To Infinity, and Beyond!

by: Chris Bowers

Tue Jun 17, 2008 at 11:05

Read on. You know you want to.  

In January, I attended an internal NASA conference, held at agency headquarters, during which NASA's core goals were presented in a PowerPoint slideshow. Nothing was said about protecting Earth from space strikes-not even researching what sorts of spacecraft might be used in an approaching-rock emergency. Goals that were listed included "sustained human presence on the moon for national preeminence" and "extend the human presence across the solar system and beyond." Achieving national preeminence-isn't the United States pretty well-known already? As for extending our presence, a manned mission to Mars is at least decades away, and human travel to the outer planets is not seriously discussed by even the most zealous advocates of space exploration.

Easterbrook is absolutely right about all of this. The permanent Moon base, while superficially attractive in a very American pioneer sort of fashion, doesn't make any sense. Without even considering other projects NASA could pursue for a moment, the folly of permanent human settlement on either the Moon or Mars is better explained by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling in an article that received a lot of play four years ago. Long story short, Sterling points out that we haven't settled many inhospitable places on Earth yet, like the Gobi desert. However, no one ever argues for permanent settlement of the Gobi desert, even though it would be far easier, cheaper and more profitable. A permanent Moon base would be like Spain deciding, after circumnavigating the globe, that Antarctica was the best place to colonize.

Now, returning to other NASA priorities, a permanent moon base is indeed a potentially large drain on actually useful projects. We did out thing on the Moon forty years ago, and we have robots exploring Mars better than a human ever could. Now, it is time to move on to better projects. Here are three pretty obvious ones that need more funding:

1. Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR): This is a satellite, proposed by Al Gore, that will serve the twin functions of monitoring climate change and producing a continuous picture of Earth that will be broadcast for free, twenty-four / seven, on the Internet. Truly, this is an outstanding project, with the blessing of the national academy of the sciences, that will further the development of humanity and the notion of a single, global community.

2. Exoplanet telescopes: Our ability to search for planets outside of our own solar system ("exoplanets") is currently a boom sector of space exploration. While the first exoplanet was discovered only 16 years ago, now over 300 exoplanets have been identified. Currently, we have the technology that would, with proper funding and only twelve years of work, allow us to determine how many Earth-like planets there are within five thousand light years of our solar system. The three projects that can jointly answer this question are the Kepler mission (which has suffered budget cuts), the Terrestrial Planet Finder (which has been shelved), and the Space Interferometry Mission (which has been delayed more than ten years). For far less money than a moon base, we can figure out if there are other planets like Earth in nearby space, how many of them there are, and then take long, extended looks at each of them.

3. Near-Earth Asteroid Identification: Even though, every year, there is about a one in a thousand chance that the Earth will suffer a catastrophic (not necessarily life-ending, but still disastrous) asteroid collision, in the above quote article Easterbrook shows that NASA is not making asteroid identification a priority. Unlike Easterbrook, I don't think we need to start building the protection infrastructure right away, because once we identified the next dangerous object we would have years to prepare. However, the construction of the Pan-STARS telescope complex, plus an infrared, out-ward facing, asteroid monitoring telescope in solar orbit near Venus, would allow us identify any and all potential threats we might face. If a dangerous object was identified, we could then take the next step of building the infrastructure necessary to alter its course.

Collectively, these projects need another $2B or so in order to all be fully funded. While they lack the immediate, superficial glamour of a permanent Moon base, taken as a whole they would produce the most beautiful pictures of the Earth ever made (and make them publicly available), monitor climate change, identify and monitor all dangerous, near-Earth asteroids, and determine both the number and location of Earth-like planets in nearby space. The cumulative benefits they thus provide to science and the advancement of humanity are enormous--far in excess of their price tag. They would also provide a lot of "national pre-eminence" than a permanent Moon base.

Even if they aren't sexy enough for NASA, there are other, more long-term, and potentially useful projects that could substitute for a permanent Moon base. In particular, re-funding the breakthrough propulsion program and beginning work on a space elevator that could connect to a permanent, flourishing city in near-Earth orbit would do the trick.

First, the far-reaching impact of discovering a breakthrough propulsion would be incalculable. Not only would such a breakthrough allow us to travel to other solar systems, but it would also potentially lead to a permanently solution to the the energy crisis here on Earth. The price tag for fully funding, and expanding, this program would be only around $10M a year.

Second, a space elevator, constructed sometime in mid-century, somewhere in the continental United States west of the Mississippi, would provide the U.S. with a virtually permanent monopoly on space travel. A space elevator would make existing rocket technology obsolete, and vastly reduce the cost of traveling to outer space. Long-term, it would also allow the U.S. to construct a permanently inhabited city in geo-synchronous orbit about 200 miles above our country (UPDATE: OK, I was wrong about the distance). Given the extremely low costs of space travel that a space elevator would create, the city would even have sustainable industries including tourism, massive solar energy production, zero gravity ore processing, satellite upkeep, research, and even potentially a space dock for travel to the Moon or Mars. And it would only be accessible through the United States, providing more "national pre-eminence" than you could shake a stick at.

The lesson we all need to learn is that the space program is not simply flashy, government funded pork. It is an essential part of our national, and international, infrastructure:

But apart from reliable weather forecasts, perfect navigation, cheap worldwide phone services, search and rescue, environmental imaging, forest fire monitoring, arms reduction verification, sixty-channel television, discovering the origin of the Earth and Moon, and vastly increasing our knowledge of the solar system and the rest of the Universe, what has space travel ever done for us?

There are great things we can do with the space program to advance humanity and, if that is your thing, ensure American pre-eminence for many decades to come. While I have heard mixed signals from the Obama campaign on this front, the next President needs to start pushing NASA in that direction.

Also, if you enjoyed this post, next month at netroots nation, I will be discussing these and other issues on the Space Policy Panel.