One Giant Misstep for Mankind
ROCK ISLAND, IL
It looked as though we were going to make it through a presidential election last fall without any of the George W. Bush-style nonsense about putting a man on Mars, but then right toward the end Senator McCain pulled out the thousand trumpet lines that were an afterthought, and they included the desperate MarsWalk Talk. I wasn’t about to break with tradition and pull the lever for a Republican anyway, so the stunt didn’t matter much to me, but I was disappointed that the process of choosing the next President hadn’t been able to dodge the Droid & Wookie blather.
And now on the 40th anniversary of the first MoonWalk, we’re getting more mindless chatter about where we ought to go next, because staying put isn’t good enough for The Human Spirit, etc., etc.
I caught a piece on NPR Monday evening about the possibilities of a Martian voyage. If I got the story right, we’d need 180 days for the trip there and then a 500-day layover at the Red Dust Daze Inn to wait for a planetary alignment conducive to the leisurely 180-day commute back home.
So about three years without beer, baseball, and soft personnel.
What inhuman imbecile would consent to that?
David Brower used to say that we’ve been to the moon, we’ve shown that we can get there, and now it’s time to worry about putting our own house in order. I rarely disagree with Brower, and I ain’t about to now, but I would add only this: that in doing what he suggested we do, we make damn sure we do it without ever uttering the words “if they can put a man on the moon, you’d think they could …”
You’d think they could what? I remember one ad from my youth: “you’d think they could make a decaffeinated coffee I like.”
No, I wouldn’t think that. Decaf’s an abomination—like O’Doul’s, McNuggets, and long skirts on women with good wheels–and putting a man on the moon doesn’t have one goddamned thing to do with getting our house in order. I repeat: not one goddamned thing.
We are the heirs of countless stories that speak to the consequences of hubris. My guess is that our getting to Mars, which I hope we’ll never do, would end in the manner of the story of the tower of Babel: with a confusion of tongues. Leaving aside questions of what the purpose and expense of such a voyage would be, I’d wager that what we’d gain in the end would be scant evidence for the wildest conjectures by our cleverest people about the origins of the universe, conjectures that never manage to address the real originary question. That is to say, our pride would increase our confusion, and we’d talk gibberish to one another—even if an astronaut were to serve himself communion on Mars Buzz Aldrin style.
We’d do better to use the money to buy everyone a copy of Out of the Silent Planet and leave trips to Mars at that.
For my part, I’d like to see us put our minds to important projects, like outlawing light beer and then, when we’ve built up some confidence from that great feat, making sure no more children die of starvation. And I’d really like us to get our minds around why, on the 40th anniversary of our first dirtying the moon, these words are more timely now than ever: “People who are willing to follow technology wherever it leads are necessarily willing to follow it away from home, off the earth, and outside the sphere of human definition, meaning, and responsibility.”
(I’m betting FPR readers can guess who wrote that fine sentence.)
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Jason, this is an excellent piece that, because it’s an excellent piece, raises a number of questions. It is also mirorring a discussion over at PoMoCon re: technology, space exploration, and alien life.
So where’s the technological “don’t cross” line and how is it determined? Certainly you’re not advocating the complete, luddite like, abandonment of technology? Is there a set of rules, laws, commandments re: the proper use/application of technology?
Plato and the boys, always a good reference point, argued that man is a being that seeks, quests, questions e.g. wants to know stuff. Isn’t it, then, “natural” to want to explore “Outer Space?” How does this questing interfer with the Wendellian desire for family, home, land, humane existence, and God? Or better yet, how do we reconcile the two human attributes?
Nothing but net–as always, J.P.
J.G. Ballard on the moon landing: “If I were a Martian I’d start running.”
Lewis Mumford on space travel: It requires “the total mobilization of the megamachine, commanding to the point of exhaustion all the resources of the state; it is both a symbol of total control and a means of popularizing it and extending it as an ineffable symbol of progress.”
Finally, the reactionary radical Robert Lee Frost, who as a lover of the nightsky saw no reason to deface it with machines:
They may end by banishing me
To the penal colony
They are thinking of pretty soon
Establishing on the moon
But what about Tang?
Its not the Moon Project and NASA that upsets me so much as the fact that 40 years after we were given the opportunity to view the little blue orb in the black sea, we cannot even manage, as Kunstler asserts, “to run a Railroad equal to Bulgaria”. There was more track in Connecticut at the turn of the last century than there is now in the entire Amtrak system. Much of it, of course, bought up and sold into scrap by a Detroit Consortium charmingly named something like “The American Transportation Corporation”.
Nor can we collectively view the planet as anything more than a dual purpose bottomless larder and garbage heap. There is much talk and earnest politicizing of course but little real move beyond the best of intentions vs. “whaddya, Communist?”. We can however, station a soldier at a computer console in Colorado who can control a Drone on it’s job to kill a terrorist in Pakistan and perhaps some collateral damage as well, in the form of a wedding party.
Exploration has always been a force to further military and trade control. Often, as one is hearing again, it is described as a vehicle to expand the influence of the deity of choice but this is usually just the cover story. The Moon Project was spawned in a moment of genuine fear when the Soviets were clearly winning the technological race. It climaxed after we had plunged into the abyss of Viet Nam and were about to plunge deeper into the black ennui of Watergate.
Still, it was a remarkable example of our ability to create, seek the impossible and cooperate toward a remarkable goal. More than any event in the history of the last century, it united humans across the globe in a moment of reverence for the possibilities of our imagination. However, had there not been a military or imperial dimension, I doubt there would have been a will to do the wondrous thing we did. It is not our urge for technology that is the bad guy here, it is our utter lack of an ability to temper this urge with the repose required to love what we have and show this love by wishing it for others. So, you may be right, if we cannot love what we have nor love one another, there is nothing to be gained by skipping this hi-tech pathos across the pond of space to other planets. This is a deeply pessimistic view however and as a pessimist, I hope it is not true. I must believe this technological consumerist era was a juvenile phase and that adulthood may finally come.
One thing is evident to me however, any alien approach me with blankets, titanium trinkets and a leering grin, I’m running as far in the opposite direction as my skinny legs, blackened lungs and fat arse can carry me. I shall then watch from afar as the Earthlings cut one another’s throat jockeying for dominance with the “visitor” and I only hope some of my ancestors might get to own a casino in the fullness of time too.
The only way to find out what is out there is to explore.
Sending a human to Mars is to a large extent a bad idea – because it is nostalgia. In the 1960’s, we didn’t have the computer and robotic technologies that we have today. Robots are in certain ways much better than humans for doing exploring of planets like Mars.
Opportunity has been doing an amazing job exploring Mars (for approx. 5 years). The next NASA Mars surface robot mission will be with Mars Science Laboratory, with planned arrival in 2012.
Anthony,
The fact that sending a man to Mars is nostalgic isn’t what makes it a bad idea, and that isn’t what Dr Peters is arguing, if you read the post. What makes it a bad idea is, in short, that it’s an act of hubris: it could easily have terrible consequences, we know not what. Not to mention that it would involve a colossal expenditure of resources, as well as a three-year total interruption in and risk to the crew members’ lives. The point is that there is meaningful work to do right here, right now, and until that work is done — until, that is, our house is in order — there really is no sense in wasting billions of dollars and engaging in what is truly an incalculable set of risks in order to find out that the red dust really is red, even up close.
Jason,
I have to say that in the past month your posts have increasingly become the ones I take the time to read here at FPR. I’m not sure if that says more about the clarity of your thinking, or my retro-curmudgeonly tendencies. Regardless, keep up the good work.
Tom
@Aaron,
I know he’s not arguing that it’s a bad idea because it’s nostalgic. I was the one making that assertion. My point is that this is being done already, and so humans traveling is not necessary. The costs are not that high for roboticized missions – the Mars Rover mission cost $820M, which is equivalent to what Americans spend on junk food in … what, half a day?
The unmanned robotic missions to the solar system have done more to increase our knowledge of the universe, and our place in it, than any manned mission ever could. For much cheaper, AND without getting anyone killed. Can you imagine what the political and social- cultural fallout would be, if something went wrong, and people died? I can just see the last hours, as the astronauts, who landed safe on Mars, then find something goes wrong and can’t leave the surface. They can’t get a ship there to rescue them, before their food and water, and oxygen run out. Astronaut family members waving goodbye over the TV hookup, as they wait for the end. UGH! Then there would be demands to send another mission to get the family members etc. It’s crazy, and I don’t think people pushing for this, have thought it through very well. Maybe sailing off the edge of the world in the days of Magellan, and Columbus was acceptable in the days when a mans life was often considred cheap. But somehow I think it’s going to be problematic in the age of TV and internet.
Not to draw this out, but it sounds like you’re trying to justify wasteful spending at NASA because Americans are wasteful in other arenas. That’s not really a justification–it’s a tu quoque logical fallacy. If that’s not what you’re saying, I really don’t see how it follows from the fact that, because we waste money on one thing, we shouldn’t complain about a questionable expenditure of money on another.
@Aaron,
I am *not* trying to justify a manned mission, rather I am arguing *against* that sort of spending, in favor of way cheaper and more effective robots (which is already happening anyway – NASA understands it has a budget too).
I think that space exploration is important. The comparison with daily aggregate junk food expenditures is meant simply to put the rover mission (and similar missions’) expenditure in perspective.
To the larger question of expenditure triage … I am highly skeptical of the argument that, until our house is ‘in order’, we can’t do any space exploration. I’m not sure when, if ever, our house will be in order. In some sense, it is in the most order it’s every been (extremely high, historically speaking, average material standards of living).
Anthony,
I understand that you’re not arguing for the manned mission–my criticism is of Mars exploration generally.
Regarding that question, then, I’m confused by your responses. First, you say that you’re not sure when our house will be in order. Simply because the condition necessary for space exploration (i.e. having our house in order) is difficult to achieve doesn’t mean that we should just do the exploration anyway. That’s called moving the goal posts. Second, you say that our house has never been more in order than it is today. There are two problems with this response. (1) The fact that it has never been more in order doesn’t mean that it is, in fact, in order. This is like picking up the cleanest piece of dog shit you’ve ever come across and deducing from that fact that it’s edible. It’s still dog shit! (2) One wonders whether we’re really as near to having our house in order as you describe, when a billion earthlings still go to bed hungry every night. Unless what you mean by “having our house in order” is different from how I’m using it and how Dr Peters has used it, it would seem as though our house is somewhat further from orderliness than you’ve so far described.
@Aaron,
Thanks for the response.
Here’s an analogy. Let’s say your bedroom is a mess. It’s been a mess since you can first remember. In fact, everyone you know’s bedroom is a mess. It has resisted all your efforts to keep it neat and tidy. You’ve put a *lot* of time and effort into trying to keep it in order. As the rest of your place has continued to get nicer and nicer, alas, your bedroom has remained a mess – in fact, as you’ve expanded your place, the amount of square footage your messy bedroom takes up has expanded, so there’s even more of a mess now, in a sense, than before.
Do you therefore stop reading interesting books, meeting new people in your neighborhood, getting on your bicycle and seeing interesting things – experiencing the wonder and amazement of discovery and exploration – and instead … put all your efforts into getting and keeping your bedroom in order, despite it’s resistance to your best efforts in the past (and given you are continuing to devote a significant amount of time and effort to getting it tidy in the present, and will continue to do so in the future)?
Anthony,
This example strikes me as pretty disanalogous to the situation Dr Peters has described. Under your example, cleaning our room is analogous to ordering certain hitherto disordered portions of our lives on Earth and meeting new people, reading books, etc. is analogous to space exploration, correct? What’s disanalogous is the relative importance we place on these activities. For surely, it’s at least as important to meet new people and read books and the rest as it is to keep one’s room clean, but surely space exploration is not nearly as important as addressing disorder on Earth, such as AIDS in Africa or peak oil production.
A better way of putting it is this: you own multiple home and they’re all on fire. You’ve managed to put out some of the fires (small pox) and reduce others (food shortages), but others yet you’ve hardly begun to make progress on (Middle East peace), and some are so new that you’ve hardly begun to fight them (global warming). So with that scenario in mind, is it really responsible to spend the kind of money and time that could put out one of your smaller fires ($800 million for, say, lung cancer research) on your bicycle in search of a hot new recipe for bananas foster?
Some comments:
1. It is not like there is one pool of problems that is filled up once, and we can go about eliminating them until there are none left.
We are constantly creating new problems. If we never did any space exploration until all the problems in the world were solved, we would never do any space exploration in the foreseeable future.
For the first time in history, we have the computerization, transportation, and communication technologies which allow us to send robots (!) to other planets (!) (something only dreamed about for centuries) – and you are saying that we shouldn’t ever *start* to do *any* of it because there are still problems here on Earth?
2. “For surely, it’s at least as important to meet new people and read books and the rest as it is to keep one’s room clean, but surely space exploration is not nearly as important as addressing disorder on Earth, such as AIDS in Africa or peak oil production.”
This is where we disagree. Apportioning some of our resources to space exploration is, I think, important and reasonable.
Don’t ignore contagious disease problems (although AIDS would be low on my list due to high cost to low payout), or potential productivity problems – of course not – but also focus some of your resources on exploring and discovering. This is not an exclusive disjunction.
Finally,
3. Just curious: in your personal life, do you apportion all or a significant percentage of your extra resources (income, time) beyond your basic necessities to helping combat things like disease and malnutrition around the world? That is, you clearly think there are strong national obligations to address these things – where do you think personal obligations lie?
Anthony,
1. Again, the fact that solving other problems is difficult is not a reason to say that we should abandon the conditional–unless you’re assumption is that difficult conditions should be abandoned, which is simply absurd.
2. You’re response here isn’t really a response, as you say simply that apportioning these resources is important and reasonable. Given the worries about more important problems (as you would surely agree that debilitating diseases, et al, are more important problems than Martian soil composition), you haven’t really said why you think it’s nonetheless appropriate to not spend money on those larger problems and spend it on space exploration.
And on top of that, spending money is a disjunction. Should dollar 1 go to A, B, C…or N. Should dollar two, etc. This is how we are able to say that some things are wasteful and others necessary, because the money could be spent better.
3. I’m a college student, so additional income isn’t something I encounter in large bundles. But yeah, I’ve lent my shoulder (financially and otherwise) to the kinds of things you’re describing, even if I’d hardly describe myself in the terms I’m advocating for with space exploration spending. But on the other hand, spending $800 million isn’t quite the same as recycling newspapers or buying organic eggs, is it?
I’m kind of at right angles to anybody’s perspective on this. If cornered I’d side with Dr. Peters — for the reasons he has already laid out very finely.
On the other hand… while I don’t endorse the Next Big Hubristic Space Boondoggle our technocrats will cook up for us, I’d also caution against condemning the adventurous/odyssey-ing impulse per se. Anybody who’s spent much time around children will have noticed the extent to which exploration is an inherent facet of our humanity.
I guess my POV here would be analogous to that of someone who opposes the military-industrial complex, Iraq invasion, etc. but who is not dogmatically pacifist.
My own vote would be for exploration of the oceans.
1. The point of showing we will never do space exploration (and similar pursuits) under your terms, is simply to get clear on the implications of this view.
Some people will find this result (no spending ever on space exploration) absurd, some won’t, obviously.
My response is that we should apportion some resources to malnutrition, disease, and so on, and some to things like space exploration. Which leads to …
2. The basic view is that a relatively small amount of money spent on space exploration ($820M is a small amount in the context we are discussing) can give large payoffs. For example (numbers illustrative):
$100B on disease and $0 on space exploration = 100 utils.
$95B on disease and $5B on space exploration = 110 utils.
where a “util” is some unit of utility.
What are the benefits of space exploration?
1. A sense of wonder, amazement, and similar emotions – which are important for human well-being. Exploring and a sense of growth are basic human needs.
2. Technological improvements that come with space exploration.
3. Potential scientific discoveries made through space exploration.
4. Potential discoveries of minerals or other natural resources that could have a significant benefit for humans.
3. Okay, that’s interesting. I think that there is a weak national responsibility, and an even weaker personal responsibility when it comes to international problems – because I think that moral duties are related to personal ties.
I tried posting this earlier, but it did not take, so I will try again.
I have read this site for a while (and have enjoyed the various conversations), but do not comment due to a lack of time. However, based on the subject of this post, I feel compelled to say something in support of space exploration, both human and robotic. I have spent my entire career working in the space sciences; I was inspired to do this work by the Apollo program and experiencing, as a little child, the incredible fascination of a human actually walking on another planet. I am also a Christian, and believe that God, through Adam before the fall, has given humans the authority and the blessing to explore the wonderous creation that He has made for His own glory. Space exploration is part of that exploration, and even though its carried out for the most part by people that do not know or care to know God, when His creation is discovered and proclaimed, it always abounds to His glory.
Thus, when I read the post by Mr. Peters, I was hoping his strong negative tone was tongue in cheek and that he doesn’t truly think so negatively towards space exploration. However, in reading the various comments above, I’m thinking this negativity towards space exploration is the actual position of many here. As a Christian, and as a person involved in space science work, I consider such an attitude very short sighted. In particular, the comment “We can study space when we get all our problems sorted out here” is an example of such short sightedness. Those who are Christians, of course, know that the reason for all these problems is sin entered the world; further, these problems will never be gone until sin finally leaves, and that requires the return of our Lord Jesus. Thus, if we wait for all Earth’s problems to be solved before exploring, we will never explore (either in space or here on Earth). In addition, the short sightedness of the “wait ’till the problems are solved” attitude is shown by a multitude of practical blessings brought about by space exploration (and Tang is not one of them, which I understand was not invented by NASA). A whole book could be written about such blessings (and many probably have been), but even the ability to have Earth orbiting satellites that provide telecommunications services, and Earth imaging satellites that provide countries (especially poor countries) with information about land and crop use have greatly alleviated much suffering. The ability to successfully deploy such satellites in the extremely harsh environment of space has only been possible by the hard work (and sometimes failures) of people working in the space exploration area, including human exploration.
Finally, two more points that I only have time to briefly touch on: 1) Over the years, I have heard and read much about the “high cost” and “waste of money” for space exploration. Right now, the U.S. spends approximately one-half a percent of its budget for NASA (this number is probably not exactly correct, but it is close). At the height of the Apollo program (a couple of years prior to the Apollo 11 landing) it was closer to a few percent. Other nations’ space programs combined are about 10 to 20 percent of the NASA’s total. In the context of what we as a nation spend on most everything else (e.g., junk food), this is a very small amount of spending for the large return (both practical and human) that is obtained (again, if I had time, a discussion of these benefits could be greatly expanded upon). 2) The human vs. robots argument is a very familiar argument both in the general public, but even more so with space scientists. The comments above suggest there are no valid reasons to send humans into space and robots can always do anything worthwhile that is needed. However, if you listened in to such discussions with people who work in the area of space science, you find that there are good arguments on both sides (and often stated very strongly). I happen to think that if you agree space exploration is a good idea (which I briefly tried to support above), a mix of humans and robots is a good way to carry out such exploration. One final point regarding the Mars rovers, which were mentioned in comments above. They are truly a great achievement, have carried out incredible exploration science, and I personally know they have inspired many people to join and work hard in various fields of engineering and science. However, according to the project leader for these rovers, the sum total that all they accomplished in 5+ years on the Martian surface could have been carried out by humans in a little over a week. Thus, it does cost more to send humans into space, but humans are greatly more efficient and productive in the work of exploring.
Okay… but we can’t think of everything as an optimization problem… i.e. we shouldn’t say that we can’t send a man to mars because we need to optimize our resources and get the earth straightened out first.
Why? Because art is one of the greatest faculties of mankind and sending a man to mars is just as much art and creativity as it is exploration, engineering and science.
And besides… what if instead of paying the best and the brightest to engineer more weapons of mass destruction over in the National Defense Laboratories we had them building rocket ships with self sustaining biospheres in them.
Haven’t you guys read Contact? The whole world was unified in their attempt at building the space craft… could that really happen? I think so.
@David,
Good post. Who knows, over a beer I just could be persuaded to supporting some manned missions instead of just robots from here on out.
David, I’m going to try to address your claims in the order that you made them.
First, you offer a quasi-theological justification for space exploration. Fine. No one here is saying that space exploration, as such, is wrong. It’s spending money on space exploration when so many more pressing problems are, well, pressing on us right now.
Second, you claim that this spending counter argument is short-sighted on theological grounds, because, given the supposedly eternal nature of sin in the world, the conditional “If problems of greater import than space exploration exist, then we should not spend money on space exploration” is unmeetable. The fact that a conditional is unmeetable does not negate its soundness–that’s like saying, “Given the nature of sin, it’s impossible for me to behave perfectly, so I might as well not even try.” The problem here is that you’re using a universal condition of “sinfulness” to justify particular sinful actions; that is, you’re saying, “I can’t be perfect all of the time, so I can’t be perfect at any one time.” This is a quantifier shift, and it’s a logical fallacy.
Third, you finally get around to making a real argument for space exploration, but you’re really starting to straw man Dr. Peters, because, again, he never said that space exploration was wrong, per se. This whole argument is about Martian exploration, which is not the same as exploring satellite orbits–and for the record, it’s not at all clear to me how moon exploration was necessary for our discoveries with orbiting satellites. And even here your argument is weird, because you seem to be saying that space exploration–and manned exploration, in particular–has facilitated the development of deep space satellites, all of which is equivalent to saying, “Space exploration has facilitated better space exploration.” Well no kidding, but that’s no justification for deep space exploration in the first place.
Fourth, you argue that the amount of money spent on space exploration is only a small percentage of money that we waste elsewhere. Again, this is a tu quoque logical fallacy, and it doesn’t justify spending money on space exploration. That is, just because we waste money elsewhere doesn’t mean we should spend money on this.
Theodore,
First, simply because great art is a great faculty of mankind does not mean that there are not limitations on the resources deployed to create that art. Perfect example: St. Peter’s Basilica nearly bankrupted the Church, despite it’s being perhaps the most beautiful building in all of human creation. The pyramids are pretty impressive architectural feats as well, despite the fact that they were built on the backs of generations of slaves. My point is simply that the fact that a project is in some sense artistic (and surely, “space exploration” is not artistic in the way that St. Peter’s is) does not mean that it should be brought into existence.
Second, what if instead of sending engineers to the defense department OR to NASA, we sent them to the Land Institute in Kansas to finally figure out how to produce high-yield perennial crops, a feat which would surely change the face of the world.
Third, you’re not really trying to justify taking action in the real world because it worked in a book . Are you?
@Aaron re: David,
“[Jason] never said that space exploration was wrong, per se. This whole argument is about Martian exploration”
Uh, no it isn’t. The ensuing discussion is about both manned Martian exploration and space exporation (and similar pursuits) in general. The textual evidence is pretty clear (certainly, I’ve been talking about both). The original piece by Jason makes arguments which reasonably bear on space exploration in general.
“Again, this is a tu quoque logical fallacy”
Since I think the word ‘again’ refers to you accusing me of using the same fallacy earlier, I’ll reiterate my response to your original accusation. The point of getting clear on what Americans spend on other things (like junk food) is to put the amounts of money being discussed into context. It isn’t a fallacy (at least not the one you are talking about). David himself explicitly says he is establishing a context when he mentions these numbers.
The argument proper (which is probably similar to the one I’ve made above) is that space exploration is worth while – and David says this (“a very small amount of spending for the large return (both practical and human) that is obtained”). “Large return” must be relative to something, i.e., what we could otherwise be spending it on.
Along these lines, I think that the real argument seems to come down to an analysis of benefits versus costs. I have started with the list of 1. to 4. above. There would have to be an expected benefits per dollar equation for space exploration and then other pursuits. It would also have to be marginal (i.e., adding $1B to $10B on disease research might not increase it’s utility by 10%).
Thank you for those that responded to my post and I will do my best to have some responses, but they may not be the most well thought out as my mind is a bit tired after spending a good part of a warm day at the county fair with the family (and showing new chickens for the first time).
First, Anthony, thank you for your comments. Yes, it would be good to talk over a beer sometime. I may or may not be able to convince you, but I’m sure it would be a good conversation.
Aaron, thank you for taking seriously what I said and I do appreciate thinking through in detail my post. I will try and respond to your points. First, you mention: “The problem here is that you’re using a universal condition of “sinfulness” to justify particular sinful actions.” Are you saying here that spending money to carry out space exploration is sinful? If your answer is yes, what kind of exploration is not sinful, and what criteria do you use to decide?
Second, as far as justifications for space exploration, I was trying to make multiple arguments in favor of it. Yes, one was theological. Another was practical. In regards to deep space exploration, I was not saying “deep space exploration justifies deep space exploration.” I was trying to make the point that space exploration is a large enterprise carried out by a large number of people and what one learns in one area (i.e., how do you build a spacecraft that can successfully orbit Mercury or fly to Pluto) always provides benefits to other areas (e.g., how do you make more reliable satellites for carrying out Earth orbiting missions that can directly allievate much suffering on Earth). Thus, when our society supports a seemingly frivolous activity such as exploring deep space or sending people into space, capabilities are being built up that enable other very practical activities to be carried out that otherwise couldn’t be done. And note, I am not saying that sending robots or people to the Moon are required, per se, to have good, functioning Earth orbiting satellites (as you seem to suggest I was saying). But I am saying that these more “exotic” missions (including human exploration), which tend to push the technological boundaries, and which tend to be quite exciting and thus attract very talented and motivated people, greatly expand our capabilities that the more “mundane” but practical missions don’t usually do. But these new capabilities then become available for use by the “practical”, so that they can be carried out with better reliability, precision, capability, etc. I have personally seen this played out often during my career.
Aaron, this also touches upon a point that you made to Theodore, where you said: “what if instead of sending engineers to the defense department OR to NASA, we sent them to the Land Institute in Kansas to finally figure out how to produce high-yield perennial crops, a feat which would surely change the face of the world.” This statement ignores the fact that in the real world scientists and engineers just don’t work this way. When one spends years learning how to do work in a particular area (e.g., building spaceflight instruments), such capabilities do not easily transfer into another area like crop engineering, not to mention that people tend to be excited and motivated to do one kind of work (say space science) and not others (crop engineering).
Again, thank you for engaging with my comments, as it is important to continually think through what one does (in my case work in space exploration) and why one does it.
Anthony,
I guess I’m getting hung up on all of this “context” talk. What exactly is the point of putting spending “in context” aside from showing that compared to other, more obviously wasteful, sorts of spending, space spending is a smaller amount? If that’s the point of the context, then the tu quoque charge stands. If not, I’d like to know what the point of the context is, in the first place.
The problem with the “util” talk is that there’s no guarantee that either the space spending or the earth spending will result in the kinds of gains you’re describing–that is, a greater gain than input. You seem to be saying that, in absence of determinate evidence of the efficacy of either space spending or earth spending, we should hedge our bets and pay for some degree of each.
This is one half of the core of the disagreement, I think. I see space research as producing a much smaller output for input, and you seem to think that it’s the other way around. Maybe in the end then, in absence of hard evidence, this part of the argument is a wash. However, I’m still pretty convinced, anecdotally I guess, that money spent on space research hasn’t had the kind of return on investment that money spent otherwise has (or would have had). I mean, NASA’s budget request for next year is $18.6 billion. Do you really think that NASA is going to return $20 billion to us? Or that people’s lives will be improved to the tune of $20 billion? And what’s more, that they’ve been doing that for the last 45 years? Admitted, satellites were a good call, but did they require somewhere around $800 billion (today’s dollars) of investment? Or does that one success justify years of unnameable successes–or at least, successes that have not returned on the investment?
The other half of the disagreement boils down to the last point in Dr Peters post, and this is one that we haven’t really discussed. This point is, basically, that human beings have a certain set of physical and mental capabilities and a certain set of understanding for what happens when we use those abilities. The problem is that, in so many instances, we prove that our capacity to understand the implications of our actions is smaller than our actual capacity for action. In brief, we can do things that we don’t fully understand. And numerous scientific innovations seem to fit this mold: pollution and the car, nuclear warfare and the atom bomb, soil compaction and the combine. This isn’t an attempt here to speak ill of science (or whatever); it’s an attempt to say that our lives might be markedly more improved if we could learn to behave with a little bit of humility and not act until we’ve a better grasp of the effects–cultural, physical, etc.–that our actions have.
Now, I can see the next question as something like this: “But the proof is in the pudding, isn’t it? Won’t our understanding (or lack thereof) always be born out before we act rather than after ? Fair point. I think what Berry and Dr Peters here are getting at is that the ability to handle ourselves at home suggests our ability to handle ourselves away from home. So, as long as we can’t take care of the lives and knowledge that are before us, it will prove impossible to make sense of the knowledge from arenas like space exploration, which are anything but before us. And this goes back to the question “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we do X?” which Dr Peters critiqued in his article. And Wendell Berry offers a similar answer that makes the point as clear as anyone can make it:
“[This question] construes the flight to the moon as an historical event of complete and coherent significance, when in fact it is a fragmentary event of very uncertain significance. Americans have gone to the moon as they came to the frontiers of the New World: with their minds very much upon getting there, very little upon what might be involved in staying there. I mean that, because of our history of waste and destruction here, we have no assurance that we can survive in America, much less on the moon.”
Berry’s point, and Dr Peters’ as well I think, is this: because we have treated the knowledge and places that we already possess with an almost unlivable degree of disrespect, why think that with more knowledge with and larger places we would behave any more responsibly? This is why it’s more important that we order our own house before trying to buy more trinkets for the china hutch: such ordering would suggest that we will be able to treat and use the knowledge gained from new experiences–such as Martian exploration–in a manner as responsible as we have treated the knowledge we already have.
@David,
Absolutely, give me a shout if you’re in the Pacific Northwest sometime!
@Aaron,
First, I appreciate the back and forth on this. This debate impinges on another one I’m thinking about currently (related to international assistance), and I’m finding the discussion useful.
Context: $820M might sound like a lot, and so someone might be initially skeptical of the idea that it’s worthwhile. Once they start thinking about what things cost, however, that sense might change. Perhaps a better way to do this is to put in in $/person. So, $820M is about $2.50 per capita. As an intuitive question to gauge worth, you can ask: “Was the Mars Rover mission worth $2.50 for you?” This is similar to what you’re doing by asking whether NASA’s worth $20B, I think.
Ultimately, as you have pointed out, what matters isn’t whether it’s ‘a lot’ but rather whether its expected benefits equal or exceed the alternatives. (In fact, junk food expenditures might be highly worthwhile, as they give people a large amount of immediate pleasure. So, when hashed out, the comparison to junk food might actually backfire from a rhetorical perspective.
)
Hedging spending: I think this sort of consideration would be part of the calculations the expected benefits calculations are looked at in (so, it might make sense in the way that diversifying a portfolio makes sense). However, I’m not trying to make that claim here – rather, I’m making the claim that a small amount of space exploration can have disproportionate benefits, mainly associated with point 1. above in my benefits list.
NASA’s budget: $18.6B = approx. $60 per capita. Do I think that NASA’s yearly exploration is worth $60 per capita? Yes. Do I think that Mars Rover’s $2.50 per capita was worth while? Yes!
I’ll try to get to the second point tomorrow, as it’s late and I’m off to bed.
The Grand Forks (ND) Herald actually printed this letter that I wrote in response to one of their editorials (a pretty sensible one, IMO).
To the editor:
Monday’s editorial appropriately questions assumptions about the feasibility of interplanetary manned travel.
M. G. Lord’s “Are We Trapped on Earth?” in the June 2006 issue of Discover magazine shows that human travel to Mars may be impossible. And Mars is, of all non-lunar targets, the most plausible. But prolonged exposure during space flight to galactic cosmic rays and other forms of radiation could destroy astronauts’ brains and cause leukemia.
Successful Mars journeys may become possible, but due to the enormous distances involved combined with the impossibility (so far, anyway) of faster-than-light travel, it seems we may never go to the stars, despite the assumption of some that doing so is just a matter of time, technology, willpower, and money.
We may butt up, eventually, against stubborn records for everything from human height and longevity to sports records (e.g. running the mile). Although your grandchildren are taller than you, people can’t just keep getting taller and taller forever (the square-cube law). Svetlana Masterkova’s thirteen-year-old 4.12.56 record for women running the mile probably will be passed, but it is not possible that people will always be able eventually to beat the then-current record, on and on into the future, even if athletes are allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs and so on. Our economy is based on cheap, abundant oil. Perhaps we won’t find feasible alternatives that would permit us to continue as we have and even grow, and always to grow even more. (See Kunstler’s The Long Emergency.)
In fact, living with a sense of limitation may become basic to our thought-life in the future.
@Aaron (cont.),
“In brief, we can do things that we don’t fully understand. And numerous scientific innovations seem to fit this[.]”
Sure, but this argument cuts every way. Millions starving is only possible if you have a population explosion, led by technological developments that decrease child mortality and increase crop yield, for example. Mass environmental degradation comes about through a similar cause. Technological developments that allow people to live longer can create much greater long-term care costs. These costs in turn can increase the tax burden on young couples, thereby decreasing the fertility rates (a trade-off in favor of the old instead of the young). And so on. Similarly, famine relief efforts can lead to dependency cycles or systemic corruption in the recipient country. So, this general point seems to apply to alternatives to space exploration spending, perhaps even more so.
Saying that going to Mars will turn us into an incoherent Babel filled with pride (when we’ve already sent multiple robots to Mars) is an odd argument. (Like David, I have a hard time knowing what to take seriously in Jason’s essay. I’m assuming he actually means something like he says on this point.) Having said that, I’m not particularly interested in sending humans to Mars, as I’ve stated before, so I’m not sure that I even want to argue the point.
On the general point related to space exploration, however, isn’t it arguable that astronomical exploration and discovery has served to reduce our pride more than increase it? No, we don’t exist in the center of the universe. No, we aren’t the only planet. And so on.
Cheers,
“isn’t it arguable that astronomical exploration and discovery has served to reduce our pride more than increase it?”
You know, in the abstract you’d think that, wouldn’t you?
But be honest. Do you really think “humility” is a common trait of Modern Man?
Looking at American pop culture, it seems to me that the only lesson everybody took from the Moon landing is not the smallness of man, but rather that we possess the power of gods.
The impression I get of today’s average American is that he thinks anything can be solved via enough brute force …. i.e., heaping helpings of money spent on concocting shiny new gadgets and hiring new bureaucrats and other “public servants”.
I admit that this attitude is ironic and odd, given Armstrong’s “I didn’t feel like a giant… I felt very very small,” quote.
Leave your response!
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