brainwagon

I normally read the blog of W9OY for its ham radio content, but this morning he waxed poetical on the impending cessation of human space flights here in the United States. His vantage point in sight of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Cape make it especially poignant for him.

Software Defined Ham Radio: End of an Era.

First of all, I’m a child of the Apollo era. I remember watching launches on our old Zenith black and white. I remember dashing home from Church at age 5 to hear news of the Apollo 11 lander. My interest in science and technology was fueled by the fires of Apollo, and the idea that they could be harnessed to achieve great things for all mankind. After setting foot on the moon, who knew what the actual limit of mankind would be?

But for all that, I’m not especially broken up about the cessation of human space flights. The reasons are essentially three fold:

First, there is a cost/benefit ratio. Sending humans into space costs money, and a lot of it. Humans are capable of performing some tasks in space which are impossible for current machines (like the Hubble reservicing), but were servicing not a possibility, the money spent on it would have been channeled into other areas, perhaps equally as fruitful for scientists. Compare the budget for reservicing the HST to the total cost for the twin Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea. It is much simpler to design satellites when freed from the need to keep the soft, squishy humans inside within the a gassy envelope of the proper temperature, within G limits, and shielded from damaging radiation.

Secondly, NASA funding has essentially become a source of pork barrel jobs. Congress hands out funding not because of any particular dedication to space travel, or the development of new technologies, but because for some of them the money they hand out buys jobs in their districts, and those jobs mean re-election. Every president since Kennedy has given flowery speeches about the importance of “sending men to the stars”, and frankly they’ve all been insincere. The reality is that NASA was a vast employer, and keeping those jobs going meant political stability for the Congressmen and Senators who were the beneficiaries of this federal generosity.

Lastly, I believe that if we are to have a lasting presence in space, it must be driven by economic factors. We have lauded the pioneers of the American West as bold innovators and frontiersmen, but for the most part they were people who saw an economic opportunity that didn’t exist where they were. They left their jobs to homestead a farm, or to search for gold, or just to sell goods to those that did. The federal government didn’t manufacture this opportunity. The next stage of space exploration will be fueled by the economic opportunities exploited by individuals and companies.

I’ve visited the VAB. I’ve seen the Saturn V, and thrilled to the multimedia presentations on the Apollo 11 in their visitor’s center, which reminded me of the thrill I had at age five. Heck, I’ve even had my salary paid as part of a NASA grant back when I was in graduate school over twenty years ago. But with 40+ year history of manned space flight, a grand total of about four hundred fifty people have been in space. 18 Americans and 4 Russians died there (about 5% of those launched).

It is likely that no reasonable economic case can be made for men in space until the costs are reduced by at least one and maybe two orders of magnitude and the safety of spaceflight increased by similar orders of magnitude. That sounds difficult, but those numbers are not significantly different than the increase in reliability in conventional air travel over the last three quarters of a century. The government played a role in this, but it didn’t have to own airlines to do so. I suspect it will be the same with human spaceflight. Companies like Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic and probably ones that have not even been formed yet will lead the way for humans to go back to space.

And, quite frankly I think we have bigger things to worry about down here on earth. Things like health care for the sick. Like education. Like feeding the hungry. Do we really want to spend billions putting a few more humans in orbit when there are so many pressing issues that Americans (and indeed, the people of the world) face every single day?

From JFK’s Inaugural Address:

To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

Indeed.