Left Flank

Stephen Hawking's quip in this Charlie Rose interview about humans "dropping the basket before distributing the eggs", referring to the urgency of human colonization of space before the current Earth-challenged generations destroy themselves through "stupidity and greed", prompts this comparison. What's more important, space traffic control, or Cape Canaveral?

On one hand, there's practicality.

The traditionally festive Space Day at the Capitol last Thursday was transformed from a purely symbolic event into a series of hurried, closed-door pleas for state incentives. Teams from Lockheed Martin, Space Florida and NASA scrambled to hit all 160 members of the state Legislature. Their tactics were exhaustive, and so was the wish list.

They asked for a new $45 million space incentive fund to lure companies looking to relocate. They also wanted a grab-bag of other financial sweeteners for aviation and aerospace companies willing to do business in Florida.

These included extending tax breaks previously offered to defense contractors, and pumping $20 million into a multi-university research and technology center that could cluster space-related brain power. State budget writers are also being asked to extend work-force retraining dollars for the thousands of soon-to-be unemployed shuttle workers.

Legislators have already filed bills to give future commercial space ventures immunity to lawsuits in the event of deaths except in cases of negligence -- similar to what Virginia and other states have done. And it is not just Virginia that Florida needs to worry about. Experts point to developing launch sites in New Mexico, Texas, California and Oklahoma, as well as pads in South America and Russia.

Competition can be a good thing, but space is limited.

"The real crucial thing is some system for collision avoidance and a process to ensure that people don't run into each other," she says. It may look like space leaves plenty of room to maneuver, but objects are moving so fast that once they swing into sight, it's too late.

Between the how of launching vehicles from the ground to the stars, and keeping those phallic-shaped fuel containers from creating big fireballs, there's a debate larger than how Florida's Brevard County–or even how the Mars program–pays the bills. The debate at Space Politics is a lively place to end.

Look, there's no doubt that there is, and should be, an emotional component to our space policy decisions. But it's not at all clear that getting someone excited by watching a Shuttle launch is going to lead to good decisions. For instance, it might lead to a decision to continue to fly the Shuttle, just because it's so awesome, and wouldn't it be a shame to not be able to watch it any more? Or it might lead to a decision to support Ares because it's «Shuttle-derived» (never mind the fact that there's not much Shuttle derivation left in it). Or it might lead to a decision that because the launch of a large vehicle like the Shuttle is impressive, that building smaller, but more cost-effective vehicles is a waste of money, and not a useful goal.

I repeat–the fact that a Shuttle launch is awesome doesn't, in and of itself, indicate that Shuttle flights are important. If space is important, we need to understand what's important about it, and formulate policies that will emphasize those goals. Unfortunately, we're a long way from that, partly because people who grew up on Saturns and Shuttle have developed a big-rocket fetish, and because the primary basis on which congressional decisions are made are pork, which can be the most emotional basis of all.

I agree, Rand Simberg.

Donald F. Robertson also has this colorful site related to this topic!

Although these moving images derived from a terrestrial-based radar installation are exciting, why is NASA sending an orbiter to map the South Pole again?

Scott Hensley, a scientist at JPL who took part in the latest radar-mapping effort, notes that the orbiter's laser-like radar, or lidar, will be able to match Goldstone's 20-meter resolution at the south pole after some eight months of orbiting the moon. But the orbiter can't bring that level of detail to as wide a swath of the south pole as can the radar. But where the radar can distinguish changes in elevation of roughly five meters, the LRO will be able to detect changes in terrain height of around one meter.

But for other parts of the moon, the LRO will only match the one-kilometer resolution of past missions. The Goldstone radar still has the best chance of spotting those yacht-sized objects anywhere on the moon scientists can aim it, making it for now the lunar cartographer to beat.

Alright, I can see why the difference between one and five meters of elevation is important to a descending craft with humans aboard. But, can't NASA just make a better radar at Goldstone? Is NASA just inflating simple tasks into romantic ventures, to save its budget?

Matthew Yglesias and Chris Bowers have excellent reasons why America should not have a manned space program.

Matt's rationale against a manned space program: "Unmanned missions are, at the moment, the ones really pushing the frontiers of our knowledge and that's going to continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. That's where we ought to be focusing our energies."

Chris' rationales against a manned space program: "Space exploration is not an issue with clear partisan divisions. Some conservatives view it as a wasteful government expenditure that is better handled through private enterprise, while some progressives view it through a utilitarian lens in that it does not provide much direct benefit to humanity."

I have another reason: without international cooperation on terrestrial weapons programs, space exploration will create an exponentially more dangerous space and terrestrial environment for military and civilian participants and the average layperson.

Confusingly, pundits, politicians, and experts cannot even use clear terminology. The Russians and Chinese propose a space treaty? No, it's an anti-missile, or an anti-satellite treaty. The satellites and missiles are landing and falling on earth! Please stop calling it "outer space"! We have no idea what "outer space" is, so stop trying to appropriate the word, like you know something other than how to use clubs and knives!

Speaking of which, it seems the Bush administration has not progressed past the point of cowboy instincts.

This logic — «hey, why not?» — is always suspect. It reverses the burden of proof, placing the emphasis on those who oppose the intercept.

Yet, this is an «extraordinary» measure (General Cartwright's phrase) against a «small» risk (his phrase again). Justifying requires demonstrating not just that one risk is greater than another, but that one has high confidence that estimates of the risks are accurate and complete.

Holding aside my general worry that this Administration is not to be trusted with sharp objects, there are specific reasons to be skeptical of both the accuracy and the completeness of this Administration's calculations. I strongly suspect that they are systematically discounting two types of hard-to-quantify risks — the possibility of error within the estimates and the political costs to conducting an anti-satellite intercept.

Since I'm not a wonk, let me stick to political costs.

This move by Russia mirrors a similar move by the United States in 2006 when it presented to the Conference on Disarmament a draft treaty to ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. The Conference now has two draft treaties on the table (and is unable to begin work on either). The current plan to break the deadlock in the CD involves four elements: Negotiations on a treaty on fissile material for nuclear weapons and substantive discussions on three other issues - preventing an arms race in outer space, nuclear disarmament, and assurances to non-nuclear weapons States that they will not be attacked or threatened by nuclear weapons.

The introduction by Russia and China of a draft treaty to keep weapons out of space does not alter one iota the current plan to break the deadlock in the CD. Foreign Minister Lavrov made it quite clear when presenting the draft text that it had, as he put it, a "research mandate" and that it would "not add any complications to achieving a compromise on the programme of work of the Conference." In his message to the Conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi expressed the hope that the CD would "start substantive discussion and reach consensus on [the draft treaty] as soon as possible." Russia and China are not, as has been erroneously reported, calling for immediate negotiations on this draft treaty. Rather, they are proposing that it serve as a focal point for substantive discussions, with a view to negotiations sometime in the future. This is entirely consistent with the current plan to break the deadlock in the CD.

This is why the strong negative reactions to the Sino-Russian proposal reported coming out of Washington are somewhat puzzling. After long opposition to holding even discussions on outer space in the Conference on Disarmament, the United States last year changed its position by deciding that it would "not stand in the way of consensus" to break the deadlock in the CD. This essentially means that the U.S. would allow substantive discussions on outer space to take place as long as negotiations on a treaty on fissile material could get underway. All the Sino-Russian proposal does, really, is to provide a focus for the substantive discussions on outer space. The Washington Times reported that U.S. State Department Officials thought that "Moscow and Beijing are trying to upstage Washington with their draft." In fact, the U.S. draft treaty on fissile material and the Sino-Russian draft treaty on outer space are not in opposition to one another.

But, to be fair, Beijing is very confidant in its anti-democratic pose, although its better instinct is to tread softly. Russia is just a big oaf that bullies with oil and nukes. There's a space in which PRC and US can negotiate earnestly, if both follow their better instincts, dropping the cowboy and the anti-democratic poses. And, for both, there are nasty consequences that could result from stoking populist currents in their respective populations.

China's political leadership is held hostage by both a Chinese society spinning out of its control and by a nationalistic and reactionary populace angry at old grievances and increasingly intoxicated with China's rising power. As much as China's political and military leaders would like to be reasonable and work cooperatively with the U.S. and China's neighbors, these Chinese leaders fear an emotional uprising from their own countrymen should they appear too willing to compromise with China's old enemies. During the next crisis over Taiwan, or Japan, or with the U.S. Navy, China's leaders may find themselves forced to choose between reckless escalation or an overthrow at the hands of a nationalist rebellion.

That's why this short essay from Bill Owens, a retired four-star admiral and ex-vice chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, and was chief executive of Nortel and Teledesic, is so compelling.

Foremost, Owens uses the term, "commons", which gets to the salient economic characteristic of that vacuum beyond Earth's populist-fuelled outer atmosphere. Owens applies it to "the economy, open seas and skies, space and the internet", but let's be Owens-like, please!

Mind you, I disagree with him.

First, a no-first-use agreement on cyber attack. An agreement not to be the first to employ a cyber attack against the other country would not eliminate the capability to do it. But it would add inhibitions, set an example and secure cyberspace as the foundation of the new information age.

Second, collaborative anti-piracy operations on the seas, which are of growing importance to freedom of navigation affecting all nations. The US and China both oppose piracy but we do not co-ordinate enough. We could turn ad hoc co-ordination into real solutions, from database and information exchanges to combined exercises, patrols and counter-piracy operations.

Third, a collaborative, space-based information system to achieve global military transparency. We have a space-based surveillance system capable of tracking significant military and perhaps terrorist operations anywhere on the earth's surface. If China and the US came together to collect and provide this information globally, the world could benefit. Such collaboration would not only establish a new US-China relationship; it would also accelerate modernisation of the industrial-age militaries that make mass destruction feasible and likely.

Military co-operation could also allow both countries to reduce defence budgets and commit funds to long-term global initiatives in education, health and environmental preservation. If both militaries become locked in competition, these opportunities disappear.

Fourth, commitment to having no weapons in space and the early reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. China's recent space exploration is impressively important, in part because it could spark a new arms race in space. By committing to keep space weapons-free, China and the US can work to ensure peaceful and stable exploration.

A significant reduction of nuclear weapons (to fewer than 1,000) could preclude another arms race. It would also help reduce the likelihood of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorist organisations. A co-ordinated stand could trigger a real shift towards the renunciation of nuclear weapons, not only by Russia and the established nuclear powers, but also by unstable nations where the combination of terrorism and nuclear potency is most dangerous.

Fifth, a collaborative reduction of pollution from coal power generation. If there is a single issue in which US-China collaboration could make a world-changing difference, it is here. China and the US burn more than half the coal used today, producing most of the carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide that create global warming. Together, China and the US have the scientific and engineering base to address this environmental threat. Doing so would also alter the competitive role of oil production in international security. If the US and China were to establish a $100bn clean coal research fund, it could lead to a drop of 30 per cent in oil prices.

Obviously, the essay has the lung-cleansing scent that comes from a room full of people who can count for a living, but it indicates the path to take.

Now #4 makes me wince. I have this fantasy where NASA runs the cavalry, today's Navy and Air Force combined, which rescues space freighters and dizzy scientists on quixotic missions from, umm, unspecified dangers. The cavalry needs tactical weapons. But, strategic weapons turning satellites into debris which impedes launches and transport to and from Earth are verboten.

So, yes, I agree with Matt conditionally. If the current situation is all earthlings can devise, then unmanned missions are optimal. But, if we want to make space work for us and, as Chris prosaically argues, fulfill our humanity, then the US and China (and Russia) have to follow their better instincts. Between regressing to a 19th Century slugfest between mandarins, cossacks, and cowboys, and taming the commons, the last frontier, there's no metaphorical challenge.

I was just too young to experience the excitement of July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. Still, Star Trek reruns and the original Star Wars (before it became Part IV) were enough to plant the bug of space exploration into my adolescent brain. Along with grad school discussions of near-earth orbiting weapons platforms and two trips to Cape Canaveral, this constitutes my space indoctrination.

So, it's absolutely thrilling to read The Economist crow about SpaceShipTwo.

But Virgin Galactic has passed an important milestone. At an event held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, on January 23rd, the company unveiled the design of its new generation of vehicles, and said that the first examples had almost been finished at Mr Rutan's factory. White Knight Two is due to begin test flights towards the middle of 2008, but may roll out of the hangar in the next few weeks. Test flights of SpaceShipTwo itself could start towards the end of the year.

The combination of a carrier aircraft and a spaceship to get into space is akin to building a two-stage rocket. Air-launched rockets have a long history. SpaceShipOne and White Knight were, in essence, vastly improved and much cheaper versions of the X-15 rocket plane that set speed and altitude records in the early 1960s and the B-52 bomber that carried the rocket plane under its wing. But pure rockets, such as the ones that lift the space shuttle, won out because the Space Race between America and Russia emphasised speed over cost, and rockets were proven technology, having already been developed as intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, they consume a huge amount of power as they claw their way up through the Earth's thick atmosphere. By contrast a rocket lifted by a plane with wings before being launched can be made much smaller and lighter. The plane itself is light because its engines breathe air. It thus needs to carry less fuel than a rocket, and no chemical oxidant to burn that fuel, as a rocket would. Each craft—plane and rocket—can therefore be optimised for its own job, which is easier than designing a single vehicle that has to make lots of compromises to do both.

Virgin Galactic's second generation of craft are based on SpaceShipOne and White Knight, but with plenty of differences. White Knight Two has been redesigned wholesale to lift a much larger spaceship with eight people on board instead of three. It has a wingspan equivalent to that of a Boeing 757, is three times larger than its predecessor and is the largest aircraft made entirely from composite materials like carbon fibre. It is powered by four Pratt & Whitney engines. With its twin boom and long wing, it looks more like the Global Flyer than its predecessor. It has also been engineered to be able to treat any passengers it carries to zero-gravity swoops on the way down after they have watched the spaceship being released for its trip into space.

SpaceShipTwo itself will accommodate two pilots at the front and also six passengers, who will have room enough to bounce around in zero gravity. It has more of a dolphin-like nose than its prototype and more windows. It will also go a little higher than its predecessor, so that its passengers will experience five minutes or so of weightlessness before flying back to receive their astronauts' wings. But, crucially, it has the same flip-up wings. These are used when the craft reconfigures itself for re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. The wings rotate through 90° to give it extremely high drag, which allows it to begin its slow deceleration through the atmosphere earlier and at higher altitudes than previous spaceflight re-entries.

The spaceship will be fuelled by a «hybrid rocket»—so-called because it contains both liquid and solid propellants. These rockets can be cheaper to develop and operate, and the fuel is safer to store than in purely liquid-fuelled ones. SpaceShipOne used rubber and laughing gas. Scaled Composites is studying alternatives to rubber that may offer better performance.

Another change in the design of the spaceship is the insertion of a flexible glass-fibre section into its composite structure. This will allow the rocket's oxidiser tank to expand when it is full. All these changes mean that when SpaceShipTwo does begin flight tests, the programme will last at least a year before paying customers can take to the skies.

Work will also begin soon on fitting out another factory to start making more of these craft. Virgin Galactic has ordered five spaceships and two carrier aircraft. The spaceships will take longer to refuel for their next flight than the carrier aircraft do, so—thinking just as an airline would—the firm has concluded it needs more spaceships than carriers. Each spaceship should eventually be capable of making two trips into space every day, and the launch aircraft three or four flights. Mr Rutan says they could operate from a number of airports and spaceports around the world.

Virgin Galactic believes the fleet it has ordered should be large enough to furnish its space-tourism business in the early years. Trips are expected to cost some $200,000 each to start with. Hundreds of people have put down a total of $30m in deposits. However, as the firm also made clear at the announcement in New York, the new craft may one day do a lot more than ferry day-trippers to the edge of space and back. Stephen Attenborough, Virgin Galactic's commercial director, says the spaceship is revolutionary because it is able to take not just people into space, but other payloads too.

In a companion editorial, The Economist continues its giddiness with total abandon. Another possibility SpaceShipTwo conjures is cheap terrestrial transport.

Such applications will never be cheap; they are unlikely, for example, to usher in an era when Londoners ponder at their breakfast tables the merits of dinner (or rather, given the time-shift, a second breakfast) in Sydney. But another development of the technology may indeed become ubiquitous. That would be to use it to launch small satellites.

Satellites are just packages of electronics, and the price of electronics is falling without foreseeable end. It is the launch cost ($20m a time) that restricts their use. A successor to the SpaceShip/White Knight combination could deal with that. First, the whole caboodle is more economical than using throw-away rockets. Second, rather than having to wait ages on the ground for the right launch window, an air-launcher can fly to a better location. Such changes could bring satellite ownership to cities, universities and companies. Ultimately, it may bring it within the purse of individuals. Who could resist having their own, private window on the world?

It is famously difficult to predict the market for disruptive technologies, whether they be computers, muskets, jet engines or digital cameras. But cheap access to space, and to the other side of the Earth, is likely to be revolutionary. For many years the question has been why taxpayers should pay to put people into space. The point of private-sector space travel is that the world will rapidly and accurately come to a conclusion about what space is for. The invisible hand may, indeed, point upwards. Then again, it may not.

If it does, however, it may also point to a revolution of a different kind. Many people date the emergence of the environmental movement to the publication of a photograph taken from Apollo 8 of the Earth rising over the lunar horizon. When space becomes a democracy—or, at least, a plutocracy—the rich risk-takers who have seen the fragile Earth from above might form an influential cohort of environmental activists. Those cynics who look at SpaceShipTwo and think only of the greenhouse gases it is emitting may yet be in for a surprise.

Compared to this, and another article about how easy space travel just might be for most healthy 80-year old rich guys, NASA's Constellation program looks like retread Apollo schlock.

By way of responding to Brendan, both Senator Mel Martinez (R., Fl.) and presidential candidate Mayor Rudy Giuliani have both pointed out the shuttle-Constellation gap. Giuliani believes it's a 'money issue'; Martinez wants to extend the working life of the space shuttle. But, 2013, at the minimum, is a long time to fly shuttles.

So, what to do for five or more years? Peter Diamandis, CEO of the X Prize Foundation, has an idea or two about the next phase of space exploration:

Two fundamental realities will drive space exploration forwards. First, wealth is accumulating in the hands of ambitious and visionary individuals, many of whom view space simultaneously as an adventure and as a place to make money. What was once affordable only by nations can now be funded by individuals.

Second, corporations and investors are realising that resources on Earth are limited and are running out. But everything we hold of value on Earth—metals, minerals, energy and real estate—is in near-infinite supply in space. As space operations become more affordable, companies will set their sights on extra-terrestrial resources, and what was once thought of as a vast wasteland will become the next «gold rush».

(…)

This is not to say that governments will have no role. They will retain the critical work of pure science, and of answering some of the biggest unknowns: for example, is there life on Mars? Governments should play the important role of big customer and get out of the operations business. In the same way that government agencies don't build their own PCs, or fly their own commuter airlines, in the future governments will buy seats on commercial orbital vehicles, and stay aboard commercial space stations. Politicians will also need to determine what laws govern space and its colonies—and how to respond if space colonies strike out on their own and claim independence.

And, government retains its monopoly on the use of force in space. All the national space agencies will have to devise a way to keep this corner of the solar system peaceful, as well as stay out of each other's way. There is also the question of defending the terrestrial infrastructure, like launch pads, and protecting against industrial espionage. But, the US, according to Everett C. Dolman's Astropolitik, should, firstly, achieve control of the entire near-earth environment, followed by forming an agency capable of coordinating the activities of commercial and military projects. NASA has devoted too many resources to exploration. Instead of the romantic individualism of racing to Mars, NASA should devote itself to establishing forts on the vast plains of the solar system.

A decade just might be long enough for Americans to prepare for this new world.

I don't often write about my interest in space exploration. It usually takes a backseat to others more terrestrial concerns. I have, however, put William E. Burrows' This New Ocean : The Story of the First Space Age on my reading list.

So, here's an interesting theory about Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system that NASA's Messenger will observe:

Mercury's high density, small size, and other aspects of its structure make it possible that it formed elsewhere in the solar system, some say. The idea is driven in large part by what astronomers have seen in other solar systems: Gas-giant planets that orbit so close to their parent star that there is no plausible explanation for how they could have formed there.

Mercury could have formed out near the orbit of Mars, then gotten smacked by another large object. The impact would have knocked off much of Mercury's original surface. And it would have triggered Mercury's migration to its current orbit.

Hmmm...

Pluto is no longer a planet, and now Mercury is an alien body? Is all this conjecture part of a conspiracy to avoid talking about Earth?

Reading Tim Johnson wax nostalgic trying to justify China's space program, I feel his sentiment.

As NASA’s chief acknowledged earlier in a speech a few weeks ago, the Apollo program brought all kinds of intangible benefits to the U.S. as well as tangible scientific progress on things that affect our daily lives, like CAT scans, infrared thermometers and other medical technologies.

Whether China can make those kinds of strides is yet to be seen. But its space program is also likely to have intangible benefits.

Meanwhile, America's NASA is becoming proficient at boring people with details only engineers and mechanics could appreciate. Space, instead of thrilling treks to the moon, is also an international construction project. But, building a diplomatic tool in Earth orbit just can't compare to raw nationalism

I'd think NASA would get the clue and forgo white elephant projects, like a trip to Mars, and let private companies make space travel even more routine and dull.