Recently, Congress passed a law that would require, within a few years, 100% of U.S. bound cargo containers to be scanned at their points of origin. President Bush, while signing the law, has also criticized the requirement, questioning its "technical feasibility."
It’s interesting, in the face of this reluctance, to consider another largely "infeasible" project that’s being considered by the federal government. For, while the Bush administration is all too willing to stall on the matter of securing America’s ports, it was all too anxious, a mere four years ago, to make the almost incomprehensibly difficult idea of sending a manned mission to Mars a national goal.
Security in America’s shipping lines today remains largely based around human intelligence. As reported by a SupplyChainDigest article, it is mostly up to human beings, looking for "suspicious cargo," to declare a container a risk and pull it aside. Under this system, less than 6% of containers are deemed a risk, and it’s likely that the chances of dangerous cargo getting through are high.
To address this problem, Congress, as pointed out in a recent front page diary by Kargo X, passed legislation that would set a five year deadline for establishing a system that would scan all cargo containers at their points of origin in other countries. In recognition of the fact that the technology to do this efficiently isn’t entirely in existence yet, the Department of Homeland Security would have the authority to extend the deadline by another two years.
Despite the fact that President Bush willingly signed this legislation into law, he, and other conservatives, have met the idea with strong resistance. According to the White House, the requirement is "neither executable nor feasible." Indeed, according to an AP article that was quoted in Kargo X’s diary:
The White House and shippers maintain that the technology for scanning 11 million containers each year doesn't exist, and say the requirement could disrupt trade. Current procedures including manifest inspections at foreign ports and radiation monitoring in U.S. ports are working well, they contend.
While it is true that the technology for scanning all cargo containers doesn’t yet exist in its entirety, it is also true that, in the past, the United States has been capable of setting difficult goals for itself, and developing the technology to achieve them. This stems from something called "leadership." Indeed, a worthwhile, but technologically difficult goal, can often serve as a catalyst for uniting the country, for binding the populace together under the guise of a common purpose.
That idea is not one that should be foreign to the Bush administration. In 2003, they were (albeit for the most political of reasons – to help Bush’s re-election) looking for just such a goal, and set their sights on a manned mission to Mars. While administration focus on such a mission has been somewhat lacking, it is, as far as I know, still a professed goal of NASA, and, therefore, something that the administration must feel is, given enough time, a "technologically feasible" accomplishment.
The truth of the matter is that, in terms of feasibility, a mission to Mars is much more complicated than scanning every U.S. bound cargo container. A few specific challenges for a manned Mars mission, as pointed out by a Donald Rapp article in The Space Review, would include:
~Few chances to abort, which would significantly drive up the requirements and costs of ship systems.
~The time involved in the trip: It would take roughly 2.5 years to get to Mars and back, which would mean that any "feasible" mission would require extensive, and likely expensive, life testing.
~The level of propellants needed. According to Rapp:
The huge masses of propellants needed for the legs of a space mission are significant limitations to feasibility of the mission. It takes about 20 metric tons (mT) on the Earth launch pad to put 1 mT of payload to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). For most space missions, even the 1 mT of "payload to LEO" is made up of mostly propellants to send a smaller payload to a distant destination. For example, in order to send a 1 mT payload (that includes an Earth entry system) to the Mars surface and return to Earth, it may require about 180 mT in LEO, and consequently 3600 mT on the Earth launch pad.
Chemical propellants would be most likely, but it’s still uncertain what kind would be used. A nuclear thermal rocket would be an alternative, but, due to uncertain costs, and huge financial, infrastructure, safety, and political requirements, an NTR would likely require a "gigantic effort" over one to two decades, costing billions of dollars.
~Consumables: A Mars mission with 200 day transits to Mars and back, plus 560 days on the surface of Mars, would need 200-1400 mT of consumables. Without significant advancements in technology, this requirement would mean a dozen launches just for supplies.
Those difficulties would be in addition to problems we’d have to deal with involving radiation exposure, gravity (an expensive artificial gravity/zero gravity countermeasure program would be needed to prevent the crew from being unacceptably weak by the time they arrive at Mars), how to use the "natural resources" of Mars to cut down on initial payload, power generation (using solar power for the entire mission is likely not a viable option), and many, many others.
In short, before the United States can send anyone to Mars, there is a long – and extremely expensive – laundry list of technical problems that we must first meet. Yet, whatever their lack of focus, the administration has not abandoned Mars as a "viable goal" for the United States. Unlike with cargo scanning, they have not cited "technical feasibility" as a reason for a manned mission to Mars not to be a goal of the United States of America.
What makes the administration’s current stance even more aggravating is that, while the exact technology we need to scan every cargo container may not currently exist, there is, already in existence, technology that might serve as a good base for future development. According to the SupplyChainDigest article, it’s already being used in Hong Kong, where 100% of cargo containers were being scanned as early as 2005, when the article was written:
For the past year, the Hong Kong Terminal Operators Association, which includes both public and private entities, has used high tech screening machines made by Science Application International of San Diego to inspect every container.
"Trucks haul each container passing though the port through two of the giant scanners," the WSJ wrote. "One checks for nuclear radiation, while the other uses gamma rays to seek out any dense, suspicious object made of steel or lead inside the container that could shield a bomb from the nuclear detector."
Not only are the images from the scan displayed on large flat panel screens for security personnel to examine, the images are recorded along with the container ID and other information. That data can then be passed along to other ports or security officials for any suspicious cargo, or to help identify the bad guys if a security problem does occur later.
While one can certainly question the exact merits of the Bush Mars program, I do think that sending human beings to Mars is, ultimately, a worthwhile goal for the United States. An even more worthwhile goal, however, especially in an age where we are supposedly fighting a "war on terrorism," is making sure that the U.S. is as secure as possible from WMDs being shipped into the country.
Such a program would take time, and money. But, it’s already being done elsewhere, and, with enough focused effort, it is feasible for the United States to develop a system that works for us.
In the decades following the U.S. moon landing, a common cliché among those who wished to complain about perceived lack of technological (or other) progress in society was that we can "send a man to the moon," while not being able to accomplish another, seemingly less complicated task. If the Bush administration – and the Republican Party – wishes to continue stonewalling on cargo scanning, then perhaps, during the 2008 elections, the Democrats need to take that compliant, and modernize it for the Bush era:
"If you can support sending a man to Mars, you ought to be able to support screening every cargo container that comes into the country."
Both are laudable goals. But, the latter is much more critical, and much more important to the safety and well being of the American public.