I often have a sense that opponents of the new policy fear it not because they are afraid that private enterprise isn’t up to the job, but because they are afraid that it is. Here’s an example of what I mean, over in comments at the Lori Garver interview:
Simply speaking the reset button has been hit again and once more our astronauts are left standing on the pad with no ship to take them to where no man has gone before. We will one day get back to the moon, but my only fear is that the landing will be covered live by a CNN crew who landed on the last Virgin Galactic flight.
This is an interesting comment, and I’d like to understand more. First, what does the commenter mean by “we”? Does he (or she) mean the nation? Does he mean NASA? Does he mean literally himself and others?
And does he fear it because it is a non-American company? Or because it’s a private company?
If he means that his fear is that NASA will get to the moon, but be (as I’ve noted in the past) greeted by the concierge at the Lunar Hilton, why does he “fear” it? Do any of my readers have such a fear? If so, why? Do you think it a rational fear (in the sense that it is actually something to be feared, independent of how likely it is to occur)?
Rand,
[[[I was simply asking questions, not implying or even suggesting answers. I was simply pointing out that a lot of people apparently have a deep emotional investment in NASA leading the way, regardless of cost or results.]]]
That is completely different then fearing that New Space will succeed. If New Space succeeds then NASA will just buy from them and move further out… So NASA will still be leading.
That is completely different then fearing that New Space will succeed. If New Space succeeds then NASA will just buy from them and move further out… So NASA will still be leading.
That may be the way you look at it, but it’s clearly not the way that many look at it.
Bob-1: My theory is the simpler one. Your theory (as is often, if not always the case) fails Occam’s Razor.
Rand,
Given its taken Burt Rutan 6+ years, despite no funding issues, to build SpaceShipTwo I don’t think there is a huge amount of fear of New Space getting to the Moon anytime soon, even if its gets government money to do so. Its not as easy as it looks, as Elon and Burt have learned. Its also why many at NASA are skeptical of New Space and the policy of commercial crew.
Also NASA already has beat New Space to the Moon, just as they have beat the Chinese, Russians, etc. So even at best New Space would be in second place…
Given its taken Burt Rutan 6+ years, despite no funding issues, to build SpaceShipTwo I don’t think there is a huge amount of fear of New Space getting to the Moon anytime soon, even if its gets government money to do so.
Tom. Read my post again. I see such fear, and I provided an example of it. I have no idea what Burt Rutan has to do with this post, any more than Boeing or Lockmart did. You can live in denial if you wish, but I sure wish you’d at least attempt to answer the question, instead of denying that it’s a question worth asking. Or stop wasting bandwidth with irrelevant comments.
My theory simply requires a space fan who hasn’t been enlightened by you (I’m being sincere) to think that NASA could go faster than it is currently going. Naive space fans are excited by private space endeavors but absolutely worship NASA. Your theory requires the complication that a space fan would not be thrilled by the prospect of Virgin Galactic taking CNN to the moon. That’s so bizarre, you thought it was worthy of comment.
Capitalism is evil.
This viewpoint, while not often overtly stated, given who won the Cold War, is nevertheless widely held among astronaut fans. It makes a great deal of theological sense. If astronauts as the pilgrims of the heavens and those who launch are astronauts are the most exalted among us, then since only government-run, i.e. socialist organizations have been launching them, the capitalists who refuse to launch them must be greedy short-sighted bastards indeed.
There are many cliches bandied about in astronaut fan culture that reflect this view. For example the old chestnut that only went out of style in the past decade, not because it was anti-capitalist but because it was sexist, “we spend more money on makeup every year than we spend on NASA.” This huge undercurrent of hatred for free enterprise among astronaut fans I’ve observed to be especially strong in the Mars Society, but hardly confined to there.
Since the space program is supposed to be a scientific enterprise, religious terminology is not used, except for the old pagan gods that have been traditionally been used to name planets and rockets, and instead we have layers of scientific-sounding and pseudo-economic justifications. But to figure out what is actually going on with HSF boosterism we need the religious concepts that far more clearly describe the psychology at work than the euphemisms.
Incidentally, the same phenomenon explains why space tourism has become such an obsession among more libertarian HSF boosters. Space tourism is a way for the free market to redeem itself and prove that it, too, can engage in the holy sacrament of flying pilgrims into the heavens. When space tourism continues to fail to become more than a tiny fraction of the ongoing socialist HSF of the Exploration Directorate, libertarian HSF boosters will face cognitive dissonance. We will see some of these libertarians recognize that HSF in our era is economically unviable and irrational to pursue for the spiritual reasons that motivate astronaut fandom. Libertarians with a stronger attachment to HSF will grab on to euphemisms like “commercial” and pretend that this is the free market at work even as government continues to provide practically all the funding. A third group, the most faithful to HSF, will abandon their libertarianism in favor of NASA-boosting socialism: the free market will have shown that it doesn’t have the moral superiority needed to launch our heavenly pilgrims.
For “NASA,” read “Post Office.” For “New Space,” read “FedEx.” That’s why there’s fear.
Also NASA already has beat New Space to the Moon, just as they have beat the Chinese, Russians, etc. So even at best New Space would be in second place…
Remember, the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
For “New Space,” read “FedEx.”
In which galaxy did FedEx get nearly all its revenue from government contracts?
Since the space program is supposed to be a scientific enterprise
What?
My theory simply requires a space fan who hasn’t been enlightened by you (I’m being sincere) to think that NASA could go faster than it is currently going.
I agree this is another possibility. I believe there are many in the space enthusiast community who simply want NASA to go first, for tribal reasons and because of hero worship though they probably won’t admit it. Rand’s commenter may be one of those many people. If so, the odds of convincing this commenter are slim.
But I’m not pessimistic about the majority of the population as a whole. Most might be open to the new policy once they saw it would be more likely to succeed. Getting the message across seems to be a bigger problem. Then again, while the population as a whole might come to agree that the new plan is better than the old one, they might feel it still is not worth the taxpayers’ money spent on it. Not that I necessarily disagree with that.
((Remember, the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.))
Also remember that the early worm gets the bird.
Rand,
I hope that you don’t mind me referencing something that is somewhat off topic to your specific point, but still addresses the general idea of the logical disconnect exhibited by the Constellation advocates.
At the Orlando Sentinel website’s The Write Stuff section under the article “Griffin, NASA luminaries urge Obama to change space policy”, a couple of people are trying to make a case for continuing the status quo by posting that NASA has produced a number of spin off technologies that have had a major impact on peoples’ lives. One even went so far as to create a lengthy list of spin offs. I pointed out that they had inadvertently made an argument in favor of the new plan! I will not state all of my points here, just my final conclusion:
Obviously, if new technology is now a primary focus [of the new plan], there will be MORE new technologies being produced than ever before! That means even MORE spin offs. So instead, if spin offs are indeed that important, you guys have just inadvertently stated a major advantage of the new plan!
It reminds me of an old story (probable urban legend) about National Geographic filming intrepid mountain climbers scaling a cliff, only to be greeted at the top by a troop of Girl Scouts who had walked up the easy way. They tried to evict the Girl Scouts from the mountain top because they spoiled the climbers’ heroic camera shots!
> Thomas Matula Says:
> April 12th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
>
>==
> That is completely different then fearing that New Space
> will succeed. If New Space succeeds then NASA will just
> buy from them and move further out… So NASA will still
> be leading.
Thats the new.space folks optimistic view – its not nessisarily held in NASA or DC. Nor is it nessisarily realistic. (Its not like the current crew proposal included NASA plans to go farther out, or contracts for commercials to go farther out.) So shutting down the planed (if bungled and over priced.) plan to return to the moon, does just sound like end of exploration.
Most of NASA staffs are basically involved in launching, so taking that away lays a lot of people off. The point of NASA in DC is staffing levels. Given the agency was willing to accept lower shuttle safety to avoid upgrades that would lower workforce needs – you can see why droping launcher support completly would not thrill NASA or the supporting politicians and public.
In which galaxy did FedEx get nearly all its revenue from government contracts?
The analogy was based on who the owner and operator is, not who the customer is. I’m surprised you couldn’t discern that.
The analogy was based on who the owner and operator is, not who the customer is.
In other words, it was a terrible analogy that assumed that the reader would ignore crucial differences for the sake of much less important similarities.
Rand,
I have read your post and I still think your opening sentence is funny as it does seem to imply that opponents of President Obama’s space plan that don’t buy into the idea it’s the greatest space policy ever created are motivated by the fear it will succeed.
As for the commenter you are stressed out over, they are clearly expressing views similar to the space preservationist movement who think space should be protected from commercial exploitation.
The movement has been developing under the radar of space advocates, who are always seem focused on NASA policy, for years. Recently that had an unopposed victory in California, declaring the Apollo 11 landing site which when almost unnoticed in the space advocate blogsphere.
http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-29/news/17854899_1_state-historical-resource-lunar-surface-preservation
Apollo 11 site named California historic resource
January 29, 2010|By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press Writer
[[[A California preservation panel has taken the unusual step of naming the Apollo 11 moon landing site as a state historical resource.
The vote on Friday by the California State Historical Resources Commission is part of a five-state effort to have Tranquility Base become a national historic landmark and then a world heritage site.]]]
And in today’s news they added New Mexico to their victory column.
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/krwg/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1635854/Regional/Apollo.11-New.Mexico
KRWG News (2010-04-13)
[[[SANTA FE, N.M. (krwg) – (AP) New Mexico has designated the artifacts left behind at Tranquility Base on the moon in its official registry of historic properties.]]]
Of course this is just the opening round. Once the precedence is set for extending U.S. protection laws to cultural artifacts left by U.S. space missions to the Moon they will likely work to extend U.S. environmental impact law to U.S. lunar missions as precedence for international space environmental laws. (BTW I hope some space lawyer reading this puts together a lawsuit charging that this is either as a violation of the Outer Space Treaty, since its seeks to extend U.S. sovereignty to the Moon, or at minimum that it is an unwarranted extension of the powers of these state commissions. I for one would donate money for that cause…)
But in terms of your question, on why this commenter fears New Space getting to the Moon first the answer is easy. Having CNN and Virgin Galactic tourists on the Moon to “greet” the return of NASA astronauts would be this group’s worst nightmare since their fear that New Space will turn the moon into a tourist trap would have come true. But extending this fear to other opponents of the President’s policy, as implied in your opening sentence, is not warranted.
I have read your post and I still think your opening sentence is funny as it does seem to imply that opponents of President Obama’s space plan that don’t buy into the idea it’s the greatest space policy ever created are motivated by the fear it will succeed.
OK, then we’ve established that you’re easily entertained. And still having trouble with reading comprehension, and skilled at building straw men.
their fear that New Space will turn the moon into a tourist trap
Desecration of the sacred moon.
I wonder if it will matter to many greens that there is nothing green up there.
I often have a sense that opponents of the new policy fear it not because they are afraid that private enterprise isn’t up to the job, but because they are afraid that it is.
You see it all the time. People defend a position not because it’s right, but because they have an economic interest in keeping it wrong. Prime example is government spending at the end of a cycle where they don’t care how the money is spent as long as it’s spent to keep their budget from being cut.
Well Rand, I guess you can’t make the blind see…
In other words, it was a terrible analogy that assumed that the reader would ignore crucial differences for the sake of much less important similarities.
No. I assumed that readers would be intelligent enough to grasp the essential features of the analogy and ignore the irrelevant ones, since no analogy is perfect. In one person’s case my assumption turned out to be incorrect. That doesn’t invalidate the analogy, though.
I assumed that readers would be intelligent enough to grasp the essential features of the analogy and ignore the irrelevant ones, since no analogy is perfect.
The probably are. It’s the writer who has the problem distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant.
OK, other than “I know you are, but what am I?” what the hell’s your point, googaw? By disputing my analogy, are you trying to say that the PostOffice is more efficient and more effective than FedEx? Are you saying that FedEx doesn’t have the U.S. government as one of its customers? Are you saying that Elon Musk isn’t willing to sell SpaceX vehicles or services to any private entity that’s willing to buy?
And I’ll echo Paul D’s “What?” to your pronouncement “Since the space program is supposed to be a scientific enterprise” — care to answer?
And I’ll echo Paul D’s “What?” to your pronouncement “Since the space program is supposed to be a scientific enterprise” — care to answer?
My answer was different. “NO!” Sure there are scientific elements to the current space program, but I see the important parts being development of commercial infrastructure, development of space technology, and space exploration, in that order. Space science is just a side project with convenient benefits.