Global Space Agencies Gather For Collaboration

UltimaGuy handed us a link to a story on the Register site, covering NASA's plan to create a collaborative space effort across the globe. Agencies from 'Italy, Japan, China, Britain, France, America, India, Korea, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, Germany, Australia and the ESA' got together for the first time since the formation of the Global Explorations Strategy team last year. "This year, they met in Kyoto to discuss a draft Framework for Collaboration, which will set out how the various agencies will work together. The team has agreed that its main focus should be robotic exploration of the solar system, particularly of the moon, Mars and the near-Earth asteroids. It has also proposed a non-binding collaboration mechanism which would allow all agencies to share their plans, and look for opportunities to work together. This would also provide a route for agencies to share the data from their own missions with scientists from other agencies."

Comments

Wrong Focus!

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be collaborating to make a Mars colony instead so we can get our eggs out of one basket. Plus, since it's an international effort, the goal should be the colony is an independant nation from the start and not a territory. Might as well make the relationship good from the beginning.

Good, but hopefully egos can be left at home

[gbulmash]

My first thought when I read about this was the process of draftine IEEE standards for things like 802.11n. Delay after delay occurs, and according to some of the press on the matter, a lot of it is just due to infighting, each member of the committee trying to prevent another member from gaining any advantage... i.e. Company 1 has been developing a technology and proposes to add it to the standard, but it gets blocked because Companies 2-20 think that adding it will make it possible for Company 1 to bring out their 802.11n products faster because of their head start on manufacturing processes for the technology. And thus a standard that should have been completed years ago and brought new technology to consumers remains in committee as petty infighting causes countless delays.

As much as international cooperation can help prevent re-inventing the wheel in space projects, will scientific or jingoistic jealousies over who controls what aspects of a project cause delays as the parties negotiate compromises that have nothing to do with science, and everything to do with ego? Are we going to see a really cool project stall halfway to the launch pad because one of the countries got peeved, took their ball, and went home?

I'm all for international cooperation. I'm just afraid that most of the parties involved won't be very cooperative.

- Greg

Re:Good, but hopefully egos can be left at home

[thrawn_aj]

All good points, but it is rather irrelevant whether egos will clash or if this will work. The plain fact of the matter is that the resources of any one country can only take you so far where space is concerned. Already, (to give you an example), the American public is being roused against space exploration through the (I must reluctantly say - very good) argument that it costs too much. I say it is a good argument because no administration has tried to create a coherent plan that will span more than 5 years. You just can't pour money into this thing through quangoes and then just forget about it. If there is no lucid vision about "what next?", then it becomes pure grandstanding to say something like, "we'll put a man on mars". I know some people I'd like to put on Mars :P.

It is not a question of WHO will explore the solar system but whether our civilization can mature to the point where global resources can be managed by a central planning intitution that can effectively and non-redundantly take us into space, one step at a time. It is ludicrous that the old Sputnik crap can still persist in today's atmosphere. That sort of naive version of capitalism died with Heinlein's dreams of a merchant prince spacefaring economy. It's just plain hokum and fit only for the pages of a vibrant yet outmoded style of science fiction. Another important reason we need this collaboration to succeed and build upon itself is that the political problems are massive and every major power that has the ability to seriously undercut someone else's space efforts MUST be wooed into this collaboration. Look at it this way - if they have a stake in what goes up there, they won't be actively opposing it. Nuclear power will be essential for any serious foray into space. As such, the childish treaties that exist today to prevent weapons proliferation into space MUST be rewritten to recognize that fact. Trying to accomplish major space engineering projects based solely on chemical rockets is simply shooting yourself in the foot.

In conclusion, whether this may work or not, remember that NOTHING says that we WILL succeed in going into space in a serious way. Either it will happen or it won't and the outcome is NOT preordained as some rather mystical futurians seem to believe. This "Morpheus mentality" is self-destructive and must cease. If a large fraction of the world's richer governments (rich in terms of physical or labor or intellectual resources) do NOT get together for this purpose, this WILL be a heroic but short-lived dream.

Good

[w_lighter]

Well... IT'S ABOUT TIME... Humantity devide has alto kick start the space race has only hindered the exploration of space in reason years. Instead resources is spend on killing each other and wut not. At least hopefully this will be a much better global effort than simply building a space station.

Screw collaboration...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Screw collaboration: I'm all for the return of a space race: China vs. Europe vs. USA. Round 2 - FIGHT!

Proposal: International Science Trust

[Baldrson]

Although I proposed something similar back in 1989 for the national level (Google Groups won't return the relevant Usenet post for it by the way), I may as well re-propose it for the international arena before another huge failed bureaucracy starts doing nothing for huge amounts of money:

The International Science Trust

For the enhancement of scientific knowlege and the required development of advanced technology, A International Science Trust shall be established, with funding authorized by participating governments, for the purchase of information about the natural world from Eligible Parties (private entities owned and controlled by other such entities in the participating countries or their unified free- trade partners). No less than 2/3 of the components and services used by the Eligible Parties to acquire this information must be obtained from other Eligible Parties.

The International Academy of Sciences shall identify areas of scientific interest in which the quality of research results are quantifiable -- primarily in terms of information content. Examples of these kinds of research results are: DNA sequencing (human genome project), digital imaging of various phenomena (astronomical, planetary, terrestrial ozone-layer monitoring), quantitative behavior of systems in microgravity, quantitative mineral assay of various sites (terrestrial and nonterrestrial), etc.

A dollar amount, to be established in conjunction with participating governments, shall be associated with each informative item and with varying degrees of accuracy of the information. That dollar amount will then be appropriated to The Trust to be paid out only in the event that an Eligible Party has delivered new information on the associated item of interest to a designated recipient. When a measurement has already been made, payout will be limited to information value corresponding to the increased confidence level of the measurement (e.g. additional significant bits or fractions thereof). In areas where an information flow is required (periodic sampling) the value of various sampling frequencies at the various degrees of accuracy (significant bits) will be included in the valuation of the measurement. Duplicate information flows will share the cash flow evenly. For superior information flows, the incremental increase in accuracy will enjoy less diluted access to funding flows allocated to those incremental increases in accuracy.

Income on The Trust will be used to adjust The Trust for inflation. Additional income from The Trust may be used to fund items within The Trust. In the event that an item is measured by a Party which is not an Eligible Party, and that information is available to the designated recipient -- the corresponding funding will be redistributed within The Trust. After-inflation losses will be redistributed within The Trust, deactivating items which are not currently being pursued by any Eligible Party.

Not a big deal, really

[WindBourne]

Overall, NASA collaborates with nearly all of the before mentioned space agencies, save one (china). In general, most of these collaborate with each other as well. Well, to be fair, India is just really getting going.

What I find interesting is the countries that were not included. In particular, Brazil. Brazil is much closer to launching a man into space than is South Korea. I would also think that South Africa and Israel should be in there as well.

Export Control

[tomz16]

Funny... most the NASA stuff that I have ever seen (even the most trivial) has ITAR (think Export Controlled) status by default. That means NO collaboration with foreign members of my own research group, much less other countries.

-Tom

Re:Red Tape...

[harves]

Yes, I understand the principle: harness man's natural inclination to compete. But if there's no clear rivalry between the groups, or no other means to incite them to try harder, then they should cooperate. You cannot artificially force people to compete if there is no advantage to them to win.

The X-Prize worked well because individuals had a shot at glory (and the money). Each company knew they would get significant publicity by winning. Same with exploration of the Americas and the like; there was glory and riches. But do you really think that, nowadays, NASA cares about beating the Europeans or the Russians to the moon, or to Mars?

They want the information, but I don't think anyone in the world cares who has the biggest "rocket" to send the largest "payload" anymore. Rivalry doesn't drive these organisations anymore, because the politicians and the public aren't interested.

Re:14 agencies

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as robotic exploration, NASA certainly is the center of the universe. Agencies like the ESA or JAXA couldn't compete with a single one of NASAs centers that specializes in space probes (as compared to the whole of NASA itself which has launched ~90% of the world's interplanetary probes since the Soviet Union collapsed). NASA probably has a budget larger than all other space programs combined, so it is a little silly giving the rest of those agencies equal time and prestige.

This multiagency cooperation has more to do with building better political ties than it has to do with saving money or increasing technological progress. The reason the rest of the world hasn't invested the same amount of money that NASA does is that they are so far behind it will be really difficult to accomplish a space 'first.' The only major 'firsts' that remain are in the outer solar system which requires extreme engineering and RTGs (which many countries do not have the infrastructure to make). If they want to do a boring second, they can do like the ESA which will be launching its first rover to Mars in ~2014 (about the size of one of the MERs). Or an orbiter of Venus. Not particularly exciting since they don't have the billion dollars to spend to leapfrog the half ton Mars Science Laboratory rover that NASA is sending up in 2009. They are too late to reach Pluto first. And they are too late to put an orbiter around any of the gas giants except Uranus (if the Neptune Orbiter maintains its schedule).

If the rest of the world wants to make a significant first, I recommend that they build a JIMO like mission using ion propulsion powered by a nuclear reactor (costing ~$3 billion). Or send an orbiter to Uranus (costing ~$1.5 billion and taking 20 years). Or send a lander to Mercury (probably the easiest). Anything else will just be following NASA (including any significant Moon mission if NASA's plans hold). And if they wait 10 years or so, then NASA will probably have already accomplished all of these or have implemented a plan for its accomplishment. The clock is ticking and there isn't much time for the rest of the planet to accomplish an interplanetary 'first.' It appears that it is just going to be NASA across the board (with the exception of Venus which is owned by the USSR).

And now with added line breaks!

[patio11]

*grumble grumble* I hate HTML coding.

>>They should be collaborating to make a Mars colony instead so we can get our eggs out of one basket. >>

This is a sci-fi pipe dream. Lets say our one basket breaks -- humanity is "#$"#ed, period. A colony of 20,000 people or even a million (and where is the capacity to shuttle them to Mars, I wonder? As a species we can put, what, 25 to 50 bodies in space at any given time at the moment? It would bankrupt the world to get sufficient craft capacity to get a million into space at anything like the current rates) will die out pretty quickly after the connection to earth is severed. Heck, no nations on earth are self-sustainable anymore, and we don't have the constraint of living in an environment which is lethal to us by default.

What happens to the colony's power supply needs after their connection with Earth goes down? What are they using, nukes? Great plan -- do we know if there is any uranium on Mars? Nope? Oh, well, that could be a slight problem then if the yearly uranium shipment gets interrupted. Maybe there is uranium, great, all we need to do is dig it up. And process it. That just requires a huge mass of heavy machinery and some chemists, no problem, just 1900s technology after all.

Ah, but those heavy machinery needed to be created in factories, which require big inputs of metals, plastics, and fossil fuels. Oh, no fossil fuels on Mars... shootskie. Well, we'll make them out of Unobtanium that the UN can research if we only fund their Mars colony basic research. OK, so we've got Unobtanium steamshovels and are trying to mine pitchblende. Now we've got to get it back from the mine to wherever we've got our processing center.

Oh, problem, Mars isn't crisscrossed with ocean shipping lines, highways, and airports. Well, no problem, we'll build trucks out of Unobtanium and power them with fossil fuels... aww, shoot. OK, ethanol Unobtanium trucks. Aww, shoot, there is no Kansas on Mars. No Kansas means no freaking fields of corn husks which we can afford to turn into ethanol to fatten influential Congresscritters pockets and fill up our Unobtanium trucks.

OK, we'll use hydrogen powered Unobtanium trucks -- I'm sure the UN can figure out how to lick the hydrogen problem despite the fact that its been 10 years away for the last 30 here on earth. So we've got our hydrogen powered Unobtanium trucks, which we can fill up by just combining some of that power we've got with cheap, abundant, liquid water.

Oh wait, liquid water is neither cheap or abundant on Mars. Heh, my mistake. Well, they've got polar ice. So all we need to do is to have an ice mining center at the polar ice caps, to melt the ice, to use it to power our unobtanium trucks, to transport the uranium, mined using unobtanium steam shovels, to power the colony. That only involves a couple hundred thousand workers employed in an intricately complex dance of related industries to provide power. Now, the next problem: what are our workers going to do to prevent tooth decay? Brush and floss regularly, no problem. Well, small problem: there are no tooth brushes on Mars. But hey, how hard can it be to make a toothbrush...

(For further ruminations of this nature, see "I, Pencil", which is a pro-capitalism attack on command economies. The thesis is that even the simplest of tasks, like producing a common pencil, requires too many inputs for one person to comprehend much less command. You can find a copy here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/760868/post s . I chose the toothbrush above because Soviet Russia once had none of them for a year because the bureacracy in charge of making consumer goods forgot to make them, and without a market to correct the deficiency everyone just had to do without.)