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Leave Outer Space to the Millionaires
tcd004 writes "Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal has an interesting article in Foreign Policy arguing that the future of manned space travel should be left to wealthy adventurers. He points to the fact that modern state-funded space disasters become national traumas, and argues that that gung-ho millionaires are more free to take risks because they 'don't represent a nation; [they] represent humanity.'"
That's a bit counterproductive - if the only people who're going to be travelling into space are wealthy millionaires, we'd be much slower in space-travel development than we are at current. Not that it's all that important, but.
Millionaires represent humanity?
They also represent a tiny slice of the pie - hardly all of humanity in the eyes of many of the underprivileged. At least being represented by one's country allows some degree of personal fulfillment... watching someone of higher privilege do the same by virtue of their privilege alienates; watching someone who has been trained with your tax dollars, in equipment which your economic output has contributed to in some way, someone who represents what you feel you represent, that inspires and awes.
They don't represent humanity, they represent themselves.
:)
If they represented humanity, then where's my money?
Isn't this exactly what so many slashdot readers have been suggesting for years? Private funding and competition almost invariable leads to faster, greater results that can be achieved by the government. Sounds like a great plan to me!!
---- Move SIG...For great justice!
Yes, I agree that it is a great motivator for innovation, but sometimes it seems it doens't always lead innovation in the right direction. It's great from the consumer standpoint, because that's who they're trying to please.. but when you start to look at humanity as a whole, it seems the profit motivation leads to things which are counter-productive.... Just my 2 cents, anyways.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I do at the least believe contests like the X-Prize are the real future of aeronautics. They allot a prize, and say 'Make something that does 'X'', and many groups from incredibly different backgrounds and ideals come up with technology that could and will do the job.
I saw today some of NASA's plans for life beyond the Shuttle. In particular, their 'Space Plane', which looks, feels, and does the exact same thing the Shuttle does. Their 'next craft' may well have a mission 'well beyond Earth's orbit'.
Whoopie doo! What will that be, 2030? It makes me sick that NASA is willing to mortgage the future of space for 30 years because they're not daring enough to do something big right now. I'll be 65 in 2030. People don't live that long.
People die in space.
Craft are lost in space.
Space is a dangerous place.
If the most NASA believes space is good for is interesting ways to battle cancer using technology from the ISS, we do not have a real leader behind us in the space race.
Did I say 'space race'? There still is one, you know. Sooner or later, the Chinese will shoot a capsule to the moon, because they have a real interest in going there - and then America will sit back and suddenly realize that they have NOTHING that can do what the Chinese had just done. We'd have to create the Apollo program from scratch. SCRATCH.
The article makes a good point, that individuals can take more risk than a government institution. Government institutions value job security and predictability fostered by high budgets...not pure results. This is why the conclusions of the shuttle inquiry thus far have said 'That was bad. Well, back to the shuttles!' without real consideration of alternatives.
I wave my flag to the X-Prize and prizes like it that will come after. A random person will, someday soon, reinvent the Mercury program with a small group of people that NO government actually sanctions, and it is only then that it will be realized where the real advancements are being made.
The rich and famous of a society that explore, take chances, and are inexplicably daring are often idolized by the poor and less fortunate. Look at Lindbergh. There are loads of examples.
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
Space exploration will develop along the same lines that exploration grew in the past. The technical challenges are new but the social challenges are tried and true.
Nations will send out explorers for God, Glory and Gold (or the modern version- you come up with some nifty alliteration).
Corporations will drive exploration as the profit is seen.
Individuals will push into space as they are able because we are wired that way. Of course right now and for a while that is going to be limited to those with the resources at hand to make the trips possible.
This is not new- it has been going on for quite a while and I am obviously not the first to notice this.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Why is this presented as either sending publically funded astronauts OR sending privately funded millionaires. Let them both go. Just as the individuals can compete, the two development models can compete.
Monsanto's terminator gene.
Poorly designed, high-profit-margin SUVs.
Pollution (since being responsible with industrial waste costs money).
And, of course, Microsoft's monopoly. Or any monopoly.
That's just four off the top of my head.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It seems to me that as soon as we leave space to the wealthy adventurers, the discoveries made from such exploration are put in the position of becoming private property. The wealthy will claim the newly discovered planets, asteroids, mineral deposits, alien technology, etc. as their own. Idealls what we would do is establish an international cooperative effort(contributions not neccisarily monitary) to continue space exploration and all members of the society take one giant chill pill so that they can relize that there are bound to be dangerous in exploring a new frontier, but the explorers accept these risks and would never wish for the exploration to stop because of their loss of life.
I'd like to see some examples of innovations for profit being counter-productive for humanity...
DRM.
The Ford Pinto.
Any weapons research whatsoever (by a contractor, to satisfy the "for profit" condition).
Religion (and if you don't consider this either an "innovation" or "for profit", I have a bridge to sell you).
Lawyers.
Need I go on?
Remember, space is a total vacuum that allows for ultra-pure manufacturing not available on Earth. It also allows for almost unlimited power (Solar collectors), space (add modules as needed), and mineral potential (asteroid belt) for the company willing to exploit it. The current problem is not a conundrum best left to wealthy adventurers because our current obstacle is getting to space, not developing it. As soon as a means becomes available to get to lower Earth orbit for inexpensive sums, space will commercially develop at a break-neck pace, likely in a Wild West fashion.
For some unknown reason, many of us here in the US seem to think that if casualties are possible, it should not be done. This applies to warfare (Look at the furor over the ~100 killed in the recent Iraq skirmish), supersonic aircraft travel (Concorde; didn't stop flying until its one accident in 20 years), space travel (Columbia et. al). Letting a plutocratic clique explore and stake claims to space and the solar system prevents everyone else from getting a chance. If the success of the internet were translated to space, the international community would be very leery of one or even a handful of corporation controlling 95% of all space business.
Do we really want to see a potential case of three or four corporations (via wealthy individuals) dominating space? Would they then be allowed to restrict who travels into space and who remains on earth? It is unacceptable to allow a few individuals to set the pace for space exploration exploitation. Instead, I'd rather see either nationally-funded exploration of space or extraordinary tax breaks for companies great and small dedicated to getting into space. Space elevators are the key to getting up there IMO, so I figure chemical companies dedicated to polymers and their manufacture of such an elevator should be first in line. Combine a profit mechanism with the federally-subsidized R&D and allow the two to combine forces as a driving vehicle of space exploitation. A highly competitive commercial situation for getting to and exploiting space would also drive technology faster than a monopolized or oligopolized situation (look at operating systems). Just my 2c...
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Any "wealthy adventurer" will be in space representing him/herself, not humanity.
Besides this, space travel is too expensive for individuals to undertake on their own - barring the Bill Gatesian megarich types. Similar historical endeavors that rich adventurers embarked on were nowhere near as expensive as space travel is today, even relative to the technologies and economies in their days. The current NASA budget (around $15B yearly) is enough only to launch a couple of probes and a few shuttles every year, and maintain the current meager rate of development of new flight technologies. Well-known pilots of the 20's had to hire small teams to design and build their plane, but not an entire aerospace corporation or two like you for any successful spacecraft built so far. No one tycoon is going to want to expend so many resources on one task (no matter how cool).
I tend to see the development of space travel as being more like that of seagoing travel in the West. Early on, trading centered around Europe, especially the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, and didn't really spread much. Who could forget Columbus' famous trip to "India," paid for by the Spanish gov't of the time? It took a while before permanent settlements and serious commercial operations got set up across the Atlantic, which unlike (nearby) space least leads to places with a breathable atmosphere. So... it may be a while before we have a serious extraterrestrial presence, is there really a rush? (Besides the small but ever-present possibility of asteroid impact, that is...)
They represent the 0.000001% of humanity who care to fritter away obscene amounts of money on vanity projects, rather than, say, feeding the starving.
I feel obligated to point out that people starving is usually not a matter of money, but a matter of politics. Take Zimbabwe, for instance, where the US now sends half a million tons of food aid, when the country used to be a net food exporter. Why? Because President Mugabe seized the most productive farms in the country because they were owned by whites. And now those farms lie fallow and the people starve.
Political causes are at the root of famines in Ethiopia, China's "Great Leap Forward" (The worst famine in recorded history), and even the Great Irish Potato famine, where there was actually enough food even after the potato crop failed, but the other crops were taken to port under military guard and exported to other countries.
Throwing more money at the famine problem is not likely to solve it, despite what Sally Struthers et. al. would like to have you think.
Since when has any gung-ho millionaire ever represented humanity? Millionaires don't become millionaires that way. It requires seeking profitable returns in everything and looking beyond the effect on the humans involved in achieving those profits. Who cares if there are layoffs as long as the owner's bank account has grown?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
This story is disturbing on so many levels.
The first is spending wealth and resources on an endeavour with no contribution to mankind other than giving us the satisfaction that yet another person has been in space. Wealth does not correlate strongly with the skills necessary to perform meaningful science in space.
Even more disturbing is, that the separation between the rich and poor in our society is so great that individuals are on the threshold of being able to afford space flight, while at the same time the real hourly wage of the average American worker fell 14% since 1973. The richest Americans are now able to do for leisure, what once only an entire nation could afford!
(Here's hoping that my moderator is not a billionaire who dreams of space flight).
Michael.
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