What with the shuttle having made its last flight, there is a way you can get a sense that humaned (manned is sexist) space flight is a dead end proposition that has no long term place to go.
After the shuttle is retired the only way to get up to the going nowhere fast space station 100 billion dollar boondoggle that that big government spender Ronald Reagan saddled us with is via the Russkie excuse. A facility that falls so far short of the glorious spinning wheels that Braun and 2001 promised us. And there is something very funny about that. Here’s why.
Now, the only reason that humans ever got into space in the first place is because of the Cold War. Specifically the perceived need to chuck H-bombs over the North Pole. During WW II the US had developed the ability to produce vast fleets of long range bombers, and by the late fifties we were deploying hundreds of long range jets, most importantly the giant B-52 that could fly all the way from the states to the CCCP, deliver a hundreds of nukes, and return. Because the Soviets could not produce fuel-efficient jet engines they could not churn out equally enormous and fast bombers with enough range to easily reach America. Besides, the Red military had long been primarily an artillery force, not a bomber force, so it was natural for them to put the effort into developing great big missiles powerful enough to lob big nukes at the capitalist Yanks, thus countering the bomber gap. Because they were doing it we had to too, so by the early sixties the both sides had built big boosters that happened to be large enough to put guys into space.
Because the Reds were at first ahead in the space race, JFK decided it was necessary to beat them at their own game despite there being no real practical military or economic need that justified the inherently enormous cost and great risk of putting people outside the atmosphere. So after considering some options (watering desert farms via desalinization was one), the Irish pol whom had no actual interest in space tech decided that to sending some Americans to the moon before the Soviets was the thing to do. This spectacular yet entirely discretionary project might not have been fulfilled if not for it being a memorial to the murdered president. Once the goal was reached most lost interest, and further attempts to reach deep space were hastily dropped by Tricky Dicky who -- to give him credit -- could count the fiscal beans.
Think about it. If there had not been some form of superpower nuclear competition half a century ago that drove the construction of super rockets, then the super rockets would not have been built. And such pricey devices would not have been created just for the purpose of orbital joy rides. Nor would the fabulously expensive Apollo Project been conducted. Ergo human space travel was a side effect of the Cold War. What few realized at the time was how true this was. I was a big fan of the Apollo program, to the point I admired Hitler’s rocketeer Werhner Von Braun who had not yet been fully exposed as associated with the murderous slave labor facility that produced his war losing V-2s. In the 1980s the Cold Warrior Reagan figured that since the Bolsheviks had a space station named Peace, we Capitalists had to have an even better space station named Freedom. It would cost a mere few billion so what the heck. The illusion that manned space flight is an intrinsically productive activity would never have become widespread if not for the superpower contest.
Getting to better understanding how little progress space travel has made over half a century now that the Space Shuttle is grounded we return to the first great space rockets. The first ICBM developed by the Soviets was the huge R-7. It was so large because the Soviets thought their H-bombs would be really big boys that required really big boosters to propel them all they way to the USA. As it turned out the nukes got smaller than predicted, and the R-7s proved correspondingly useless as ICBMs -- they were too oversize to protect in silos and took way too long to fuel up. But, they were great for putting dogs and cosmonauts in orbit.
For the next few years the one way to get to the International Space Station is through Baikonur. And guess what rocket the Soviets are still using for lift the Soyuz? Go ahead, take a guess. Yep, you got it. The old R-7. Sure, today’s R-7s are improved versions, with an enlarged second stage to help give the rocket more orbital oomph. But check out the 1st stage at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-7_(rocket_family), it’s basically the same ol booster.
So the main rocket for getting folks into space in 1961 was the R-7. And the main rocket for getting folks into space a half century later in 2011 is the R-7. A reason this is true is because rockets tend to be unreliable and blow up on occasion, and being around so long the R-7 line has most of the bugs worked out so they are the most reliable boosters available. To understand the dire implications this decades long stasis has for space travel let’s go back to 1908.
As you recall, that year the Wrights first demonstrated to the world what was then the best plane in existence, their improved Fliers. Within just a couple of years they were badly out of date as aviation progressed by leaps and bounds. Orville himself lived to read about great swarms of bombers firebombing entire cities, and a couple dropping atomic devices. In 1958 the first near sonic jets, 707s able to carry 150 passengers across entire continents and oceans, were entering service. So was the F-104 Starfighter able to exceed Mach 2 and down its enemies with guided missiles.
Why did humanned aviation go from pretty much useless wood, fabric and wire crates to high performance, metallic machines able to generate large revenues from average citizens in just fifty years, while humanned space flight has gone from throwaway each flight R-7s to barely improved R-7s that still cost millions to put a given fellow in space over the same time span?
Partly it’s a matter of fuel. The coach fare from Los Angeles to Tokyo is a reasonably affordable $1000 or even less. Part of the cost of the fuel, which amounts to about 70 gallons burned per passenger -- less than driving a car the same distance. Pushing a big plane through the thin air a few miles up, largely horizontally at nearly the speed of sound, does not require all that much work, so the cost is within bounds.
Accelerating a few persons a couple of hundred miles upward to orbital velocity of 18,000 miles per hour is a far more arduous task that demands tremendous quantities of fuel. Some 10,000 gallons per astronaut. No middle class person can afford the gas. That fact will never change; even if future spacecraft can take off from runways they will gobble fuel like pigs at the trough. It’s the Laws of Physics.
Consider that no one has managed to produce a commercially viable supersonic airliner. Pushing a plane at just twice the speed of sound consumes so much fuel per passenger that only the elites can afford it, and there are not enough of them to justify developing such machines. If getting from Paris to New York is not economically viable, then just how is orbiting the planet much less visiting deep space going to work financially wise?
Then there is the cost of the plane versus the rocket. Developing a subsonic airliner or a spaceship costs billions. But because first are fairly cheap to operate and provide the extremely useful service of transporting the masses and cargo hither and yon for purposes of business and leisure at reasonable cost, lots of copies can be manufactured, spreading out the cost over hundreds or thousands of units that can then generate revenue that more than pays for the development of the airliner. Because there is not much demand for space flights that will always cost too much for all but a few wealthy elites willing to pay out of their pockets to put their lives on the line each machine costs enormous up front sums that can never be paid back in commercial revenues. The costs are so high that it does not make all the much difference if the machines are disposable or recoverable; they are way too expensive either way – that’s why the shuttles failed cost wise.
And let’s not forget the cost of insuring the precious but super risky spaceships and the humans they contain.
In their enthusiasm space enthusiasts often lie to try to get the rest of us to go along with their dreams. Here’s an example. You see, back in the days of Columbus and so forth sail driven cargo ships were the high-end travel technology of their day. Sort of like the space shuttle is these days. Since they found it worthwhile to sail on months long voyages of exploration, we should be building space ships to do the same thing. If we don’t we’re a bunch of small thinking wimps.
Oh come on. Circa 1500 cargo sailing vessels numbered in the thousands. They were run of the mill commercial transports with hand crafted wood hulls and masts powered by canvas sails operated by hemp ropes. Most were owned by wealthy individuals or investor groups. They were the financial/practical equivalent of container ships or airliners. If spaceships were the equivalent of sailing cargo vessels then rich citizens would be operating them, and they would number in the thousands like commercial ships and planes.
Those who realize the impossibility of common middle class space travel via any form of rocket or space plane propose super high tech space elevators first popularized by one of my scifi/futurist heroes, Arthur C. Clarke. This is like thinking that fusion power will someday solve our energy and associated climate change problems. They way to handle this possibility is hope so but don’t count on it.
So how about those suborbital jaunts that will soon be offered to Joe and Jane Citizen? Sure, citizens with the big bucks. They are nothing more or less than roller coaster rides for the money loaded. How about those orbital jaunts that there is talk will be offered in coming years? Even more expensive theme rides for the even wealthier class. Will some of these trips involve science projects? Maybe so, but that’s trivia to the bill of goods the space enthusiasts are trying to sell us.
Such as middle class family vacations in orbiting hotels. Like that’s going to work. Say you want to see the Grand Canyon. Pack the tykes into the van and you soon arrive at your destination at modest cost. When the happy family emerges from the vehicle to gawk at the sights there’s plenty of air to breath. Fly to Paris? Costs some more but still affordable, and again there’s lots of breathable oxygen air over there. And it’s quite safe. A trip into orbit? Budget at least hundreds of thousands if not millions. Safety will be roughly equivalent of driving to the Grand Canyon at say 40 mph over the speed limit. Will probably make it but it’s an irresponsible risk for parents and beloved offspring. Remember, no one can hear you scream in space. No air. If say your hotel catches on fire chances are good you can get out. If the space hotel catches or fire or experiences a massive air loss – oh well.
Send more men and women to the moon? Why? Back in the fifties and sixties going up there was hyped by portraying its surface as sporting craggy towering peaks, deep rugged gorges, and cracked plains. It turned out to be meteorite smoothed hills of a unvarying depressing gray. If you want really spectacular scenery try the Grand Tetons. Being a scientist myself I find the place scientifically intriguing and informative, but when even low budget science projects are going begging the idea of spending billions and billions to return to the dreadfully barren rock is absurd. Are the Chinese going to do it like they are making noises about? Not likely once they get around to crunching the numbers, but if they do it will be a long-term waste.
You are getting to near insanity on multiple levels when proposing sending folks to rendezvous with an asteroid. Visiting the moon is dangerous enough, but at least it is just a few days away from the safety of earth – that’s why the Apollo 13 crew made it back by the skin of their teeth. Once the asteroid trip is underway it will take weeks or months for the astronauts to get back home. If something goes badly wrong they will be at extreme risk of being killed. All to visit a lump of rock and dust – I call them potatoes in space -- that robots can survey at a fraction of the cost and no risk. I will be blunt. An asteroid trip is pie in the sky foolishness. When push comes to shove an asteroid the super expensive trip will never be funded by a government or capital. Proposing the expedition is a waste of brain effort.
Of course the great goal is Mars. Obama is talking about sending astronauts to one of the little moons of the Red Planet – for gravitational reasons it’s a lot easier than going down to the surface. Will never happen. It’s a glorified version of the trip to an asteroid – the Martian moons probably being exactly that. No point is having the astronauts filming the Martian surface below since probes can do that.
Getting to the surface of Mars will combine intense danger with fantastic cost with not the slightest hope of financial return. The risk to the voyagers is not entirely physical. Think it over. What are humans advised to do? Spend lots of time outdoors, breath the fresh air, connect with nature, go for hikes and the like. It is integral to human psychology. A Mars voyage involves detaching humans from their normal habitat and placing them in a chronic stress inducing extraterrestrial situation for a couple of years during which they are always ensconced in artificial spaces or suits, and returning to the safety of our planet is always months away. Chances of killing or at least damaging some of or all the crew are excellent. The new notion of sending old folks to Mars with the intent of never getting them back is so ethically and practically dubious in so many ways that it shows just how desperate and detached from reality and ethics the Mars cult is becoming. And it is a hook intended to force continual Mars voyages -- we could hardly let a bunch of seniors get to Mars and let them die off until one succumbs alone. We would be committed to Mars exploration for the long term even if we later decide it was a budget breaking bad idea.
And Mars is being oversold. Want to see the colossal Martian volcanoes? Stick with the orbiter images. Those shield mountains spread out over so much territory that their slopes are only a few degrees above horizontal -- standing on their flanks you would hardly know it. How about dangling your legs over the rim of the super canyon that dwarfs the Grand Canyon? That’s the problem, the extraterrestrial gully is so far across that all one will see is the flat plain of the bottom stretching to the empty horizon. To get around this publicity problem Mars fans have been fooling the gullible with computer generated 3-D scenes of the Martian landscape made appealing by extremely boosting the vertical exaggeration. A family vacation will cost countless millions, lock up the kids in small spaces and suits for a maddening length of time, and expose that the parents are not especially concerned about their children surviving to tell the tale to their classmates.
Then there is the problem of contamination. Mars that is. It has been argued that to find life over there may require sending people to look for it. But if there are microbial Martians, then sending people is the best way to introduce earthly invasive microbes that could severely degrade the very Martian biota we want to study. Sort of like Kudzu and Dutch elm disease on an interplanetary scale. Before sending folks to Mars we must first get a good assessment of what is already there or not, and if there are Martian microbes then have a careful democratic debate and discussion about whether to risk screwing up the biota or not. Doing that will require the development and deployment of highly sophisticated but biosterile robots that can do pretty much what humans can do, but will cost far less to send because they will not require all that life support apparatus that makes putting people into space so extravagant. In which case what then is the point of sending humans?
Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Frontiers are viable projects only when they are readily inhabitable. Every truly successful human frontier as involved tropical and especially temperate lands. Humans are barely able to inhabit polar latitudes despite the abundance of breathable oxygen, and no one mislabels Antarctica as a “frontier.” Past predictions that a fair number of humans would migrate into an illusory marine “frontier” have gone bust because there is no air down there, making it too expensive and dangerous – how long would the kids living in an underwater habitat live before accidentally drowning? Moving lots of humans into airless space will be even more impractical so out there is not a feasible frontier. From the perspective of an evolutionary researcher I have pointed out that humans in space is the evolutionary equivalent of fish going to the trouble and expense of conquering the land by constructing fish tanks on treads. Space vessels are air filled aquariums for supporting people. Not needing oxygen smart robots will be the spacecraft, which can be correspondingly minimal in size and cost. So much as fish moved onto land by evolving into air compatible tetrapods, moving minds into space is best done with vacuum compatible robots.
If the space station, no longer properly supported by the shuttle, does not first suffer a major failure it is likely to be shut down in less than a decade. There is a good chance that the American government will never get around to again putting people into space in a big way, and the Russian government may get out of the business as well – finally taking the good old Khrushchev era R-7 out of the space travel business. In the questionable scenario that the Chinese authorities mount a major human space program it is likely to prove to be a costly dead end. Private suborbital flights may prove fashionable theme rides for the wealthy and for small-scale science projects, but their continuing popularity and legal practicality if and when some clients are killed is open to question. Same if rich citizens and corporations pay through their noses to get to orbit. The possibility that capital sans government subsidies will ever send people beyond orbit can be ranked as near zero. As time progresses robot intelligence should improve to the point that cybermachines can do what humans do without the danger or extreme cost. So it is robots that are most likely to conquer space, not the biobeings that initially created them.