For those few people who didn’t manage to hear me on the radio last night, the show’s available on line now.

Last night, in a radio interview, the host asked me if, despite all of its problems, there was any way to get much in the way of real use out of the International Space Station.

I have to admit that I was stumped.

Many years ago, I became disillusioned with mainstream space activist groups whose primary strategy to achieve their goal (space settlement) seemed to be blinkered and unwavering support of almost anything that NASA said it wanted to do. This was because, when I looked at NASA’s stated plans, I couldn’t see any clear path from them to one that would achieve that goal. The activists’ philosophy seemed to be that it was better to have any manned space program, no matter how orthogonal–even counterproductive–to their objectives, than none at all.

There are many reasons that the road to a spacefaring civilization doesn’t go through the International Space Station, and I don’t have column space to recount them in their entirety here. But briefly, the station was designed primarily for microgravity research (a use for which the hype has far exceeded the actual results to date). For technical reasons, this makes it unsuitable for other uses, such as a transportation depot, or a hotel. In the eighties, when we looked at all of the conflicting requirements inflicted on our unitary (of necessity, because no one ever conceived of multiple platforms) space station concept, we said that it was like designing a hospital and clean room in the middle of Grand Central Station.

But even if its design were flexible enough to accommodate new future uses, the fact remains that it’s in an orbit almost useless for most needs, for purely political reasons, in a decision made a decade ago.

In 1993, in the face of continual schedule delays and budget overruns caused by program mismanagement and multiple redesigns (partly a result of the requirements schizophrenia described above), it was on the verge of being cancelled. The Clinton administration, like most administrations, never had much interest in the space program, but it latched onto the idea of using it as a means of cooperation with the newly-democratizing Russia. It didn’t matter that it was space, except that once again, as in the space race of the sixties, that was the only area in which the Russians had technical expertise to (this time) cooperate (as opposed, then, to compete).

Of course, what was important to the administration was not building a space station, but finding a convenient pot of money with which to provide foreign aid that wouldn’t come out of the State Department’s budget. So the program was restructured to include them, and with the support of the administration to rein in wavering Democrats, it survived a congressional decision by a single vote.

That was the point at which it became clear to many that the program had very little to do with actually building a useful space station, but for those desperate to preserve “the manned space program,” the Faustian bargain was acceptable. They were willing to kill the program (in terms of ultimate utility) in order to save it.

The problem is that, because Russia cannot launch into low-inclination orbits (those nearer the equator) from their high-latitude launch sites, we had to put the station in a high-inclination orbit. It’s now in a poor (essentially useless) location to serve as transportation node for more ambitious manned flights to the Moon or beyond.

Some have suggested that it could be the initial hotel for space tourists. There are a couple of problems with this.

First, because of its high inclination, it is much more costly for us to get to (payload is greatly reduced for high-inclination orbits). But the real problem with that idea is that it wasn’t designed for that, and with the noise, and cramped quarters, and paucity of windows, it’s far from an ideal space resort. That might be all right, if it has no competition, but almost as soon as launch costs get low enough to allow this to be a viable use for it, they’d also become low enough to allow the construction of a dedicated tourist hotel, made affordable by affordable launch, and custom designed to the market.

If we solve the launch cost problem, building useful space stations in useful locations will become a trivial task, relative to attempting to jury rig the existing one. If we can’t solve the launch cost problem, then the program is probably not worth continuing.

No, the ISS is probably a technological dead end, even if its construction is eventually (even in the face of the travails of the Shuttle program) completed. Like the Shuttle, what lessons we will learn from it will be mostly negative–how not to do things, and that applies not just technically, but programmatically. It will not be our springboard to the stars, or even back to the Moon. Sometimes in this life, there are lemons from which one cannot even make lemonade.

Sadly, in retrospect, my host’s question reminds me of the Simpsons episode in which (in a satire of the beloved musical The Music Man), the town of Springfield builds a monorail, and the project, using substandard parts and training, goes Terribly And Hilariously Wrong.

At the end of the episode, we hear Marge’s voice intoning: “And that was the only folly the people of Springfield ever embarked upon. Except for the popsicle stick skyscraper. And the 50-foot magnifying glass. And that escalator to nowhere.”

As the script description says, “The magnifying glass focuses the sun’s rays on the skyscraper, igniting a fire. Meanwhile, people rise to the top of a huge escalator, only to fall off when it reaches the top.”

Substitute American people for Springfield citizens, Congress for Mayor Quimby, and a succession of NASA officials for slick, fast-talking monorail salesman Lyle Lanley. The result is a frustrating, and all-too-valid metaphor for our nation’s manned space program over the past three decades. In a sense, we’ve built our own escalator to nowhere.

Some scientists think they’re likely to find an earth-like planet in the neighborhood (i.e., within a few light years) in the next decade or two. Obviously, it would be pretty neat if they do, but I think that they’re indulging in a little wishful thinking here:

Levinson says he believes the knowledge that another Earth exists will lead to a public clamor for more powerful space propulsion systems, ones that can carry probes to other stars in a few decades. ”I think that will be the real start of the space age, and everything we’ve done from the 1950s until now will be seen as a prelude,” he says.

I see no reason to believe this. There are a number of interesting planets in our own solar system that we need better propulsion to explore properly, and there’s been no notable public clamor for that. He’s going to have to look for a different motivation, and source of funds, if he wants to see starships. I think it will be done privately.

A woman was charged with public lewdness for allowing herself to be tied to a picnic table and paddled with a boat oar.

I like my foreplay (or should I say, oarplay?) a little less complicated, myself.

Consumer confidence is up, for the second week in a row.

Consumer confidence is up, for the second week in a row.

Consumer confidence is up, for the second week in a row.

Jim Oberg emails:

ALERT: Tomorrow may be ‘Eureka Day’ — the solution to the Columbia catastrophe.

At a one-hour briefing this morning by Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) member Scott Hubbard, the results of last week’s air-gun-fired foam impact test were summarized.

Basically, the investigators were astonished at the amount of damage when a fiberglass panel was used as a target, and they expect a better-than-even chance that tomorrow, using an actual shuttle leading edge panel (‘RCC’), they will break a hole in it.

The test will take place, weather permitting, in San Antonio. If the impact is as powerful as expected — like getting hit with a 500-mph basketball is how Hubbard described it — the ‘missing link’ in the causal chain that doomed Columbia Feb 1 may finally be on hand.

The experiment was surprising, Hubbard said, because the investigators (and NASA, which never even thought to perform such a test in the 25 years before this disaster) didn’t appreciate how an entire mechanism of thermal protection hardware bolted together could flex and vibrate under the impact, suffering much more stress than just one piece of the system held firmly in place on a test stand. This ‘missing link’ has frustrated investigators for months.

Last week’s test was using fiberglass, to verify the aiming of the air-gun. tomorrow’s test will use an actual RCC panel from a flown shuttle. The RCC material is stiffer than fiberglass but four times weaker. If a piece breaks loose, it could be the explanation for the mystery orbiting object that was tracked falling away from the shuttle in orbit.

If a piece breaks loose tomorrow, ‘pieces will fall INTO place’ on the investigation.

The full presentation and dramatic photos are now on-line.

Further impact tests are planned through the end of June, but if the impact tomorrow shatters the leading edge panel, it will be THE most important day since the spaceship and crew were lost, more than four months ago.

So they may finally have the smoking gun. It’s been pretty clear for weeks what happened. What remains unclear is what we do about it.

Susanna Cornett has a lengthy and thoughtful post on the interaction between blogs and the professional media.

The LA Times has an article today about dissension within the ranks of the astronauts over whether or not the Shuttle should have a crew escape system (registration required).

“We can’t afford to lose another crew,” said former chief astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson, who attended Tuesday’s meeting. “We have to put in place an escape system. The young astronauts say we don’t need it, but we shouldn’t listen to them.”

Yeah, what do those stupid youngsters know? Well Hoot, maybe they know something that you apparently don’t–we can’t afford a crew escape system, at least one that’s practical and useful. The Shuttle in its current form simply cannot accommodate one, despite the fact that it probably can’t be made much more reliable than it is (yet another reason to retire it). Entire fleets of new vehicles could be built for the costs of trying to knit this sow’s ear into a silk purse (at least if done by the private sector).

Indeed, astronauts are divided on the issue. Some have said crews deserve a fighting chance to survive, given the frailties of the space shuttle. But other astronauts have rejected the idea, saying they accept the high risk and that placing an escape system into existing orbiters is not practical or affordable. Putting too high a premium on their safety could kill the space program, some worry.

They should worry. Charles Bolden and Norm Thagard have it right:

“The reason we don’t have a crew escape system is that it has been thoroughly assessed and the people who did the assessment said it wouldn’t work,” Bolden said. “We need to educate the public that the astronaut business is dangerous work.”

Norm Thagard, associate dean of Florida State University’s School of Engineering and a former astronaut, agreed with Bolden that the costs would be prohibitive and the benefits uncertain. Thagard, who once flew combat missions over North Vietnam, said, “Historically, it was acceptable that astronauts could die too. I wonder what kind of a world we live in if the public can no longer accept that kind of risk.”

But some don’t want to accept reality.

Rhea Seddon, a medical doctor in Tennessee and veteran of three shuttle flights, said she remains open-minded about the need for an ejection system.

“Some people say we have to suck it up and we have to take our losses,” Seddon said. “I am not sure everybody is real comfortable with that approach.”

If you’re not comfortable with that approach Rhea, you can go get another job. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, and there are many people waiting in line to take your place if you don’t like the odds now.

The ego of some of these people just infuriates me. They’re stuck in the sixties, when people actually cared about the space program, because we were in a death struggle with communism. They think they’re irreplaceable, but don’t think through the consequences of losing another third of the orbiter fleet, which would be much more devastating to the program.

There are some other dirty secrets revealed in this article.

…the shuttle is mostly flown by computers already and the few manual flight duties performed by pilots, such as the final landing approach and space docking, could also be automated. The only reason pilot astronauts have any role in flying the shuttle is that they exercise enormous clout within NASA.

“They don’t call them the astronaut mafia for nothing,” Nelson said.

Not surprisingly, astronauts have rejected Nelson’s idea.

In this case, the astronauts are right, in the sense that the escape system being proposed doesn’t make any economic sense, but this shows the tension between spacecraft engineers and astronauts that goes all the way back to the early sixties, and the umbrage that test pilots took at being “spam in a can.”

The problem is that Shuttle, despite its airplane-like appearance, was designed based on a heritage of transportation-by-munitions that came out of Apollo. It cannot be redesigned to be either safe, cheap or reliable. A truly piloted vehicle will be a new vehicle, from the ground up (and no, that doesn’t mean Orbital Space Plane). Private enterprise is finally working on the problem, no thanks to NASA, or the government in general.

But if we want to simply continue the farcical and costly charade that is our “manned spaceflight program,” Shuttle is good enough, just as it has been for twenty plus years, and NASA will never have trouble finding people to fly it as long as it flies, with or without a pointless and outrageously expensive bandaid solution of a “crew escape system.”

After all, it’s clear that no one in a position to make policy really cares that much about affordable or routine, or even safe access to space, as long as the money flows into the right congressional districts and countries, and the Shuttle (and the space station) have both proven to be world beaters when it comes to that.