On Friday, Russell Prechtl and George Whitesides respond to Steven Weinberg's dissing of spaceflight in pursuit of science.

To sum up: Space settlement for species preservation, spinoffs, human spirit and human nature.

What are these worth? Depending on how long before the extinction event it could be anywhere from all of Earth's discounted GDP to nearly nothing for species preservation assurance. If an extinction event is 1 in 26 million per year we can take our chances and still have an expectation of 99.99999% of our GDP next year. Spinoffs is weak. Human spirit is hard to quantify. How is ISS doing more for human spirit than Skylab or Mir? Human nature is more of a restatement of the human spirit argument that it is human nature to seek to raise the human spirit. But how? It's not enough when someone says "ISS is worthless" to say "but if we don't learn to live in space we'll die!" We can learn to live in space with or without the ISS; what's the difference?

I'm planning to take Steven Weinberg to lunch and see what he says to these arguments later this week. Let me know if there's anything else I should ask him.

Do you have a link to the Whitesides/Prechtl response?

http://www.space.com/adastra/070928_adastra_issrant_response.html

I linked the missing link. I apologize for the inconvenience.

There was one other piece of the argument which I think is important to note, which is: no one seems to be able to articulate clearly what everyday benefits we can expect from the latest research in theoretical or particle physics. Put another way, what will the man in the street get if physicists at Fermilab or CERN find proof of the Higgs Boson?

My point is raising this is not to suggest that those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones (so to speak). Rather, I'd prefer to phrase it as we did in the piece, which is to say -- we know that there will be fundamental utilitarian benefits from basic physics research, but we're not really sure what they are right now. Similarly, we know that it is in the best interests of the species -- at least long-term -- to pursue an ambitious space development program.

I would say that I'm more clear on what the long-term benefits of space development are versus the long-term benefits of the superconducting supercollider, but I don't have a physics Nobel. It would be interesting to pose this question -- explicitly on utilitarian grounds -- to Weinberg.

If Weinberg were honest, his answer would be "What does the human spirit have to do with the grant money?". Even during the golden years of the 50s and 60s when money was plentiful for physics research, physicists were the biggest whiners. I see that hasn't changed much. Solve the energy crisis or cure aging Steve, then you'll get your bucks.

As for the species preservation thing, the odds are a hundred years or so isn't going to make a substantial difference in terms of human survival from NEO impacts. In fact a greater danger may be a space faring version of the religious nut de jour guiding an asteroid as apocalyptic wish fulfillment. In which case perhaps we shouldn't be in such a big hurry.

As for the species preservation thing, the odds are a hundred years or so isn't going to make a substantial difference in terms of human survival from NEO impacts. In fact a greater danger may be a space faring version of the religious nut de jour guiding an asteroid as apocalyptic wish fulfillment. In which case perhaps we shouldn't be in such a big hurry.

I don't see why. It's not like the situation is likely to change. The religious nuts will still be here a century from now as will the asteroids.

I'd have to side with Weinberg here. He targets a particular project, the ISS, and a particular program, NASA's manned space program. I think his argument had a great deal of merit though I think he denigrates NASA's research in manned science a bit too much (for example, I feel the value of NASA's manned space program is about one to two orders of magnitude below what has been paid for it while Weinberg says NASA's manned space program has produced "nothing of scientific value.") In comparison, it's not clear to me that Prechtl and Whitesides actually disagree with Weinberg. I see some vague talk about the benefits of manned space travel: spinoffs and space effects on human physiology. That's pretty weak disagreement with Weinberg. They then finish up with references to "human spirit" and a dig at the defunction Superconducting Super Collider for which Weinberg showed strong support.

Instead, I'd be interested in Weinberg's opinions on how much space science needs to be done by a space science project, manned or unmanned, in order to be scientifically justified. I guess it boils down to two questions. How do you measure current scientific output and estimate future output (both in a way that is consistent across many disciplines)? And what is the threshhold estimated scientific output per dollar amount that makes a space science project adequate?

Let me work through an example so you might see what I'm talking about. Here's a list of the scientific experiments both large and small on the ISS for this "expedition" and prior ones (to the begining of habitation on the ISS). There's quite a collection (about 47 entries) for the current expedition: middle school education tie-ins; human physiology experiments and routine measurements of the astronauts and their environment; a few microgravity experiments; and the testing of equipment in an inhabited space environment. I gather that when the station is complete (in 2010-11), output (as measured in this extremely crude way) will go up considerably due to greater manpower and the presence of modules designed to harbor a host of experiments.

I figure that when the station is complete, we'll have 3-4 people effectively working on science experiments while we have somewhat more than half a person now. So a wild guess is that scientific output will quadruple, maybe more. I ignore issues of inflation, say where either a unit gets spread into multiple pieces (like the Colloidal Alloy Test) or rather mundane work (like archiving bodily fluid samples for future research) is included that isn't likely to result in near term scientific research. We know that defining what is credible scientific work can be very subjective and plastic (which is why I'd like Weinberg to define it instead of me :-), I get around that problem through the tried and true method of ignoring it.

So we might have 200-250 "units" (assume the higher estimate to make an easy to handle number) of scientific effort per six month "expedition" or 500 units of 6 month effort per year with a unit being crudely an "average" entry in the list of experiments for the current expedition. Operating costs (I'm ignoring the huge sunk costs) as of 2010 will be $1-1.5 billion (for the US's contribution, the rest of the ISS members contribute in total a lesser amount), so I gather. That means $2-3 million per science unit which seems rather high.

Please ask Weinberg about supporting the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an experiment that will explore energies far higher than any earthly accelerator. Thanks to our international pratners, AMS is fully funded and sitting in a clean room. It desperately needs transport to ISS before the Shuttle stops flying. Support of another Nobel winner would be very helpful.

There's really only one answer that works: We're not doing it for ourselves. We're doing it for generations to come who will live in vast nations beyond our planet. We're laying down the foundations on which they will build those extraterrestrial nations.