Transterrestrial Musings

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God forbid that worthless parasites such as Tad Daley or his ilk should become interested in space exploration. The frontier has traditionally been the one surefire last-resort way of getting away from people like him. Please don't take it away!

Hmmm....unless....there is some way to get Tad and his co-religionists interested in flying on a Golgafrincham Ark B. Boy, I'd certainly be willing to pay more taxes to see that spaceship lift off.

Posted by Carl Pham at August 13, 2007 02:21 PM

But why go to all the trouble to launch a now 55-year-old woman into the cosmos?

Because the "teacher in space" program is a commercial aimed at selling the government space program to one of the most powerful political groups in the country?

But if political progressives are about anything, we are about the idea that our lives are about something larger than ourselves. The idea that, as Michael Moore says in Sicko, we are not a "me society" but a "we society.

The "We" being, of course, those folks selflessly interested in improving their standard of living by voting other people's money into their own coffers. Moore knows this and has said as much. This can be characterised as progress only in the same sense that old age represents progress in the human body.

Frankly, I don't think this is going to appeal to the progressive set that much. They've already got Star Trek to watch, and with "children starving in Amerika" you don't want to blow your scarce resources on the military industrial complex.

Posted by K at August 13, 2007 02:23 PM

Oh boy. More government space programs, only this time "for the children." Not just Amerikan children either, but the brown ones too.

Posted by Brock at August 13, 2007 02:42 PM

The only expansion the "progressives" want is the one into our wallets.

I love the term Progressive. If liberals are now Progressive, does that make anyone NOT a progressive, is a Regressive?

Posted by Steve at August 13, 2007 02:48 PM

After reading the essay, I'm left wondering where the definition of "good" comes from. I was caught up short once reading C.S. Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet," where one of the Martian inhabitants completely fails to understand one of the human's ambition for the species to spread everywhere (and incidentally, in the case of this character) at the expense of species which were already where humans were spreading too.

I think space travel is a great adventure, and I think space is a great frontier. But thousands of planets with hundreds of billions of human beings? It might be "good" but where are we getting the definition of "good?" I like to think that good is more than just "as many of our species as we can produce."

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at August 13, 2007 03:32 PM

"Progressive" is a term coined at the end of the 19th century by the left wing. Probably it was meant to steal the thunder from their opposition, which touted its dedication to "progress," meaning increasing wealth and industrialization. The implication was that if you were in favor of "progress" (meaning more wealth), and who wasn't? then you should also be in favor of being "progressive" (meaning more government to "share" that wealth appropriately).

It was a phenomenally successful movement which completely changed the character of American Federal government, although the Civil War certainly laid the foundation for it. It was only stopped, to the extent it was, when the "neocons" of the day, people like T. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, in turn adopted some of its attitudes and measures as their own. George Bush, Jr., with his "compassionate conservatism," which would have made a true 19th-century conservative retch, is the modern heir of this tradition.

Posted by Carl Pham at August 13, 2007 03:43 PM

I'm not too bother by "progressives" (i.e. liberals by any other name) being interested in space exploration. I do have this fear that they will try to implement left wing policies that, for example, will make it real hard to mine the Moon or terraform Mars.

Posted by Mark R. Whittington at August 13, 2007 04:56 PM

Progressives.....what do they not oppose besides frolicking in the park, smoking spiced opium, picking crap out of their dreadlocks, and shopping for bumper stickers.

Posted by Josh Reiter at August 13, 2007 07:40 PM

Mr. Mauldin:

You may have a point. But consider:

Given that we haven't already been contacted and making best guesses at the probabilities, it is extremely likely that there are no civilisations near our level of technology anywhere in the galaxy. There has been ten billion years of time for the aliens to evolve, and we have only been around as a technological species for maybe 200 years.

IF we go out there and find aliens, there are two possibilities - that they are so far behind us as not to be sentient yet or that they are at least a million years ahead.

A million years ahead. That is five hundred times as long as separates us from the birth of Christ. And a million years is a low estimate. It may be a billion.

If we survive that long, what will the human species be then? Does anyone know? I certainly don't.

So; either we expand and find no-one to compete with, or we find those who, if they object to our expansion, could squash the entire human race like a bug. In either case, why worry? (Though I like to think that if we find pre-sentients we will leave them alone.)

And there is no proof that there is life anywhere else at all. This little mudball in an obscure corner of the galaxy may well be all there is. Is it not then our destiny, and our duty, to bring life and mind to a lifeless universe?

Posted by Fletcher Christian at August 14, 2007 12:57 AM

Maybe space exploration and colonization IS the answer to this political situation.

Planet A: The Fair, Inclusive and Benevolent Planet of Democraticus.

They can go there and "legislate" themselves for all I care.

Planet B: Freedom.

A simple set of rules will suffice. The original Constitution will work just fine.

Posted by Steve at August 14, 2007 06:24 AM

The political bottom line is that "expansion of humanity to the cosmos" will always translate into government engineering contracts. There are some quarrels about who exactly should get the money --- whether it should be Boeing or alt.space startups or some other group --- but no one wants the spending to completely stop. (No one in the space lobby, that is.) Thus, human spaceflight will always be politically center-right and preaching to any choir or non-choir is a waste of time. Progressives have never been very excited by big government contracts to the private sector, although they don't always mind. Purist libertarian types may recognize it as corporate welfare; but even libertarianism has always been three-fourths hypocrisy and Republican rhetoric if you go by the head count. ("You know, I'm not strictly libertarian on all issues", etc.)

As for actually colonizing the cosmos, instead of merely spending money in the name of that goal, yeah right. It's fashionable to pretend to believe in it, but few people are stupid enough to really believe. Even most progressives aren't that stupid.

Posted by at August 14, 2007 08:55 AM

Here's a good link from a Green (note the capital G) website advocating space colonization, for reasons that actually make sense to both Greens and James-Madison-liberals.

Preaching to the Non-Choir II:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007092.html

You'll note that there are no "progressive" arguments in the modern sense of the word. These are people whose help might be helpful.

Posted by Brock at August 14, 2007 08:57 AM

There are some quarrels about who exactly should get the money --- whether it should be Boeing or alt.space startups or some other group --- but no one wants the spending to completely stop. (No one in the space lobby, that is.)

Your facts do not correlate with reality.

Steve Forbes and Newt Gingrich, to name just two examples, have called for NASA spending to stop completely. At least, in the form you mean here.

Thus, human spaceflight will always be politically center-right and preaching to any choir or non-choir is a waste of time.

Nonsense. If "human spaceflight" means real human spaceflight -- low cost and widespread -- support is pretty much nonpartisan.

If you mean "human spaceflight" as nothing more than expensive bread and circus programs like Apollo with very few humans involved, then the biggest supporters have been the biggest champions of the liberal welfare state: Kennedy and Bush.

Just because someone calls himself a conservative doesn't mean he is one.

Purist libertarian types may recognize it as corporate welfare; but even libertarianism has always been three-fourths hypocrisy and Republican rhetoric if you go by the head count. ("You know, I'm not strictly libertarian on all issues", etc.)

If someone says he's not a libertarian on all issues, why is that "hypocrisy" (assuming he isn't a libertarian on all issues)? Is it now "hypocrisy" to tell the truth?

The real hypocrisy comes from those who call themselves compassionate "conservatives" but support government spending for socialism in space, health care, education, etc.

Posted by Edward Wright at August 14, 2007 11:59 AM

Here's a good link from a Green (note the capital G) website advocating space colonization, for reasons that actually make sense to both Greens and James-Madison-liberals.

On the other hand, the Discovery Science channel just ran a show about Helium-3 called "Mining the Moon."

One of the people they interviewed was Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who is now an environmentalist. He opposes any commercial development of the Moon until we've "learned to live within our means on our own planet."

That shows a weakness in the strategy of reaching out to the environmental movement (which the space community's been trying to do, without success, for 30 years).

As another datapoint, even after last year's summit at the X-Prize Cup, Al Gore has shown no interest in space. He's perfectly willing to have the X-Prize Foundation do green automobile prizes, etc. to support him but has done nothing for space people in return.

Posted by Edward Wright at August 14, 2007 12:20 PM

Because the "teacher in space" program is a commercial aimed at selling the government space program to one of the most powerful political groups in the country?

Hardly.

Perhaps you do not understand the difference between Teachers in Space and the Educator Astronaut program.

Posted by Edward Wright at August 14, 2007 01:05 PM

The ones replying to that article who want to wait until that mythical time when 'all problems on Earth have been solved,' before using any resources on human space flight (as if launching machines is really *that* different), I wonder what else they'd give up? How much of an 'impact' (environmental or otherwise) producing, say, a Harry Potter movie (or similar major film) involves?

If you won't let me go to the planets, why shouldn't I object if you cross the country to go to Disney World (or, if that's too commercial, a national park?) How many could allegedly be fed on that?

Posted by Frank Glover at August 14, 2007 02:43 PM

Steve Forbes and Newt Gingrich, to name just two examples, have called for NASA spending to stop completely. At least, in the form you mean here.

Unless they want no NASA spending on human spaceflight in any form, then it comes to the same thing. It will still be government engineering contracts.

If "human spaceflight" means real human spaceflight -- low cost and widespread -- support is pretty much nonpartisan.

Yeah, a nonpartisan wink and a nonpartisan yawn. It's nice to pretend that there will be low cost and widespread human spaceflight any time soon, but few people truly believe it. Moreover, belief in this correlates negatively with competence.

If someone says he's not a libertarian on all issues, why is that "hypocrisy" (assuming he isn't a libertarian on all issues)?

It's hypocritical to declare that taxation is theft for all goverment priorities other than your own.

Posted by at August 14, 2007 10:44 PM

Unless they want no NASA spending on human spaceflight in any form, then it comes to the same thing. It will still be government engineering contracts.

Calling for the abolition of NASA would seem to imply no spending on NASA on human spaceflight.

To quote the late Dr. Max Hunter (the father of the Delta rocket), "Anyone who believes that either doesn't understand the rocket equation or doesn't know how much rocket propellant costs."

It's hypocritical to declare that taxation is theft for all goverment priorities other than your own.

Who claimed that, oh anonymous troll?

Many people have said that taxation is theft, but if their money is going to be stolen, they would prefer to have it go to Washington than Moscow (or Beijing or Tehran). However, that's not quite the same thing.

But that has nothing to do with this Administration, which is about as "libertarian" as John F. Kennedy. To Bush and company, taxation isn't theft, it's "compassion." So, your strawman simply falls down.

Posted by Edward Wright at August 15, 2007 03:42 AM

To Bush and company, taxation isn't theft, it's "compassion."

Actually, their position is that taxation is theft, but spending is compassion.

Calling for the abolition of NASA would seem to imply no spending on NASA on human spaceflight.

Gingrich has a lot more freedom to make politically unworkable suggestions now that he is out of office. He didn't remotely try to abolish NASA when he had power. He says, "I am for a dramatic increase in our efforts to reach out into space, but I am for doing virtually all of it outside of NASA through prizes and tax incentives." If Gingrich ever came back, the main two words that he would stick to are "dramatic increase" --- and the actual policy would be to keep NASA about the same.

As for Steve Forbes, the only thing that he really wants is to restrict taxes to earned income. That's because all of his income is from investments. So, see, that's a good example of a sometime libertarian. He's 100% libertarian when it comes to his own taxes; he'll compromise on yours and mine.

Posted by at August 15, 2007 07:26 AM

He didn't remotely try to abolish NASA when he had power.

Only someone politically naive in the extreme could have written such nonsense. The Speaker of the House is not omnipotent. Particularly when the president is of the other party. Attempting to abolish NASA would have been a foolish waste of his time, when there were more important, achievable goals to accomplish.

He's 100% libertarian when it comes to his own taxes; he'll compromise on yours and mine.

Ignoring the rest of your anonymous illogic, I'm pretty sure that Steve Forbes has never claimed to be a libertarian.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 15, 2007 07:38 AM

It takes all kinds to make a world go 'round.

Let us be practical about this; If you don't have the Left side of the aisle at the very least sympathetic then they can tie down any free enterprise - or even NASA - space efforts in a morass of legislation, rules, regulations and folderal.

It's a big world and a big solar system. There is room for everybody in it, regardless of political affiliation.

Posted by Brian at August 15, 2007 03:13 PM

>He didn't remotely try to abolish NASA when he had power.

Only someone politically naive in the extreme could have written such nonsense. The Speaker of the House is not omnipotent. Particularly when the president is of the other party.

Even so, there was a behind-the-scenes effort that would have effectively abolished NASA, replacing it with a cabinet-level Department of Science. That effort never went anywhere, for reasons that are well known to some of us.

Posted by Edward Wright at August 15, 2007 03:54 PM

It's a big world and a big solar system. There is room for everybody in it, regardless of political affiliation.

That's kind of what I had in mind when I made this entry in my Space Settlement FAQ:
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/spacsetl.htm#government_economic_system
"What kind of government/economic system would be needed in a space habitat?"

Posted by Mike Combs at August 16, 2007 06:02 AM

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