It’s been a while since I’ve posted on Dkos. Partly life happens, and partly I haven’t always loved the “new” interface (yes, I know it’s been around for awhile….). But regardless, I recently gave a talk that I think would be beneficial to post here on Dailykos. Bear with me as I need to provide some background, and a little bit of ramble, but there are policy recommendations that came out of this this talk and thought experiment.
To the Moon!!!!!
First, some background…
For those who aren’t really following what is happening in space, the United States is pursuing the Artemis Program. Its goal is to return America to the moon, formally by 2026 (but this has slipped once already). It uses the Space Launch System to launch the Orion Capsule, which will then dock either with a Starship Lunar Lander, or the Blue Moon Mark 2 (depends on the mission). Also there is suppose to be a Space Station, called the Lunar Gateway. Formally, the first mission is to include the first person of color and the first woman.
What’s Missing?
I described the what in great detail above. But fundamentally, there is a problem… The Why?
Human spaceflight is incredibly costly, and has been so. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good reasons to do costly things. Indeed, throughout history, we have spent a lot of money trying to do good activities. That said, the justifications should be fairly obvious, and help the average citizen.
So… What is the Why?
Former Senator Bill Nelson, who is currently serving as NASA administrator, does have a rationale…..
Be afraid. VERY AFRAID!!!!!
CHINA!!! China is going to the moon also (for those who aren’t familiar, that picture is of the Chinese Martian lander). Sometimes this justification is given in the context of a Cold War with China. Other times it’s given in the context of space resources that we can’t let China have.
The Problem
Right now, if you look at polling data on what NASA does, and whether it provides value to most people, the polling data does not seem to backup the idea that there is broad support for how and why we send humans to space. Don’t believe me?
Last year, the Pew Research Center surveyed American’s opinions on NASA and Space Exploration. Among the highlights, only 12% said that the U.S. top priority should be on exploration of the moon. And yet, if you look at the U.S. budget, that is the majority of it. What did American’s want to see as a top priority? Asteroid monitoring (and there is a whole other essay I could write on that, but for now we must move on).
So…. Why am I writing this?
I am a space geek at heart. I will freely acknowledge that. And yet, I find the Artemis Program lacking, because it isn’t serving a major national interest. The proof is in the budget. At its peak during Apollo, NASA accounted for 4% of the federal budget. Today, it’s down to less than 0.5%. That means that NASA’s budget was 8 times as big in the 60s. If Artemis was more important to the nation, then NASA would get more money. However, there isn’t much money for NASA. Why? Because the simple fact is, the America of today is facing major issues. Poverty, climate change, Health Care, etc…
In short, if space wants more money, it has to start being able to have better justifications than those we trotted out during the Cold War.
Space is Important…. Partially
Of course, the reality is that Space, right now, is vital to our everyday life. From communication satellites that connect us worldwide, to weather satellites that tell us how bad climate change is affecting us, to spy satellites that have proven instrumental during the Ukraine war — space actually impacts us all the time, and a lot of the time, we aren’t even aware of it. I mean, look at GPS and Pokémon Go — you couldn’t do Pokémon Go without GPS. The problem is, you know what isn’t vital to our everyday life?
Do we need to do this?????
That’s right — it’s flying humans into space. Right now, our justifications for putting humans in space is… well it sucks. Human Spaceflight doesn’t address a national need, and yet it’s the biggest area of the budget for NASA. This is a real problem for those of us who want to see space travel happen on a large scale.
It’s time for the New Thing to try something New.
So, the question we must ask ourselves is whether human spaceflight can address a national need, beyond what it has done in the past?
In point of fact, there is an interesting trend when new things develop, and how they get integrated into human society. When society develops something new, whether its a new technology or system or piece of infrastructure, or something else, the way it becomes part of society is by enabling the average person to explore it and try new things. This allows for experimentation, and the development of new products/services, and also developing methods and practices to deliver value to society.
Key to the success of incorporating new things into society is how big are the barriers to actually using this new product/service/system/infrastructure/etc. If they are high, then it means only a limited number of activities will get tried out. If the barriers are low, many more people will play with it, and you will see a subsequent number of new uses get developed. These barriers can come in many forms, from things like cost to government regulation, to cultural avoidance.
It is worth noting that government activity can either raise barriers, or lower barriers to trying out different activities. This can range from changing regulation, to spending money differently.
Some Historical Examples
It’s easy to make these kinds of proclamations, but for this there are some really powerful examples. The one I tend to use the most is GPS.
GPS was started in the 1970s. It was intended primarily for the military. However, in 1983, a Korean Air Lines Flight was shot down when it mistakenly entered Soviet airspace. It was decided that there would be some civilian use of GPS. Further, the receiver technology price came down. And then in the 90s, with the Gulf War happened, there was a need to turn off what was known as Selective Availability (IE an error that was introduced to make the GPS signal a little less accurate). And suddenly, GPS was available with a high rate of accuracy everywhere. And now? GPS is everywhere, and it plays a role in our everyday life.
There are other examples as well — Rural Electrification, the Internet and interstate highways. All of these saw the creation of something new, that then got integrated into society at large because the barriers to entry were either low to begin with, or they were lowered by government activity.
Understanding Space Race 2.0
There are many (including Administrator Nelson) who are of the opinion that there is a new space race going on right now. I would submit that they have that fact correct, but the reality is that the new Space Race is fundamentally different than the original space race. Specifically, the new space race is not about getting to a specific destination first, or national pride, or science, or anything that we have historically done in space. Space is incredibly more complex these days, because there are a lot more people and organizations involved these days.
What it’s really about is creating value and maximizing the number of people, organizations, and entities that use space. It’s about finding the “killer apps” of space. Because the future of space is driven by money (as it always has been). Money, and to a degree profit, is going to determine how and who is going to be a leader of space.
What this means for NASA policy
So, given this, what does this mean for NASA policy? Well, that brings me to a few of my final thoughts.
1). Build markets not hardware — NASA expresses its activities in the form of programs. These programs can express their goals in many fashions. Historically, the programs are expressed in terms of building specific hardware. However, NASA has also expressed these goals in terms of other metrics and activities. The most interesting and successful ones have been about market creation.
Two programs recent programs worth noting are the Space Launch System (hardware program) and the Commercial Crew Program (market creation program). The Space Launch System (SLS) goal was to build a shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle, using traditional cost-plus contracts. It has been incredibly over budget and behind schedule. To date, the only major event with SLS has been its first launch late last year.
The future of Space Launch Transportation
OTOH, Commercial Crew program’s goal was to create a marketplace for space launch and crew transportation. The program resulted in the SpaceX Dragon and the Boeing Starliner, and resulted in the U.S. reclaiming its position as a commercial launch leader. It has resulted in a renaissance of launch companies and launch vehicles coming online to pursue small, medium, large, and superheavy markets. Vehicles like SpaceX’s Starship, Rocketlab’s Neutron, Stoke’s Nova, and Radian’s Radian One are in the process of coming online, arguably as a direct result of Commercial Crew.
2) Don’t short change previous locations — Space people are notorious for fixating on destinations, as well as hardware. And in the process, they forget the results of visiting the previous destination. Right now there is a strong fixation on the moon, which is an important destination. And a lot of people are also fixated on going to Mars. But in the rush to get to Mars, people forget the moon, and in the rush to the moon, people are forgetting LEO.
When we go to a location, we shouldn’t be looking at just going
The Future of Low Earth Orbit!
there and saying “We did it.” We need to be building infrastructure and markets that use the locations we have already been to. For example, we are spending only a little bit of money on space stations that will be operated in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Frankly, we should be spending a lot more on that. Stations’ like Axiom’s Space Station and Voyager’s Starlab will be very important if we want to build out the development of LEO. And when we decide to retire hardware, do so in a way that maximizes its usefulness (IE recycle the hardware as much as possible). Yes, I am looking at you, International Space Station.
3) Use space to look for solutions to solve big problems — As mentioned previously, there are big problems the U.S. is facing. Well, let’s see if space can help solve them.
A great example of this is Space based Solar Power. For those who don’t know about Space based Solar Power, the basic concept of SbSP is to collect solar energy in space, and then beam it down to earth, to where it is needed. The potential benefit of this is that it can provide clean energy to multiple locations on the planet, and to do so 24/7. I will admit that it has not been fully demonstrated (although the science is well understood) and there are some non-trivial regulatory problems that need to be sorted out (related to beam spectrum for radio licensing), but they can be overcome. There are other ways space can help out society, I suspect.
The point being, let’s not fixate on how NASA used to be run. Let’s go to a future where NASA human spaceflight is helping out society, and not just trying to recreate glories of the past.
