Conference 7.286::space

472.0. "Does NASA have its fingers in too many pies?" by JANUS::BARKER () Tue Oct 04 1988 08:26

The following appeared as an editorial the the British-based news magazine
'The Economist' (Vol. 309 No. 7570 - October 1, 1988).  I have copied the 
spelling and punctuation exactly.  Some added notes are enclosed in [].

The views expressed are thought-provoking. 

jb

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			    SHRINKING NASA
			    --------------

	Power, knowledge, fortune and glory:  all are up for grabs
	in space.  NASA should go only for the glory.

Whatever happens to the space-shuttle Discovery, America's National
Aeronautics and Space Administration needs to be persuaded to go back to
the launching pad.  As things stand, NASA has committed itself, and
zillions of taxpayers' dollars, to ill-conceived stunts that make apparent
success synonymous with real failure. 

When Russia beat America into space with the first earth satellite and then 
the first manned orbital flight, it was NASA that organised America's
comeback, culminating in the Apollo moon-landing in 1969.  Complacent in 
victory, America slowed down.  The final Apollo missions were cancelled, 
and NASA busied itself for a decade building space shuttles, which were to 
become the buses for the next era of space travel.  This was foolish.  
Space does not need buses.  Courier motorcycles for delivering small 
packages, and goods-vehicles for larger freight, yes.  A few taxis to take 
travellers to particular addresses may also be useful.  But buses, making 
regular trips, need permanent destinations.  There is nowhere for the 
shuttle to go.

NASA sees that fact as an argument for building a bus depot - its proposed 
manned space station, which gets odder in its specifications and greedier 
in its budget ($16 billion at the last count) whenever you look away.  The 
station, it is said, will make space a place to do business in.  The same 
was said of the shuttle, which is a commercial flop.  NASA would be 
subsidising corporate research and development just to get companies on to 
the station.  Never mind that a station crewed by robots would be much 
cheaper and nearly as good; for NASA, that is not the point.  The station, 
like the shuttle, is another grand way to put people in space.  The public 
wants heroic astronauts, or so Congress believes; if it gets them, Congress 
will keep giving NASA $11.5 billion a year.

During NASA's rise, space was still the great unknown.  So it made sense to 
lump all the unknowns together as a "space programme" and give them to a 
clique of adventurous technologists to manage.  Three decades later, space 
is becoming a routine fact of life.  Weather forecasters, scientists, 
insomniac sports-watchers [the live TV of the recent Olympic Games was 
scheduled between midnight and 8am in Britain] and spies would be lost
without it.  They would all be lost for different reasons:  development has
brought diversity. Scientists, soldiers and businessmen know that there are
many things that can be done in space.  They all have their own space
programmes and their own ways of going about them.  Why should they all
have to deal through NASA, which barks back to the days when space was its
own private mystery? 

For scientists, space travel has heralded a golden age which has benefited 
those who study the earth as well as those who gaze on the stars.  From 
orbit, astronomers can observe the universe in all its glory, seeing types 
of radiation that the earth's atmosphere normally filters out.  Robot 
probes have landed on the deserts of Mars and Venus; others have spun past 
those two giants, Saturn and Jupiter, and their moonly retinues.  Such 
acheivements are sterling.  But they are the acheivements of pure science.  
The only motive for them is intellectual curiosity - the same curiosity 
that sends other scientists to the mountains and the ocean floors, or into 
measureless caverns to bang atoms together and listen for the echos of 
creation.


			Trustbusting time

Why should the laboratories which build scientific spacecraft and their 
instruments be part of the same organisation as the people selling launches 
on the shuttle?  So long as their science is thought valuable, the 
laboratories making scientific spacecraft should be able to stand alone, as 
others of America's great national laboratories do, receiving their money 
directly.

Like the seekers of knowledge, the seekers of military power have need of 
space, but no need of NASA.  They already have their own spaceport, at 
Vandenburg Air Force Base, and their own launch pads at Cape Kennedy [I 
think this should be Canaveral].  All they need are some stout, reliable
rockets on which to launch their satellites.  They should be able to buy
those on the open market - not be chivvied by Congress, at NASA's behest,
into buying hideously expensive room in the shuttle's cargo bay. 

Businessmen are also boxed in.  For years they had to entrust their cargoes 
to NASA.  Now at least they can buy their own launchers.  But the launch 
facilities are still NASA's.  If space is to be a place for business, it 
should be run as such.  The federal government ought to privatise the 
spaceport at Cape Canaveral.  The prices it charges for giving a rocket 
somewhere to go from might have to be regulated at first, at least when the
operations concerned are ones where Europe's Ariane and others do not yet 
offer real competition.  The right signal would then have been given.  If 
businesses want to launch themselves into space, private spaceports will 
spring up when entrepreneurs cotton on to the need for them.  They will not 
necessarily be in America:  Queensland [Australia] is keen to have one; the
highlands of Peru or Kenya might be better. 

What future would there be for NASA without its pure science, without 
contracts for the military, without paying for launchpads and weighed down 
by the misbegotten shuttle fleet?  Preferably a future that builds on the 
glories of the past instead of just basking in them.  The aspects of space 
which have become routine - where NASA is no longer needed - are not the 
whole story.

NASA needs to be given a goal and a deadline - perhaps a series of them - 
as it was in the 1960s.  A space station soon - not a deluxe one designed 
to do companies' research for them, but a simple staging post on the way to 
the permanent moon-base which should be next on the list.  After that, if 
all goes well, a manned mission to Mars.  NASA's aim should be exploration 
and glory for their own sakes.  Taxpayers will pay to have their hearts 
lifted.  Companies should pay for the rest.

    All of this is true but needs a president and a congress that has
    far sighted and intelligent goals for NASA.  Look at the B1 and
    Sgt. York programs (among MANY others) and you will see their
    track record.  Politics should be kept in Washington and not launched
    into space, we owe at least that much to the Challenger 7.
    
    
    Joe K.
    

    Fine what the article says, but I hope It really doesn't say what
    I think it does, that we don't need any more manned missions into
    space.  Robots are fine, but I don't think they can replace the
    unique knack of intelligent, intuitive reasoning we humans have.
    The article seems to downgrade scientific curiosity as something
    that is purely speculation and has no place in the real world. If
    it does say this, then the article is all wet.  If it doesn't, then
    I misread it and you can feel free to tell me that I'm all wet.
    The desire to find out about the universe and its origins is at
    the very core of our human nature and nothing is going to squelch
    that.
    
    If you are talking about NASA's monoply of space flight and
    exploration, then I concure with you.  I think we do need to get
    commercial interests involved.  I think it has been proven again
    and again that our government has a knack of screwing up the works
    with burdensome rules and regulations.  Private commercial interests
    exist for one major reason, to make money for their stock holders
    and if they don't, they are doomed to failure.  Many times, the
    government, except in an election year, does not feel that obligation
    fully and so, in many cases, not all I hasten to add, does not try harder.
    I therefore think we do need to foster private commercial enterprise
    into space exploration, utilizing commercial firms for developing
    lift vehicles, but still using NASA for their expertise in manned
    space exploration.  We need to get out there, and we need men, not
    robots to get out there.  Maybe we need to cooperate with other
    nations, including Russia, in space exploration.
    
    Finally, I thought I heard recently that there was a group that
    are trying to start a company of their own to build launch vehicles.
    If that is true, I hope they are succesdsful.
    
    BTW, I am an amature astronomer, so I am probably biased when it
    comes to scientific and manned exploration of space.
    
                              

    re:472.2 - 
    Commercial Companies should be allowed to go into space, by while
    they are run by Accountants, with no idea of serendipity (finding
    something that you're not looking for), and not by engineers and
    Physicists - I don't think any company will "risk" the investment.
    
    Until it is proven that there is some real profit to be made from
    zero-gravity factories, Commercial companies just won't make the
    move - they've got their stockholders to protect. It's up to non-profit
    making organisations to provide the initial research and development
    for these types to exploit.
    
    I agree entirely that research should be done for research's sake
    - knowledge about ANYTHING is useful, and may become even more useful.
    
    As for using robots - the problem with robots - whether ground
    controlled or self-controlled - is that they are not very clever
    - using a human in the same situation at least guarantees that,
    (with training) the operator has at least some common sense, and
    100 million years of evolution, to deal with unforseen circumstances.