For those of you who haven’t read the article yet, it essentially continues the endless speculation on the “new” US space policy and suggests the possibility of using the “Flexible Path” concept introduced by the Augustine commission as a spring board to future human exploration missions to Mars. These types of articles have been about as abundant as up-and-coming-stars/waitresses in Hollywood ever since President Obama took office, and I’m just about sick of them thank you very much.
Since the election of the new administration, we’ve had a much discussed transition team unable to maintain a professional dialog (anybody remember the “library spat” between Griffin and Garver?), a million dollar Augustine committee with insufficient political backbone to actually issue any clear directions, and a new NASA administrator whose only public visibility is when he makes appearances at local high schools.
Meanwhile, the rest of NASA seems engaged in a game of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic for a better view and never mind the iceberg ahead for the last 30 years: why is it that every “new” space architecture touted by one mastermind or another ignores the problem of lowering the cost of space access? The history of US human launch vehicle development since the Shuttle is so pathetic that it now leaves us bemoaning the day when a 30 year old system will be decommissioned leaving us with what, the brilliant new strategy of private industry providing human space access? We’ve been there before, it was called Orbital Space Plane – and it didn’t work then either.
The truth of the matter is that Earth-To orbit is hard, and the development of a truly innovative launch vehicle is an expensive and long-term effort. Unfortunately, the US government’s space investment policies have been about as long-lived as a common house-fly. After Shuttle there was National Aerospace Plane (NASP), after NASP there was 2nd Gen RLV, then there was VentureStar, Orbital Space Plane, Space Launch Initiative, Next Generation Launch Technologies, Constellation, and the most recent slated for the chopping block the Ares I & V launch family. Every program was shorter in duration than its predecessor, and each one was at a lower TRL than the previous one when it got canceled. When it comes to launch vehicle development, the only NASA solution to any kind of problem (technical or cost/schedule) seems to be to reset the clock and start over.
The current state of affairs is so discouraging, that even stalwart advocates of US human spaceflight programs have now resigned themselves to acting blasé towards the efforts by other nations – since the US can’t compete anymore, we talk of taking on a “mentoring” role, giving other nations an imperial pad on the back when they make it to their next space program milestones. We’ve been there a long time ago, good for you to catch up ? All the while the US celebrates its own most recent – highly dramatic - space accomplishments: we can now get Twitter feeds from our ISS astronauts so the world is immediately informed the next time s/he uses the urine collection device! Sign me up - not. Maybe it’s not all that surprising that this should be the flavor of US space accomplishments going forward, since marketing is about the only industry where this country still is a global leader. Let me do some marketing of my own then and apply some of the cutting edge tools of the trade: “it’s not how you feel about the product, but how the product makes you feel about yourself”. Well I don’t know how you feel about the US human space program these days, but I’m getting to the point where I’m embarrassed to tell people that I toiled in it for the last 15 years, with exactly zero to show for it.
Maybe President Obama will surprise us all and take the leash of Charlie Bolden so he can actually exercise some of his leadershi
When I was a PhD student in the US (EU citizen) it was impossible for me to get any employment. The immigration rules in the US are so hostile towards anybody wanting to stay based on the argument that you can provide value from your contribution it's ridiculous.
The rules regarding technology export control are even worse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR) - if you are not a "US person" any other individual is not even allowed to talk to you about many types of technology work, no matter where you are physically located (at the threat of severe punishment). While export control is not an issue in academic settings, in my industry (aerospace) it closes doors faster and harder than even the US' immigration policies do.
The US treats immigrants (legal or not, educated or not) with such disdain, why does it surprise anyone that people who have a choice no longer select to stay here? I applaud China's government for acknowledging the value of educated individuals - if the US government/culture were to value education even a fraction as much it would solve a lot of problems in this country (poverty, teacher shortage, etc.).
What is really scary about this IMO is not the potential for spying, but the potential for control. You know the tech will evolve, from controlling bugs, to controlling common pets, then primates, then humans? Forget spying, think of the potential of remote controlling people - granted it sounds like a long way to go, but you know its going there. Even though it's "just a bug", controlling other living things does not seem right...
I worked on an evolved version of this idea called Mini-MagOrion. The "mini" refers to using very small (initially non-critical) charges, removing the hot-button issue of carrying nukes to orbit. The "mag" refers to using a magnetic confinement field to capture the blast and direct it, instead of the pusher-plate in the original proposal. The "orion" was the name of the original proposal (Project Orion). There's a (small) wikipedia entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Mag_Orion
As always, the devil is in the details. While the concept is definitely doable, there are many operational (and social) problems with this. For example, taking out every Earth satellite with the EMPs. Also, the performance is not quite as spectacular as you mentioned, it's still good enough to transport 100 tons to Mars within 3 months, or to Jupiter in about one year though.
Regardless of whether or not you are a proponent of international cooperation on space ventures, I don't see this ever becoming reality. Already, there are countless voices in the US gov and space industry bitching about the decline of domestic space access. The US space program is a jobs program (with a domestic focus) â" not a grand space endeavor; NASA's mandate is to maintain as many (mostly useless) jobs as possible, with everybody wanting a piece of that government pie. NASA can't even agree on any long term plan within its own factions, so imagine how likely it is to line up the interest of NASA, the US government, the Russian government, and their space agency.
Maybe even more importantly, there is the self-inflicted wound of US domestic protectionism called ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulation). Any kind of technical international venture needs to navigate that minefield of overzealous bureaucracy, and once you are talking âoegovernment agencyâ to âoegovernment agencyâ instead of âoecompanyâ to âoecompanyâ politics inevitably become a factor (e.g. we cannot buy your Russian engines, because you supplied arms to XYZ, or we wonâ(TM)t let you use our rockets, because weâ(TM)re sick of you pushing your IP law at the UN, etc.).
People can do it at a grass-roots level. Companies struggle with it and spend millions on international law firms â" and still fail. Government agencies? Not a chance.
This may be a gross oversimplification, but if in the EU data about a user's activities belongs to that user, does that mean gov & corp will have to pay royalty fees for all those hidden surveilance systems in use?
Slashdot Mirror
For those of you who haven’t read the article yet, it essentially continues the endless speculation on the “new” US space policy and suggests the possibility of using the “Flexible Path” concept introduced by the Augustine commission as a spring board to future human exploration missions to Mars. These types of articles have been about as abundant as up-and-coming-stars/waitresses in Hollywood ever since President Obama took office, and I’m just about sick of them thank you very much.
Since the election of the new administration, we’ve had a much discussed transition team unable to maintain a professional dialog (anybody remember the “library spat” between Griffin and Garver?), a million dollar Augustine committee with insufficient political backbone to actually issue any clear directions, and a new NASA administrator whose only public visibility is when he makes appearances at local high schools.
Meanwhile, the rest of NASA seems engaged in a game of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic for a better view and never mind the iceberg ahead for the last 30 years: why is it that every “new” space architecture touted by one mastermind or another ignores the problem of lowering the cost of space access? The history of US human launch vehicle development since the Shuttle is so pathetic that it now leaves us bemoaning the day when a 30 year old system will be decommissioned leaving us with what, the brilliant new strategy of private industry providing human space access? We’ve been there before, it was called Orbital Space Plane – and it didn’t work then either.
The truth of the matter is that Earth-To orbit is hard, and the development of a truly innovative launch vehicle is an expensive and long-term effort. Unfortunately, the US government’s space investment policies have been about as long-lived as a common house-fly. After Shuttle there was National Aerospace Plane (NASP), after NASP there was 2nd Gen RLV, then there was VentureStar, Orbital Space Plane, Space Launch Initiative, Next Generation Launch Technologies, Constellation, and the most recent slated for the chopping block the Ares I & V launch family. Every program was shorter in duration than its predecessor, and each one was at a lower TRL than the previous one when it got canceled. When it comes to launch vehicle development, the only NASA solution to any kind of problem (technical or cost/schedule) seems to be to reset the clock and start over.
The current state of affairs is so discouraging, that even stalwart advocates of US human spaceflight programs have now resigned themselves to acting blasé towards the efforts by other nations – since the US can’t compete anymore, we talk of taking on a “mentoring” role, giving other nations an imperial pad on the back when they make it to their next space program milestones. We’ve been there a long time ago, good for you to catch up ? All the while the US celebrates its own most recent – highly dramatic - space accomplishments: we can now get Twitter feeds from our ISS astronauts so the world is immediately informed the next time s/he uses the urine collection device! Sign me up - not. Maybe it’s not all that surprising that this should be the flavor of US space accomplishments going forward, since marketing is about the only industry where this country still is a global leader. Let me do some marketing of my own then and apply some of the cutting edge tools of the trade: “it’s not how you feel about the product, but how the product makes you feel about yourself”. Well I don’t know how you feel about the US human space program these days, but I’m getting to the point where I’m embarrassed to tell people that I toiled in it for the last 15 years, with exactly zero to show for it.
Maybe President Obama will surprise us all and take the leash of Charlie Bolden so he can actually exercise some of his leadershi
When I was a PhD student in the US (EU citizen) it was impossible for me to get any employment. The immigration rules in the US are so hostile towards anybody wanting to stay based on the argument that you can provide value from your contribution it's ridiculous.
The rules regarding technology export control are even worse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR) - if you are not a "US person" any other individual is not even allowed to talk to you about many types of technology work, no matter where you are physically located (at the threat of severe punishment). While export control is not an issue in academic settings, in my industry (aerospace) it closes doors faster and harder than even the US' immigration policies do.
The US treats immigrants (legal or not, educated or not) with such disdain, why does it surprise anyone that people who have a choice no longer select to stay here? I applaud China's government for acknowledging the value of educated individuals - if the US government/culture were to value education even a fraction as much it would solve a lot of problems in this country (poverty, teacher shortage, etc.).
What is really scary about this IMO is not the potential for spying, but the potential for control. You know the tech will evolve, from controlling bugs, to controlling common pets, then primates, then humans? Forget spying, think of the potential of remote controlling people - granted it sounds like a long way to go, but you know its going there. Even though it's "just a bug", controlling other living things does not seem right ...
I worked on an evolved version of this idea called Mini-MagOrion. The "mini" refers to using very small (initially non-critical) charges, removing the hot-button issue of carrying nukes to orbit. The "mag" refers to using a magnetic confinement field to capture the blast and direct it, instead of the pusher-plate in the original proposal. The "orion" was the name of the original proposal (Project Orion). There's a (small) wikipedia entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Mag_Orion
As always, the devil is in the details. While the concept is definitely doable, there are many operational (and social) problems with this. For example, taking out every Earth satellite with the EMPs. Also, the performance is not quite as spectacular as you mentioned, it's still good enough to transport 100 tons to Mars within 3 months, or to Jupiter in about one year though.
Regardless of whether or not you are a proponent of international cooperation on space ventures, I don't see this ever becoming reality. Already, there are countless voices in the US gov and space industry bitching about the decline of domestic space access. The US space program is a jobs program (with a domestic focus) â" not a grand space endeavor; NASA's mandate is to maintain as many (mostly useless) jobs as possible, with everybody wanting a piece of that government pie. NASA can't even agree on any long term plan within its own factions, so imagine how likely it is to line up the interest of NASA, the US government, the Russian government, and their space agency.
Maybe even more importantly, there is the self-inflicted wound of US domestic protectionism called ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulation). Any kind of technical international venture needs to navigate that minefield of overzealous bureaucracy, and once you are talking âoegovernment agencyâ to âoegovernment agencyâ instead of âoecompanyâ to âoecompanyâ politics inevitably become a factor (e.g. we cannot buy your Russian engines, because you supplied arms to XYZ, or we wonâ(TM)t let you use our rockets, because weâ(TM)re sick of you pushing your IP law at the UN, etc.).
People can do it at a grass-roots level. Companies struggle with it and spend millions on international law firms â" and still fail. Government agencies? Not a chance.
This may be a gross oversimplification, but if in the EU data about a user's activities belongs to that user, does that mean gov & corp will have to pay royalty fees for all those hidden surveilance systems in use?