Steven Weinberg has a 5500-word essay in the New York Review of books on the president's space initiative. It repeats the same tired nonsense and myths, about how space is for science, that there's no reason for people to go, that it will cost a trillion dollars.

The President gave no cost estimates, but John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, has cited reports that the new initiative would cost between $170 billion and $600 billion. According to NASA briefing documents, the figure of $170 billion is intended to take NASA only up to 2020, and does not include the cost of the Mars mission itself. After the former President Bush announced a similar initiative in 1989, NASA estimated that the cost of sending astronauts to the moon and Mars would be either $471 billion or $541 billion in 1991 dollars, depending on the method of calculation. This is roughly $900 billion in today's dollars. Whatever cost may be estimated by NASA for the new initiative, we can expect cost overruns like those that have often accompanied big NASA programs. (In 1984 NASA estimated that it would cost $8 billion to put the International Space Station in place, not counting the cost of using it. I have seen figures for its cost so far ranging from $25 billion to $60 billion, and the station is far from finished.) Let's not haggle over a hundred billion dollars more or less—I'll estimate that the President's new initiative will cost nearly a trillion dollars.

This is, of course, as I said above, nonsense on stilts.

It's frustrating that scientists and particularly physicists (like Weinberg and Bob Park) continue to somehow be regarded as intrinsic experts on the space program and space policy. I also wish that we could get a moratorium on the title, "The Wrong Stuff." It was sort of amusing the first time, but it's pretty stale now. And yes, before anyone does a search, I plead guilty, but my usage was much more appropriate than Weinberg's, and I will go forth and sin no more.

It is difficult to think of any direct economic benefit that can be gained by putting people into space.

No, it's quite easy to think of some. It's just difficult for you to think of any, professor. Simply put, the direct economic benefit that can be gained by putting people into space is by fulfilling their desire to go, but sadly, this is something that neither scientists, or proponents of our current voyeuristic space program (including the new initiative) are able to get their heads around.

Fortunately, not everyone is as blinkered in their outlook.

[Update a few minutes later]

I just noticed (and I'd probably seen it earlier, but forgotten) that Clark Lindsey has discussed this piece as well, earlier this week.

Rand,

Now, let's not tar with too wide a brush (note my e-mail addy) :-). Besides, IIRC, it's a bit of a stretch to actually call Bob Parks a physicist.

You are, however, correct in commenting about something I've complained about for years -- physicists with particular political axes to grind (usually far-left) that abuse the cachet of 'physicist' to blather on about topics they have no background in. Remember, you say 'physicist' and much of society seems to have a mental picture of those dudes from Star Trek with the extended crania.

A Nobel Prize is no more a guarantee that someone actually knows what they're talking about (outside the field they won the prize in), than being a Rhodes Scholar is a guarantee that you're not just some dopey bubba that doesn't even know what the definition of 'is' is.

- Eric.

Rand,

Do you have a link (or series of links) to postings that summarize your philosophy re: space exploration? I've been able to get a general gist of what you think, but am curious if you have written a more comprehensive overview (sounds oxymoronic, I know!) of your stand.

You can post here, or email me, whichever suits you, if you want to respond.

Thanks!

"You are, however, correct in commenting about something I've complained about for years -- physicists with particular political axes to grind (usually far-left) that abuse the cachet of 'physicist' to blather on about topics they have no background in."

I had a professor once who sarcastically noted that Einstein had developed his political opinions while working in his laboratory.

Of course, we live in a society where a title and a little bit of fame automatically entails someone to discuss subjects beyond their level of expertise. We have celebrities appearing on the cover of Parade magazine telling us how to live our lives (heck, give me $20 million and I'll gladly take Brad Pitt's personal problems). We have famous psychiatrists like Dr. Phil prescribing treatment for people who they have just met even though the psychiatric profession would normally require far more evaluation. And in our own area of interest one of the more prominent space policy commentators has no advanced education at all. Even Holiday Express turned this into a joke by showing people giving expert advice because they were smart enough to stay at a certain hotel.

Everybody is an expert on everything, right? So why shouldn't a Nobel Prize in physics qualify you to discuss political science or conduct neurosurgery?

He wouldn't have the initials JP, would he, Dwayne? ;-)

Even Holiday Express turned this into a joke by showing people giving expert advice because they were smart enough to stay at a certain hotel.

Everybody is an expert on everything, right? So why shouldn't a Nobel Prize in physics qualify you to discuss political science or conduct neurosurgery?

Posted by Dwayne A. Day

The REAL question should then be... Did he in fact stay at a Holiday Inn Express prior to or during the formulation of his expertise.

That being said, having some experience with Gov't programs and their inability to accurately forcast cost,(i.e. a trillion dollar surplus suddenly becomes a deficit), he may very well be right in his estimate of the cost.

As far as economic benefit, there is absolutely no doubt that pumping a trillion dollars of spending into the economy would be of benefit.

Can we as a nation afford it? Probably not but thats never stopped us before so why should it now. A better question may be, Can we afford not to?

"That being said, having some experience with Gov't programs and their inability to accurately forcast cost,(i.e. a trillion dollar surplus suddenly becomes a deficit), he may very well be right in his estimate of the cost."

Actually no. There is no reason to believe that he is more right than anybody else. But this is going to get complicated fast, so I'll break it down into some component parts.

First, there is a _big_ difference between being able to forecast the cost of a single government program and being able to forecast tax revenue. The cost of a program should be relatively predictable. But government revenue (producing either budget surplus or deficit) is a lot harder to predict because there are so many unknowns that cannot be known.

One problem with the paragraph reproduced here concerning costs is that Weinberg implies that these different figures are essentially different estimates for doing the same thing. But they're not. For instance, SEI was not costed out between $471 and $541 billion based upon the "method of calculation." They were different costs based upon different baseline assumptions. "Method of calculation" is a shorthand way of dismissing a very important point.

By lumping all of this stuff together, he implies that the cost of a lunar and Mars exploration program could be anywhere between $170 billion and $1 trillion and--here's the important point--nobody knows what it will be. But that is just fallacious reasoning because those figures do not encompass the same baseline assumptions. For instance, the first figure covers only 16 years, whereas the second figure actually covers 34 years.

A good analogy would be a teenager who wants to buy a car and assures his father that it will be cheap, only costing $400. But the father, who does not want the teenager to have the car, calculates the cost at $100,000 and therefore unaffordable. Of course the kid wants to buy a used Toyota and has not factored in the cost of gas, insurance, maintenance, etc. The father wants the kid to drive in a nice safe brand new Lexus and has calculated ten years of gas, insurance and maintenance.

Now nobody would use this kind of argument in the real world without all kinds of caveats. When the public discusses the "cost" of a car they usually start with the price of buying it, and then eventually get to the other costs. But they know that these are separate, but related issues. Critics of human space exploration, however, regularly make the kinds of arguments that they would not be allowed to get away with on other subjects. They would be laughed out of the room if they insisted that it is impossible for an ordinary family to afford a car for their teenager because all cars cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You also raised the issue of the inability of governments to predict the costs of big projects and this is a valid complaint. But it turns out that space is probably not much worse than a lot of other areas. One can easily point to a dozen non-space projects that cost substantially more than predicted. Look at the Big Dig in Boston, for instance and ask how come something as mundane as a highway project was impossible to estimate. (Sidenote: There was a similar case in Northern Virginia concerning the Springfield Interchange. But that appears to be a case not of the difficulty of projecting the costs, but the idiocy of the people doing the projections. State and local officials did a rotten job of estimating the cost of this road project in really stupid ways. For instance, even though the project was supposed to take seven years, they never factored in inflation for those seven years. And they assumed that certain local property--like a high school football field--could be acquired by the state without compensation. Had they used even basic accounting techniques, they should have been much more accurate in their prediction.)

FYI...

"It's frustrating that scientists and particularly physicists (like Weingberg..."

Incorrect name use...

"That being said, having some experience with Gov't programs and their inability to accurately forcast cost,(i.e. a trillion dollar surplus suddenly becomes a deficit), he may very well be right in his estimate of the cost."

Be careful... The so-called trillion dollar surplus was never real. The dotcom bubble grossly overinflated the stock market and therefore Federal income. A lot of folks knew that the whole thing was going to collapse pretty soon. The trillion dollar projection was just that, a projection, based on the fantasy that the good times would keep on rolling. Note that the reverse happened to Bush I... If it hadn't been for the S&L bailout, the elder Bush would've been running a surplus and wouldn't have had to go back on the whole "Read my lips" thing. (Which, btw, is what the Dems are trying to get W to do...)

There's an interesting side point about the S&L bailout that should be noted. The cost of the S&L bailout was almost exactly (at $0.5 TRILLION) that bandied about as the cost of the SEI, *and it was spent in less than three years, not 30*!! So, even IF (and it's a big if) the cost of W's proposal were to be nearly a trillion dollars, that's not that big a deal.

(Now, if we had, stranded on Mars, some rich crooks with key senators in their pocket, we'd get our $0.5 trillion in three years again...)

- Eric.

>> It is difficult to think of any direct
>> economic benefit that can be gained by putting
>> people into space.

> No, it's quite easy to think of some. It's just
> difficult for you to think of any, professor.
> Simply put, the direct economic benefit that
> can be gained by putting people into space is
> by fulfilling their desire to go

This is little more than an article of faith, though. I assume the good professor's definition of "direct economic benefit" is something that is so lucrative that the expected return on investment is more than good enough to justify the necessary R&D expenses. In the commercial world, we have satellite communications and not much else as far as space based applications are concerned.
---
If it were "quite easy to think of some" good justification for mass-market space tourism (=tens of thousands or even millions of people visiting LEO space stations), the Kankoh Maru or Spacebus would have been built years ago. I think the problem is the expected revenues seem relatively unattactive when compared against the colossal DDT&E expenses and risks. Legal problems do not exactly make things easier.
---
The prospects for suborbital space tourism appear somewhat brighter, but Weinberg & co. are right to be sceptical about orbital space tourism becoming an extremely lucrative commercial activity anytime soon.

MARCU$

> You are, however, correct in commenting about
> something I've complained about for years --
> physicists with particular political axes to
> grind (usually far-left) that abuse the cachet
> of 'physicist' to blather on about topics they
> have no background in.
[...]
> A Nobel Prize is no more a guarantee that
> someone actually knows what they're talking
> about (outside the field they won the prize in)

And, pray tell, how is this any different from what your average libertarian/conservative blogger is doing all the time?? A guy like Glenn Reynolds may provide valuable insights into his own field of expertise, but most of the time he is merely putting his own snide comments on stuff he knows relatively little about. You might argue that most bloggers do not highlight their professional credentials, but nor do they exactly offer humble caveats such as "now, I am merely a libertarian-leaning American physicists so I know comparatively little about the Middle East, but ..."
---
In any case, I would argue Park, van Allen and Weinberg have lots of credibility when discussing government financed human space exploration... You may not like their arguments, but it is difficult to refute their fundamental points regarding the Shuttle and Space Station in particular. Heck -- even proponents of commercial manned spaceflight generally do not try to defend these projects.

MARCU$

Here's some of what Van Allen says, from

http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2004-01-13-rise-robots_x.htm

--------
"Van Allen said ... he thinks the time has passed for the usefulness of manned space flight."

'"I think we need someone in a responsible political position to have the courage to say, 'Let's terminate human spaceflight.'"'
---------

I'd call that just a bit extreme. It is one thing to criticize the Shuttle program. It is another thing to call for the end of manned space flight. If someone says "If man was meant to fly, he would have wings!" I'm not going to give his arguments against flight a great deal of consideration.

I give very little weight to opinions based on supposed authority. I give a lot of weight to good arguments, backed by good evidence. Van Allen is absolutely focused on space science, and ignores that most people couldn't care less about it. He can't understand there are other reasons for going, and that there probably would be no space program without manned flight.