Yes, that is basically my point.

David and Adrienne,

You two have pretty well bracketed my argument on the anti-space-exploration side. I think we need moderation. Space exploration is a luxury, but the feds spend money on far sillier things. And don’t discount the possibility that progressive goals can be accomplished through spaceflight. Some people say that the environmental movement was triggered by people seeing Earth from the Moon. We may see that kind of thing happen again.

In my ideal world the feds would focus on scientific exploration and leave manned spaceflight to the private sector. It wouldn’t bother me to see the Nike-Google-UPS Return to the Moon. Less $ out of my pocket.

Woody:
“Space exploration is a luxury, but the feds spend money on far sillier things.”

Yeah, that’s certainly true. That doesn’t mean we have to like it though…

“In my ideal world the feds would focus on scientific exploration and leave manned spaceflight to the private sector. It wouldn’t bother me to see the Nike-Google-UPS Return to the Moon. Less $ out of my pocket.”

That’s a terrific idea! Well…, it is as long as those investors don’t then get to turn the surface of the moon into a giant billboard! It could happen.

We’re actually seeing the (predicted) evolution of the exploration and use of space at this time. It’s going from being a government project to a private enterprise project. As more and more aerospace companies get involved and find more ways to make low orbital routes “pay”, we’ll begin to see more stretching out into deeper space as a result.
The fourty years, or so, that we have been going into space is such a short period of time. The growth of our knowledge about it has been very dramatic. So, in terms of knowledge, it has been very productive.
Eventually, NASA will become either a military program or become part of a larger international approach. But it probably will not exist as it is beyond the next generation or two.
In the meantime, we will see industrial exploration of space. There will be resource mining and colonization of near planets and the moon. Eventually, these will become permanent civilizations, long departed from ours here at home.
You have to see the natural evolution here. As someone said, the push was originally to see what is in the next cave. Soon, they were living in it. It’s our natural characteristic to move beyond our borders and go to someplace new. It’s what caused the spread of the entire population over this planet. This is something that will not change.
Once the means of making it profitable is found, things will move rapidly. We’ll have industrial colonies on the moon or mars by the end of the 22nd century. Then somebody will build a casino, and it will be all she wrote.

Adventure! Excitement! NASA craves not these things, but I do. I want to see men on Mars, on the Moon, mining the asteroid belt, finding fuel in Jupiter’s atmosphere… all of it! Let’s INVEST in space, meaning let’s have corporations fund future projects in exchange for mining rights, R&D, what have you. Have you seen how big space is? We can have as much of that as we WANT. We just have to go out and get it!

Cole:
“There will be resource mining and colonization of near planets and the moon. Eventually, these will become permanent civilizations, long departed from ours here at home.”

Great. I say let’s send the Neocon’s and anybody else who thinks it’s okay to treat the Earth like it’s a toilet that will always flush no matter how much sh*t they throw down it. Meanwhile, we who love and respect the Earth will immediately begin trying to clean up the giant mess they’ve made — if it isn’t already too late.
Here’s your helmet’s, what’s your hurry. Bon voyage, Space Miners!