Some thoughts from space anthropologist David Valentine on the different perspective of the space community:
“Space Is Hard” is a line I have heard from the beginning of my fieldwork in 2009, as is the acknowledgment that at some point, a disaster will strike, that someone will lose a life, and that the industry (and the social movement that I think it is) needs to prepare for its consequences. Starting yesterday, we began to see people doing just that. But it would be missing the point entirely to see this only as industry “damage control” or “spin.” At yesterday’s post-crash press conference in Mojave, Virgin Galactic’s CEO George Whitesides, visibly shaken and grief-struck, repeated this line—space is hard—and gave the usual corporate assurances one often hears in these kinds of press conferences. But he and Stu Witt—the outgoing CEO of the Mojave Air and Space Port—said other things in that press conference that only makes sense if you understand how time and history appear to Newspacers. “The future rests in many ways on hard, hard days like this,” said Whitesides. Witt, a central figure in making Mojave a center for Newspace industries, went further in responding to a young reporter’s question: “We’re doing this for you and your generation, it’s worthy, good business, it’s a cause greater than any of us. I see this as being like the Magellan mission.” For Whitesides the distant future and for Witt, the historical past make sense of the terrible loss they were enduring (and yes, I will be writing more about such colonial analogies at some future point, but not today).
If you hear these statements as pablum, as inappropriate, or as covers for corporate malfeasance, then I think you’re missing the point. I’d challenge you to find any other post-industrial-disaster press conference where people talk about the distant future or past in these ways, under duress, under the pressure of grief. The point is that Whitesides, Witt, and a host of other women and men have a deep commitment to a particular view of history and the future which—whether you find it compelling or not—helps them make sense of a death and the fracturing of daily life that have resulted from this crash. For them, the loss of this pilot’s life—a friend and colleague—is a sacrifice to a larger, historical goal. (For the best characterization of this view, see Rand Simberg’s Safe Is Not an Option). While questions abound about Virgin Galactic’s safety culture and the advisability of sending SpaceShip2 on this flight, for the myriad space settlement advocates who see history as coming back in alignment with its true course, this disaster should not spell the end of the Newspace mission because it is, in Witt’s words, worthy.
Yes.
I’m a bit sick of this ‘space is hard’ meme. Driving gets more people killed, but we don’t lament that ‘surface travel is hard.’
There are two parts to hard; Making the vehicle and using the vehicle. A space vehicle could easily be less hard to use than driving in many typical situations without including more extreme situations. That leaves making a vehicle that can be safely used. We assume that’s hard, but why should that be so?
Is it really intrinsically hard or are some just stupid in how they go about it? My contention is that stupidity kills more people than difficulty. Space is hard is a cop out. The difficulty comes from not taking the time to absorb facts in plain sight like a hybrid engine not burning smooth and the implications of that.
People take risks and some die. That can never be avoided. But when we look back, bad decisions are not hard to find. It’s not a blame game. It’s about growing to maturity by experience.
There’s a very simple reason why space travel (specifically, launching from ground) is potentially dangerous. Oddly enough, I did the calculation yesterday for another reason. The energy needed for LEO insertion is approximately 30 MJ/kg, which is approximately 7 times the energy density of TNT – and all that energy has to be imparted to the object being inserted in a few minutes. With today’s technology, power levels like that are going to have the potential for going out of control.
Maybe when stronger and more refractory materials are available (diamondoid fuel tankage and fuel pipes, perhaps, with atomically perfect tungsten carbide rocket linings?) then space launches may be easier to control.
In 1986 I was a second-grader, a boy, with a female teacher, and a BIG fan of Christa McCaughliff. I am sorry to be so self-centered on the subject, but the Challenger event destroyed my mind, my faith in God, the world, and all- what little I had being brought up by christians, that is…
It is documented that since I was in pre-school, being a NASA astronaut was my primary goal in life.
I am 36 years old. There is no way I will ever work for NASA. Not because I don’t want to, but because I have zero qualifications for it- and I will never work my way up to it in our socities systems.
I say all this because I DO have a problem with how these things have been handled. They have all been purported to me in the context as though we are all Christians of the Christian or Jewish God, and to me, these things are the worst things in all human history. And it makes me sick when it’s mixed up with NASA on a fundamental level of my sanity, because to me, NASA is VOID of terrifying God ideals, it is PRO-Life-Goodness-Loving God- and none of those things are present in these other things I am talking about. I despise weakness in others in no opposing the status quo of our times built on idiocy of those from thousands of years ago that in their day made them seem like genius’ to their peers, and allowing it to mix with OUR MODERN GENIUS that is Billions beyond billions beyond billions more advanced in all ways but a few, compared to the genius of the days of yore, or whatever….
BUT-
I would normally never allow myself to blatantly point out any flaw in NASA in this regard, because I KNOW it’s only to promote peace and community in NASA light— so this message saddens me to write.
I am TELLING you ALL, who will listen,
I am still destroyed without any hope for being re-built because of the loss of Challenger, YES because I LOVED IT SO MUCH- THAT ONE MISSION MORE THAN ALL! – If a Second-Grade teacher can become an Astronaut, then I sure as heck can! —- then BOOM! Not good to my 2nd-year-old brain. Not good at all.
What do I want?
I just want a world where we cater to all the children of America and beyond in their desire to be happy and succeed in their dreams, even in the face of events like this that are ultimately just failures, plain and simple, and that we approach these trutths when they happen, not catering to any ideas outside the sphere of what NASA is doing with all tennants of The Scientific Method intact.
Now, I understand when you say, ‘but this is a very hard thing to endure and react to correctly for all persons involved.’ Agreed. So please understand that for me, it is very hard for me to endure all of these things without saying exactly each word I’ve just said. Excuse me, ‘said.’
Sincerely,
Former Potential United States NASA Astronaut from Harvey County, Kansas,
Bradley Dean Sommerfeld
PS: May whatever idea you want, be yours and with you always. 🙂
My favorite idea is that after I’m dead, I’ll be able to be with all my astronaut heroes in any way I wish,
and we will all build Challengers and Launch them and Ride them together, and also be watching it as 6-year-olds on Televisions while we are doing it, by having multiples of ourselves, and it will NEVER explode. 🙂
AND Christa Mcauliffe will SUCCEED in my world, as the first 2nd-grade teacher to successfully orbit Earth in space! 🙂
I am a person that can love from afar like I’m loving my mother during my first feeding of her milk, you know? I LOVED ALL of that stuff- The ship, the launch, the symbols, the ideas, the teacher, the fact that ALL my peers were enrapt with that mission, and ignoring for once their psychologically damaging ideas about life on Earth- meaning- it is a bad thing to think life on Earth IS NOT the ULTIMATE existence of ALL.
The Challenger explosion ended most of that amongst my peers. I’m not blaming anyone for it happening, at all. I just think that had it been stated by NASA then, as in these cases now, ‘We have made a mistake, it seems, and we will work to fix it, please understand this is important to us, and we know the risks, and we leave any other interpretations to the imagination of the individuals knowing of us.’ etc.
🙂
I’m probably not thinking clearly right now. Thinking about Challenger, and then Columbia, and now the beautiful soul working for Mr. Branson, these things touch my emotions very strongly. I apologize if I did not contextualize all my points right, and might have offended someone. It is not my place, nor intent, wholeheartedly, that it be proven I have done so.
Okay, I may have completely underestimated how badly the Challenger accident emotionally scarred the class of ’96.
“I’m probably not thinking clearly right now. ”
Ya think???
Let me combine two quotes by borrowing from the Duke:
“Space is hard, it’s even harder if you’re stupid!”
Doing it with hybrids is like doing jump-shots with a weigh vest.
All, I have heard the Space Is Hard line too often — way too often. Rand did make a point when he wrote “Safe Is Not An Option.”
All that said, we must try to reduce stupid actions as much as possible. What is one thing that causes people to do stupid things? Sleep deprivation. Exhaustion in general causes people to do stupid things.
Let me first point people to the February 2014 issue of the Mensa Bulletin. The feature article, Zombie Nation, is good introduction into how sleep deprivation causes people to do stupid things. I have put the magazine onto my blog as The February 2014 Mensa Bulletin.
An Interesting Side Comment by Michael Griffin has more commentary by me about this problem, as well as pointers to some books on the subject. It is a long post.