At the core of their debate is a single issue: heavy lift versus propellant depots. There are advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. However, their debate is about tactics and objectives and loses the forest in the trees.
What's missing in the debate is Vision. Now, to be sure, Bob Zubrin has a vision, an extremely detailed vision of landing a man on Mars, fast. Rand Simberg has a vision, too, of the commercial market driving down launch prices for all missions. Others have different visions - Paul Spudis wants to extract Hydrogen and Oxygen from lunar ice trapped in perma-dark craters from a base on the Moon's South pole, for instance.
All this debate over space policy is about the How and Where, but very little is about the Why.
Now, I'd wager that most of the people who care enough about space to (in some cases) make a living by writing about space, would want to go up there themselves. Each would have their own particular reasons for wanting to go. They all (not just the three above) have different destinations in mind, and different ideas about what to do once there. Each naturally tries to steer the debate towards whatever they think will accomplish their personal goals.
These visions are all worthy ideas, technically possible with today's technology, and all suffering from a lack of long-range Vision. Each group is only looking at the next decade or so. This is understandable, as after all we are debating current space policy, arguing about what to do next and how best to go about it.
Suppose one group wins out and is successful over the next ten or fifteen years. What's missing is the answer to the question "then what?" What happens after Zubrin gets a man to Mars? What happens after Simberg gets cheap access to orbit? What happens after Spudis gets his lunar base and starts producing LOX? What are we doing all these things for?
Fifty years after Kennedy proposed the moon landings, there is still no clear understanding of what we should be doing in space and why we should be doing it. Or rather, there is a reason and we've all been just kind of avoiding saying it, because the idea is so literally far out.
the goal
The goal is the settlement of space.
That implies large numbers of people living and working and raising children off the Earth. It implies not only cheap launch to orbit, but a lot of other challenges to be solved, technological and otherwise.
I started writing this blog post on May 22nd, and nine days later this keynote speech by Jeff Greason at the ISDC appeared at MoonAndBack, laying out much of what I'm talking about here in detail, in particular the difference between the tactics and objectives being discussed in the PJMedia space debate and the Goal and Strategy. Here's the slide where he lays it all out, without getting into the minutae of the tactics:
It's a pretty good starting point for discussion purposes, and as Greason says it is a strategy, not necessarily the path to be taken but in a better general direction than the status quo. And for once the Goal of all this effort - the human settlement of space - is clearly stated.
something's gotta give
For decades the US government has been living beyond its means, and the time is rapidly approaching when government will have no choice but to cut expenditures and restructure. As Jeff Greason mentioned in his ISDC speech, if in ten years NASA has no more progress than the last ten years, NASA itself could be greatly diminished. The bottom line is that NASA's budget will not increase in the coming years and may even decrease slightly, as a most-likely scenario.
NASA is going to have to change the way it does business. Greason mentioned that it is going to have to assist in developing technologies which will result in products that have other customers besides NASA in the future - and then get out of the way and move on to the next thing while private companies fill in behind them.
However, a more fundamental restructuring of NASA may be necessary to implement a Greason-esque strategy. Einstein asserted that doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results, was insanity. The same NASA centers being run the same way using the same risk-averse methods that have ossified the agency over the last several decades will not give different results. The Augustine commission recommended changing all NASA centers into Federally-Funded Research and Development Centers, like JPL is currently, and that is a good start.
However, the change at NASA might have to go even deeper than that. One way of reducing NASA's budget, without laying off a bunch of voters, is to reduce NASA to core competencies and transfer those non-core parts to another agency.
In the Winter 2011 edition of the New Atlantis, James C. Bennett proposed a United States Space Guard modeled after the Coast Guard. In his essay Bennett points out that there are many space-related functions in government outside of NASA, in agencies in which these functions are not core competencies: the Department of Transportation regulates suborbital flight; the Air Force tracks orbital debris; NASA has infrastructure operations that are not related to R&D, exploration, or space science; the Department of Commerce operates weather satellites.
All of these functions would be transferred from the respective agencies to the new Space Guard, allowing each agency to concentrate its resources on its core missions. This new entity would likely be in the Department of Commerce or the Department of Transportation, and not in the Department of Defense. For instance, since tracking orbital debris is a function not directly related to war-fighting, it is not a core function of the Air Force and thus should be transferred to the Space Guard.
Bennett also proposes new functions and responsibilities for the Space Guard: space-transportation contracting; in-house space transportation engineering expertise; space situational awareness; space debris reduction and mitigation; a "Space Reserve" capacity; enforcing order ("USSG officers would be, like Coast Guardsmen, officers of the U.S. government capable of operating as a constabulary"); and finally search, rescue, and recovery operations in space.
This idea has merit. It allows several departments to reduce their budgets (most importantly for PR purposes in the Department of Defense) without losing capability. It establishes a central civilian agency associated with the routine use of space, well inside the envelope that it is NASA's job to push. It allows NASA to ignore the routine aspects of its current operations, and instead to focus on cutting-edge research and development, exploration, and space science exclusively.
Now, the creation of yet another new government department is not going to be an easy sell in a time of budget cutting. It won't simply be a matter of money taken from the various agencies and all transferred to the new Space Guard, all done on paper with zero net spending reduction. Further budget reductions can reasonably be expected in most government departments, including Defense and NASA.
NASA will need the commercial sector to step in and provide routine launch services, and the commercial sector will need NASA as an anchor tenant and technology driver. As Greason said in the ISDC speech, the cost to the taxpayer per person in space has to come down, continuously and over a long term basis, for space settlement to ever be a reality. The only way that will happen is if the government is paying for routine services and technology development assistance and then getting out of the way of the private commercial sector.
The restructuring of NASA (and other non-military government space operations) and the implementation of the Greason strategy or one like it are a great start. However, there is still one crucial element needed to make the settlement of space a reality.
there's gold in them thar hills
Mark Twain said "Buy land, they're not making it anymore". The idea of private individuals or corporations owning land off the Earth - on the moon or other celestial bodies - is crucial to settlement. When a corporation is setting up a mining operation to produce propellant on the moon from lunar ice, it is critical to the business plan that the company has the legal right to own the propellant it produces. If a company is mining asteroid (6178) 1986 DA, it wants to know that it owns whatever Gold and Platinum and whatever else it mines there. If a young couple strikes out into the black to settle on Mars, they want to know their kids will inherit the habitat they build.
This requires legal recognition of property rights in space. The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty prevents the United States and other nations from "national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means" of celestial bodies. However, this does not prevent the recognition of ownership by private citizens or corporations of extraterrestrial real estate.
It is this formal recognition of property rights that is the final missing element necessary for the settlement of space. This might be a function of the Space Guard, or another entity entirely. This recognition wouldn't imply American sovereignty over the property involved, just a recognition of the fact that a claim of ownership is valid. The recognition could and should be extended to non-Americans who go out and settle space, as well.
A mechanism in place for the recognition of property rights would allow corporate investors a way to get a return on their investment, and would provide collateral for financing for groups of settlers to set up their settlements. This in turn would lead to infrastructure improvements on Earth, in orbit, and at the various destinations, and enable further waves of settlement. Without property rights, investment will remain a trickle. With the recognition of property rights, the investment - and space settlement - will turn into a flood.
8 comments:
"All this debate over space policy is about the How and Where, but very little is about the Why."
There are many things to debate about space policy but you can't debate them all at once. Both Rand and Bob have written and debated extensively elsewhere about "the Why". The "How" happened to be the focus of this particular exchange.
I'll go further, though, and challenge your assumption that the Why can be separated from the How.
The degree to which you can convince a person that there are sensible reasons for why people should go to space is heavily impacted by that person's perception of the costs of getting to and traveling in space. Apollo and the Shuttle convinced most people in the US (ranging from the general public to many in NASA and the aerospace industry) that spaceflight is inherently stupendously expensive and will always remain so.
You can't convince someone, for example, that lunar or asteroid materials are useful when they are convinced it will costs several tens of thousands of dollars to obtain each kg of whatever material you might obtain from such places.
Rights to extraterrestrial properties remain just a theoretical, if not humorous, issue to those who believe such properties are not reachable at a practical cost.
Until people see spaceflight prices falling significantly, there will be no interest outside of narrow space advocacy niches in the various "Whys" of going to space.
If a dramatic reduction in spaceflight costs were to occur, then there would be a dramatic increase in the seriousness with which people take the "Whys". If, for example, SpaceX really does achieve $1000/lb with the Falcon Heavy, that could start to crack the iron grip that the belief in impractically high spaceflight prices has on most people. If an ELV can get that low, then many will gradually start to realize that ~$100/lb is within reach by fully reusable vehicles.
At those prices, many people will start to look around and find there are lots of reasons Why humanity should and now can go to space.
I think the Why has been ignored by those with decision-making authority for decades. Instead we've gotten plenty of directionless How: Shuttle, X-33, NASP, Constellation. Jeff Greason called it the Underpants Gnome theory:
1) We do X (build an ISS, or build a heavy-lift rocket, or return to the moon, make a mad dash for a NEO or Mars - some one thing that takes up all of NASA's budget)
2) ?
3) (unstated goal of space settlement)
Lowering launch costs is a tactical step, it isn't an end in itself. It is only one piece of the puzzle.
I don't think extraterrestrial property rights will remain a theoretical idea for very long, if a GLXP team is successful and still has a functioning robot after winning the prize, and then sells that robot to Dennis Hope (of Lunar Embassy fame).
Further on property rights: Robert Bigelow's ISDC speech addressed the same point, but he went further than I and said Article 16 of the Outer Space Treaty should be invoked; that is, the US should withdraw from the treaty altogether. Recognition of property rights is a logistical (high-order strategy) step that is absolutely necessary to expanding space from a small government program into a large sector of the economy.
What happens after Spudis gets his lunar base and starts producing LOX?
I have explained the purpose of lunar resource utilization many times in several different venues, most recently HERE and HERE.
The problem with "settlement" as a "goal" is that, while I agree it is the ultimate objective of human spaceflight, it is NOT appropriate as the goal for a federal civil space program. Few outside space circles buy into it as legitimate objective. However, the routine access of people and machines throughout cislunar space to build new large satellite systems and protect and service existing ones is something that has tangible, near-term societal benefits and can therefore be justified as a legitimate federal expenditure. That is my answer to the question "Why?" I'll leave the colonization of the galaxy to our descendants.
"I think the Why has been ignored by those with decision-making authority for decades. Instead we've gotten plenty of directionless How: Shuttle, X-33, NASP, Constellation."
For the past 50 years, launch costs have been a secondary or tertiary issue to NASA, DoD, and the commercial GEO sat industry. ELVs were good enough for the latter two. Reliability was the top priority.
For NASA, the Shuttle was initially proposed as a way to lower costs. However, when Nixon and Congress gave them too small of a budget, saving the Shuttle program became the goal, not lower costs (and this has remain so ever since - see the emphasis on Shuttle derived hardware for the SLS).
Instead of reducing the size and scope of the Shuttle from the initially fully reusable design to fit the smaller budget, NASA did the opposite. To get DoD support they made the orbiter payload bigger and the wings bigger and heavier. This all led to the absurdly complex and fragile system that needed the famous standing army to rebuild. (For NASA, a standing army was a feature, not a bug.)
Any rational "decision-making authority" that had launch costs as the top priority would have started a systematic step-by-step development program after Challenger to develop a fully reusable, fast-turnaround system. The closest that the US govt got to such a program was the DC-X but that soon got side-tracked down the X-33 dead-end.
Constellation was a total surrender to high costs. It's launch costs would have been as high as the Shuttle and it provided no technology path towards lower costs for systems derived from it.
"Lowering launch costs is a tactical step,"
Nope. Lowering launch costs by a few percent is tactical. Lowering them to where it is affordable for humans to travel to and within space is an absolutely crucial step before there is any convincing justification for humans to go to space.
This is just another way of describing the fix that spaceflight has been in from the start. To lower costs you need destinations that generate high flight rates, which in turn produce economies of scale (even ELV costs go down with high rates) and that justify investment in RLVs. However, without low cost spaceflight you cannot create desirable destinations that people want to go to.
Usually govt. helps to overcome these sorts of chicken-egg conundrums but it's only now inching towards doing that with the commercial crew and cargo programs. Offering to pay low bidders to fill fuel depots would be another way to greatly increase flight rates.
It's fine to discuss issues like space settlement to insure humanity's survival, to mine asteroids to supply a growing population, etc. However, most everyone will consider these as wild fantasies as long as it costs thousands of dollars just to put a pound of payload into LEO.
If NewSpace efforts succeed in lowering costs dramatically, then I think we will see serious discussions of such issues across society by the end of the decade. But if they fail, it will still just be space fans like us discussing such things.
Great post Ed, we need to pound this point home.
I'll go further, though, and challenge your assumption that the Why can be separated from the How.
With respect, I need to challenge your challenge Clark. For somebody wanting to make a buck in space, you make sense. Which is exactly what is stalling our progress. Cost will come down with flight rates and competition. What will bring flight rates up? Knowledge that people with the means can go and make a new life for their children. It's already economical at current costs. The mistake being made is that you have to give half a planet to one organization to fund settlement. That's wrong.
What we need to show and can is that individuals can afford to settle a small property and that alone will allow millions of people to settle space. They can afford it and they can afford it now. Without any reduction of cost which will occur anyway.
The first step is getting a dozen or so using ISRU to create habitats and farms on our closest earth analogy. Once done we can shut up the naysayers.
I don't know if there is any one single "first step", Ken - there are a bunch of things that have to happen and many of those can be concurrent. For instance, once the US decides to withdraw from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the withdrawal process occurs a year later. The transit time to some of the more interesting asteroids could also be measured in years, whether sending robots or humans. No reason these processes cannot be simultaneous.
We agree Ed. I'm always getting my feet tangled up or swallowed. I meant ISRU is a step that might not be a critical path requirement before colonization but logically should precede it. I believe much of that research should be hands on, on site.
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