NASA Boss Says Mars Colonization Will Be Corporate Only

99luftballon writes "The head of NASA Ames Research Center has said that he expects any colonization of Mars, the Moon or asteroids to be done by private companies rather than by NASA. There's some interesting parallels with the East India Company, although that was hardly a triumph of capitalism. From the article: 'Dr. Simon Worden, director at NASA Ames Research Center, told The Register that the agency was firmly enmeshing itself with the private sector, citing cooperation on the Dragon capsule being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX team as a good example. NASA developed a heat shield material called PICA (Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator), capable of withstanding 1850 degrees Celsius (3360 degrees Fahrenheit), and gave it to SpaceX, who manufactured it.' The article also mentions Google's head of space projects, who has 'Intergalactic Federation King Almighty and Commander of the Universe' on her business cards."

Comments

Kim Stanley Robinson

[a_ghostwheel]

Well - we already even have a business plan.

China

[BasilBrush]

Colonization of Mars will be done by China. What's it got to do with NASA?

Re:China

[99luftballon]

We'll never solve population pressure with space travel, it costs too much to get into orbit. But I'd bet the Chinese are considering mining operations off planet.

Re:China

[Dutchmaan]

Well it's not called the Red Planet for nothing...

Re:China

[WindBourne]

That is not certain. If NASA is allowed to get private space going, then it is a certainty that by 2020, that NASA via private space will be on the moon. And likewise, within 5 years later, private space will go to Mars. Why? Profits. By building multiple private space stations in orbit, multiple nations will want to use them. From there, if companies like SpaceX, ULA, Bigelow will want to get to the moon. Why again? Profits. They KNOW that nations will pay much more to go to the moon and explore. So will other companies. The ability to mine for water and send it back to the ISS and private space stations much cheaper than from earth would be a big deal. Likewise, the ability to mine Uranium, breed it, and then fuel rocket engines with it to go to Mars will be a strong demand.

America DOES have a problem. We have to get past politicians like Hatch, Coffman, Hutchinson, Shelby, Wolfe, Nelson, etc., but I know that even Coffman is already being called on his destructive actions against NASA. The others will be looked at as well.

Re:China

[Sir_Sri]

I wouldn't bet on that. They have their own problems to solve with the money. Colonization takes a lot of money. By the time this starts being a real issue they will have a shrinking or flat population and that has a whole wack of social problems.

And it's not like a statement like this from NASA means anything. By 2016/2017 there will definitely be a new policy for NASA, with new governments with new priorities, and they could completely change their minds in any number of directions. They could decide it will be the US colonizing mars, it could be the Europeans deciding this is how they'll get the greeks out of the Euro once and for all, who knows. At best this is a cue to the private companies that for the moment NASA isn't going to stand in the way. But times change.

Re:China

[Teancum]

As much as this is suggested, I highly doubt it... at least not without somebody else going there first and developing the technologies independent of China.

While I will admit that China may be a major player in the future of spaceflight, their culture is one that does not encourage technological innovation, and their governmental system is also one that does not encourage innovation other than trying to figure out how to make stuff cheaper by cutting quality.

I am also not really impressed with the progress that they are making in terms of spaceflight. They are doing stuff, but it is very slow (especially compared to what the good old USSR did back in the 1950's and 1960's.... and don't even get me started with a comparison to NASA in the 1950's and 1960's) and their operational tempo is absolutely pathetic. By operational tempo, they are setting themselves up to a whole bunch of problems in the future because their ground crews and engineers simply aren't gaining any experience in actually putting people into space. It has been a couple of years since the last manned spaceflight by China, and people do forget how to do simple things if you don't practice those skills. For example, would you trust an aircraft mechanic who only repaired an engine once every 3-5 years? Why would you trust a rocket engine built by a team of technicians who only built one set of engines every 3-5 years?

On top of that, the operational tempo they have right now isn't even sufficient for maintaining a LEO space station, much less trying to establish any sort of outpost/base somewhere beyond LEO. They simply don't have the personnel who are trained with the experience necessary to get much done in space. Both Roscosmos and NASA have those people, and a number of private companies in both Russia and America have veterans of those programs to get private astronaut corps of their own going. This could change, but it would take a substantial increase in the Chinese space budget and a real commitment on the part of the Chinese government to really get stuff done in space. The European Union (either through the ESA or some other similar organization) might also get into the game, and to me they are the one other potential rival in terms of getting a substantial manned presence in space. The Europeans have the technology and the wealth necessary to pull it off, what they lack is the political will to accomplish much.

Re:China

[Teancum]

There was a plan put forward a number of years ago to try and have a manned Soviet presence on Mars by 2017 (and the centennial of the October Revolution as a general goal). That would have been an amazing project if it had ever been pulled off so far as a really impressive and fitting accomplishment in terms of propaganda and publicity that certainly would have fit the old Soviet bureaucratic mentality. Unfortunately such plans ended with not just the death of Sergei Korolev, but also with the general collapse of the USSR, not to mention how the N1 rocket was shelved and officially disavowed that could have developed the technology necessary to pull off such an endeavor.

I certainly don't see anything that the Chinese are doing which could pull off anything close to that.

Re:China

[Teancum]

That is not certain. If NASA is allowed to get private space going, then it is a certainty that by 2020, that NASA via private space will be on the moon. And likewise, within 5 years later, private space will go to Mars.

NASA doesn't need to "get private space going". What NASA needs to do is get out of the way and let the FAA Office of Commercial Spaceflight set the standards and do its job, and for NASA to assume more of a role like the NACA did back in the early part of the 20th Century towards aviation... but applied toward spaceflight too. If there is money to be made in space, the U.S. Federal government also needs to quit doing stuff like ITAR that deliberately undermines private space initiatives.

If the U.S. Federal government wanted to so something really impressive in terms of encouraging private spaceflight, Congress would pass legislation that would allow all companies and private individuals for the next 50 years to be able to avoid paying any federal taxes for any activities that primarily are conducted in space. Make it long enough for whatever laws get into place to be predictable and for some serious long-term planning to take place. It wouldn't be a huge loss for the U.S. government at the moment, because the amount of commercial activity in space is nearly zero, or at least so small that the loss of revenue wouldn't even be missed in terms of balancing the federal budget. That would also cut out that list of senators who are in effect damaging the American spaceflight efforts as their pork barrel projects really wouldn't matter and be seen as the irrelevant projects that they are.

Re:China

[Rogerborg]

who else but the Chinese? If the Chinese don't do it then no one will.

The Muslim Ummah taken as a whole is perfectly capable of it. Middle East money, Iranian, Pakistani and Malaysian technology, badda boom, badda bing, Mosques on Mars.

Re:China

[mbone]

Sergei Korolev died in 1966, and the N1 was finally canceled in 1976. So, by "a number of years ago" you mean "decades ago." If the Soviets could plan in (say) 1970 to land on Mars 47 years later, I don't see why the Chinese couldn't plan now to land on Mars in (say) 2049, which would be the Centennial of their revolution. And, if they pursue this goal, I think they could, in that time frame, pull it off.

 

Re:China

[cobbaut]

They are doing stuff, but it is very slow (especially compared to what the good old USSR did back in the 1950's and 1960's.... and don't even get me started with a comparison to NASA in the 1950's and 1960's) and their operational tempo is absolutely pathetic.

Sorry to burst the bubble, but it took Americans a couple of decades before they mastered fully automated docking. The Chinese accomplished this on their very first attempt.

Their progress seems to go very slow, but underneath it is an admirable long term plan (5 years plans that fit into ten year plans, that fit themselves into longer term plans!). I guess that's the advantage of having a dictatorship. They are not that far behind on what they announced back in 1999 (manned flight in 2002 (done in 2003), moon probe in 2007 (done in 2007), space station and docking around 2010 (done in 2011)...).
This summer they will man their first space station, twice. Next year Tiangong 2 will go up, by 2015 they will have 20 ton modules (tiangong 3) and improved launch power (CZ5).
Next year also the Chinese will land a rover on the Moon: first rover on the Moon since the Soviets in 1976, but more importantly it will be the only rover on the Moon.

Their Shenzhou spacecraft program might resemble the American Mercury or Gemini, but it includes all Apollo features as well. By 2020 they will have landed on the Moon, to stay a bit longer than a couple of days!

Re:China

[Oswald McWeany]

We won't see a space elevator in our lifetime. We certainly won't see sky hooks- not on earth.

I expect to see man on Mars in my lifetime- and I believe it will be a permenant station. I don't think we will go UNTIL we can sustain a base there- a trip and back doesn't make sense.

I don't expect we will see mass migration to Mars or elsewhere in our lifetime... or my children's lifetime. My comment about "if only there were a planet" was more tongue-in-cheek.

Eventually, yes. There will be many men who live outside of earth's confines... it won't be for a long time- and most likely not with any technology for which we currently have full understanding.

Re:China

[Teancum]

You seriously, really expect private industry to actually put money into research and development that doesn't have a 3 month return in the double digits without some prompting or assistance? You expect this stuff to cost less even when taking CEO's gold-plated bathroom fixtures and private jets and stuff into account? What about all those corporate bonuses that have to be paid, and stock options that need to be exercised and all that?

Private industry can be counted on to do one thing: take research paid for by someone else, "invent" things to do with it, and make themselves LOOK cheaper because they never put the money into R&D in the first place--or if they did, they got someone else to pay them for it while somehow maintaining ownership rights over the work, or getting laws passed that the government has to just give them what we the people paid for. It didn't used to be like that, but these days a company that does a lot of startup work and groundbreaking research without an immediate product is toast.

You obviously know next to nothing about capitalism, corporate charters, or what it takes to actually put together a business. All I pointed out was a potential way to encourage existing businesses to perform tasks in space and to encourage a vibrant and thriving commercial spaceflight industry that could potentially make the ability to go into space affordable because it would be in the self-interest of those engaged in the activity to do so.

BTW, "gold plated bathroom fixtures" might be of interest to shareholders, especially if that goes against the terms of the corporate charter to "maximize profits and increase shareholder equity". CEOs can be sued for misappropriation of corporate funds, and gold-plating executive bathrooms is one easy thing to point out excesses that need to be brought into check. If you want that to stop, make corporations to be required to answer to their shareholders and empower the ordinary investor to demand a proper accounting of how corporate funds are spent. That also would end up dealing with these "excess" bonuses you are talking about... unless those bonuses really are ended up increasing shareholder dividends or equity. CEO salaries and bonuses are something that won't ever be unlimited, and perhaps at the moment is even excessive to the point of being detrimental to the success of the company itself.

One of the reasons why many companies have a three month investment window is in part due to the regulatory environment that exists in America at the moment with SEC regulations that encourage such practices. It is also something the major "institutional investors" demand... which is IMHO something short sighted and should be curtailed in some way. It is something that can be changed BTW, but it would take some hard work in terms of changing regulations and removing some of the corruption in Congress to get it to happen. There are also other ways to organize corporations that could avoid some of the problems mentioned above as well... I just won't get into them in detail. Look up "employee owned corporations" while you are at it though, along with "cooperatives". It doesn't have to be strictly Wall Street type corporations funded by just a few mega wealthy investors.

In the right legal environment, I do expect that a for profit corporation can and would make long term investments in research and development to significantly expand the scope of humanity, including making the R&D necessary for a serious expansion into the rest of the Solar System. I am suggesting that it is the current legal environment which is holding back American companies from doing nearly as much in terms of significantly going into space and is one of the reasons why America is stuck in LEO with no native capacity to send astronauts into space in the first place.

Indentured Servants

[andymadigan]

I wonder how many people will end up as indentured servants unable to purchase transport back to earth, working in dangerous working conditions on a world run by corporations. They'll be lured by false promises, or maybe even sent by countries with overpopulated prisons.

Re:Indentured Servants

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the US and Australia? ... I am not an ozzie so I wonder about indentured servents. But this is how people came ot the new world and how slavery started in the south.

Re:Indentured Servants

[Teancum]

Slavery started in "the south" (and the "north" of the British colonies like New York and Massachusetts.... which both had slavery in 1776) in part because the indentured servant program was deemed as ineffective. Poor people from Ireland and London's south end would move to America, and by the time their seven to ten years of servitude were done they finally had the skills necessary to be effective.... but their term of service was up. Several of these "servants" would also simply disappear into the American wilderness and set up farms or homesteads of their own where law enforcement to make sure these indentured servants would finish their terms of service was largely ineffective.

People of African descent stuck out as much more obvious and had a much harder time being able to disappear in a similar fashion. Yes, it was also utterly racist and some of the first people from Africa were also indentured servants, but the general process of indentured servitude wasn't really the problem. It was the more permanent status of general slavery and the fact that such a status could be inherited that caused the problems. I'll admit indentured servitude can lead to general slavery as well, but it doesn't have to be seen as something so ugly either. Strong limits simply need to be set on how it is implemented with a recognition that civil rights do apply to those "servants" as well.

Re:Indentured Servants

[Black Parrot]

You mean like the US and Australia?... I am not an ozzie so I wonder about indentured servents.

There may have been indentured servants in Oz, but the big issue was its use by the British as a penal colony.

But this is how people came ot the new world and how slavery started in the south.

No, indentured servitude is when free persons agree to a longish labor contract in exchange for something, e.g. passage to the New World.

Slavery in the Americas started with the Spanish policy of repartimento, which was the use of natives for slave labor, rationalized as repayment for the favor of being saved from their pagan religion by their conquerors. But when they took people from the Mexican highlands and put them to work on the coastal plantations, they suffered greatly and died soon. So a certain Bishop Las Casas, somewhat enlightened for his time, but not by modern values, recommended bringing in African slaves, who would be more acclimated to that sort of work environment.

According to Wikipedia, he later decided that that wasn't right either, and took a stand against it. (Wikipedia also says he wasn't the only one who advocated it in the first place. My knowledge of this comes from Prescott's monumental History of the Conquest of Mexico, which is long and sometimes tedious, but well worth the read if you're interested in the topic. But it's ~150 years old now, so I'm inclined to lean toward the Wikipedia version. See the article on Las Casas, and while there click the link to the article about the import of African slaves.)

Britain and its colonies got in on slavery much later, becoming entangled with the Spanish in the slave trade. (The above was well before the British had the colonies that eventually became the USA and expended across "the south".)

BIG corporations only

[Skapare]

And, of course. the government and NASA will help make sure the big corporations will lock out small business and startups from even getting going.

Just What We Need

[Anonymous Coward]

*bingbong* "It looks like you're low on oxygen. Please insert another oxygen canister to continue.......... Oh I'm sorry, that doesn't seem to be a MarsCo(r) Brand Oxygen Experience Unit(tm). Aftermarket canisters such as yours are not supported. Suffocation in 5...4... this death is brought to you by..."

Unreal Tournament: Real Life?

[Anubis350]

"In 2291, in an attempt to control violence among deep space miners, the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-bared fighting. Liandri Mining Corporation, working with the NEG, established a series of leagues and bloody public exhibitions. The fights' popularity grew with their brutality. Soon, Liandri discovered that the public matches were their most profitable enterprise. The professional league was formed; a cabal of the most violent and skilled warriors in known space, selected to fight in a Grand Tournament. Now it is 2341. 50 years have passed since founding of DeathMatch. Profits from the Tournament number in the hundreds of billions. You have been selected to fight in the professional league by the Liandri Rules Board. Your strength and brutality are legendary. The time has come to prove you are the best. To crush your enemies; to win the Tournament." (video here)

Criminals are unlikely.

[khasim]

Unless there is a MAJOR breakthrough with getting mass into orbit.

It is unlikely that a criminal will have any skills you'd need that would be worth the expense of lifting him into orbit and keeping him fed and watered and breathing.

Re:Criminals are unlikely.

[an unsound mind]

Because some people deserve only death for what they've done, and the justice system never makes any mistakes, right?

Worse yet, the kind of people you hate aren't the kind of people the prisons are full of - true monsters are very rare, and keeping them locked up isn't a major expense. Unlike locking up potheads, who are a large part of the current prison population.

Re:Criminals are unlikely.

[Kjella]

Hah! There are so many people in western prisons that should been execute already it's not even funny. Mass murderers, rapists, child abusers...etc.

Rapists is actually a good example of why you should not have the death penalty. When DNA testing came it turned out some people that had been decades in prison was innocent. Of course it'd be easier if they'd just been executed right? Nobody to complain about the miscarriage of justice. Not that long ago we had a deathbed confession 29 years after the murders another man was convicted for. Of course in some cases it's beyond any doubt, but then you'd have to add another standard of conviction in addition to beyond reasonable doubt which is a dangerous tail to pull.

If they're nothing but a passive expense, that is also because we choose them to be. For example, I don't see why any of these people can't be software developers or translate foreign documents or any of a number of other jobs without ever leaving their cells or being a threat to anyone. But sure, if you say you're now in prison for life and your only task for the next 50 years is to stare at that wall you will get a vegetable. It is possible to give them a life that's meaningful both to them and to us, without them ever being in a position to hurt anyone ever again.

Re:Criminals are unlikely.

[0111 1110]

The criminals that pass in and out so quickly would barely fit the definition of criminal. Do you realize all the trivial things that have sentences up to 2 1/2 years? I'm guessing you don't. If anything our sentences tend to be too long. And states with the 3 strikes rule just encourage fights to the death at the third crime and lifers with trivial crimes under their belt.

The fact is that many judges are hanging judges who like max sentencing and consider themselves to be the wrath of god. Many jurors and judges consider anyone accused to be guilty. Where there is smoke there is fire. The judges are friends with the cops and never doubt the truth of their testimony for an instant. Jurors often feel the seem. Police testimony is granted far more weight than civilian testimony. People who are intelligent and can think critically and logically and be truly objective tend to avoid jury duty. It is for reasons like this that we have such a high percentage of innocent people behind bars.

Do you have any statistics to back up your 'being arrested 20 times' idea? You seem to think our justice system is too lenient. It's true that we don't simply shoot or dismember petty thieves, but most other countries don't either. With a few rare exceptions we have the harshest justice system on the planet, which is reflected by the largest prison population on the planet both as a percentage and as a total number. Even exceeding China.

The fact is that 'real' criminals are not all that dissuaded by prison. It doesn't motivate them to change their behavior. For many reasons. Partly because they lack intelligence. Partly because they simply cannot stand the idea of being a wage slave. The lures of whatever crime they are attracted to is just too great. Putting them in prison just stops them from engaging in their preferred behavior for as long as they are there.

It is people like you who believe sentencing is still too short that are the reason why such a high percentage of our population is living in subhuman conditions behind bars. And you want to make the sentencing longer. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of Republicans and other enthusiastic punishers supported the death penalty for even minor crimes. That is not a civilized or just society.

Re:Criminals are unlikely.

[mcgrew]

Because some people deserve only death for what they've done

You know, I can't understand the "death penalty" thing at all. Death is no penalty -- we are all under a death sentence, every one of us. But when you or I die, it is very unlikely that you're going to die peacefully in your sleep. You're going to have cancer, or a heart attack, or pneumonia, or alzheimer's, or fall down in the nursing home and break your hip after suffering from arthritis for decades.

Timothy McVeigh, however, who killed hundreds of people, many of them children, knew exactly when he was going to die and how he was going to die, and had a chance to repent his evil deeds and make peace with his maker (McVeigh was a Catholic). Then he was painlessly put to sleep like a beloved pet with an incurable disease.

I say fuck the bleeding heart conservatives. Someone commits an atrocity, keep them locked in a cage, until they die as horribly and unexpectedly as I surely will. I consider that a good expenditure of my tax dollars.

As well as what you said; Illinois abolished the death penalty when DNA proved that half of death row were innocent. Over half of all prisoners in the US are nonviolent and were incarcerated for drugs, half of those for marijuana. Now THAT is a serious waste of tax money.

Here's a single example of a terrible waste inolving an old friend's brother.

There was a dope dealer in Cahokia, IL who deserved prison; he was also a theif, and violent. He sold every drug there was, including steroids and heroin. After 20 years dealing dope he finally got caught. Of course, the feds offered him a deal.

So Mike's brother, who didn't even smoke pot, let alone sell drugs, gets a call from Radford (the dope dealer). Radford needed money to make a purchase and if Mike's brother would loan him a thousand bucks he'd get two thousand back in a week. Loan a guy a thousand bucks at 100% weekly interest? Of course he did. he had the money, he made a good living as a truck mechanic.

And of course it was a setup, and the DEA's tape recorders were rolling. Mike's brother, who had never had any connection with the drug trade in his life whatever, not even as a customer. spent five years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. As did half of his high school graduation class, most of whom were likewise innocent before the setup.

Radford, who'd been the town's biggest dope dealer for two decades, spent two years in prison.

Mike's brother's wife divorced him when he was in prison and married another man. He's now unemployable and a hard core alcoholic and yes, now is a doper himself.

Anybody who doesn't think the justice system is severely dysfunctional in the US is either ignorant or delusional.

What's up with the summary?

[FleaPlus]

The summary somewhat misrepresents what Worden said. From the article, here's Worden's actual statement, which seems quite sensible to me: "Governments can develop new technology and do some of the exciting early exploration but in the long run it's the private sector that finds ways to make profit, finds ways to expand humanity. ... Most of private individuals I've talked to about interest in settling on Mars, including Elon Musk, talk about in the next few decades they think the private sector will fund settlement missions - whether to the Moon, Mars, or asteroids. As a government laboratory our job is to develop to enable those kinds of things by developing technology and early exploration, and we hope the private sector will find a way to do something like that."

Re:Space Mining

[c0lo]

But I'd bet the Chinese are considering mining operations off planet

I find the above quote a little bit too ironic

Speaking of mining and ores, I find yours a bit... (how to put it?)... pun-ic?

Expect a quick change of mind

[Chrisq]

Expect a quick change of mind after the first Chinese lunar colony is established.