May 29, 2004
The great launch vehicle debate
Greg Allison (NSS), Bob Zubrin (Mars Society), and Rick Tumlinson (Space Frontier Foundation) debated on launch vehicles after the shuttle here at ISDC today. Greg and Rick argued for private development, with an eventual heavy lift only when a real market for it exists. Rick particularly emphasized prizes and incentives. Bob argued for a government-developed heavy-lift vehicle, possibly shuttle derived. Greg referred to the "Shuttle protection agency" effect, that really needs to get the shuttle out of the way before we can get the private development we need. Bob argued against on-orbit assembly due to experience with cost of ISS assembly.
Final score: 4 votes for Greg, 26 for Rick, and 32 for Bob.
My guess is Greg confused everybody with his fast-talking southern-accented argument from evolution :-) Or else they mistook him for Ralph Nader...
Posted by apsmith at 03:35 PM | Comments (4)
Top 10 reasons for NOT going into space
This list of reasons given against space exploration, and some suggested answers, were given at one of the ISDC sessions this morning. Seemed pretty interesting:
10. We haven't finished exploring Earth yet
9. Space is "just another rich white guy's playground"
8. You're fantasizing if you think they'll ever let you go.
7. It's against God's plan
6. Space is a military concern, not appropriate for civilian activities
5. Space is too dangerous: those thousands of launches will damage our atmosphere, one nut up there could take us all out
4. Anything we want to do in space we can do robotically.
3. We have to mature as a species - we've destroyed Earth, we shouldn't destroy the other planets too.
2. Space is an enormous investment that will never pay off for Earth
1. As long as one child goes to bed hungry, we shouldn't spend money on space. The majority want the money spent elsewhere.
How would you respond to these questions? Cliff McMurray, Seth Potter, Jim Plaxco, Ronald Creel, and Tom Jaquish gave some good responses this morning here. But at least on one I think they could have done better.
The one that concerned me was the response to reason #2. We talk about spin-offs far too much, and that was (at least somewhat) the tone of the responses. Of course it was getting late and perhaps they had more to say. But to me the real benefit of space is not spinoff, but the direct economic benefit we will be getting from the things we do there. Resource utilization, energy from space, the adventure of exploration, the new thriving communities in space that are the stated vision of NSS. Seth Potter did mention Lewis and Clark, and the opening of the West, but I think we need to be even more explicit about the economic benefits that already come, and will come.
Posted by apsmith at 11:38 AM | Comments (9)