I’ve given up on bothering with the Elhafnawy piece any more. As Jim Bennett notes:
Why would anybody take Elhafnawy seriously? His representation of both the market-oriented space side of the argument and what he defines as “conservatives” are wildly atypical of either community.
It particularly strains credulity that he would represent Nicholson Baker, a whackadoodle pacifist with serious perception-of-reality problems, as any kind of “conservative.” There’s the definition of conservative that’s been in use in the English-speaking world for the past century or so, which is to say, preserving the values that support a constitutional representative political system with a market economy, and then there’s Elhafnawy’s definition. Elhafnawy should just invent a word, maybe (typing at random, here) “dhziuueybdcnma” or ” uaygsrabsjdbue” to represent whatever he is using the word “conservative’ to describe, and let the rest of us use the words of the English language as they are generally understood.
Not only “wildly atypical,” but completely unsubstantiated. If this were an academic paper, given its anecdotal quality (except it only has one actual anecdote, with an unnamed source), it would be tossed out. One has the feeling that he wanted to do a Diane Fosse thing, a sort of “spacers in the mist,” but couldn’t be bothered to actually document his observations. At least Fosse and Jane Goodall named names.
But for the two or three people who are on the edge of their seats, here’s my thesis.
It’s genetic.
OK, not quite that simple, but it’s true. I was born to think space is important. Now I don’t mean that it’s genetic in the sense that my whole family, or even any of my ancestors share my views, and passed them on to me. They didn’t and don’t. If they did and do, that would in fact be more of an argument that it’s environmental (we were all brought up to believe this) but we weren’t. I wasn’t. I was born this way, as surely as I was born an extreme heterosexual. I know other spacers who are the same way — no one else in their family is into space, no one taught or told them they should be, and yet they are.
Thus, it’s some weird recessive, or a mutation.
Which makes sense, given that there aren’t very many of us. There aren’t very many explorers in general. If everyone was out exploring all the time, nothing else societally useful would get done.
This is my explanation for “progressives” (such as Ferris Valyn or Bill White) who betray their ideology by supporting human expansion into space. 😉
Now, having said that, there is a political component, and a reason why there are an inordinate number of libertarians in the space movement (and space enthusiasts in the libertarian movement, with a significant overlap). I discussed it years ago, back in the early days of this weblog (no need to follow the link — I’m reposting in entirety):
As a follow up to today’s rant over our “allies” in Europe, over at USS Clueless, Steven den Beste has an excellent disquisition on the fundamental differences between Europe and the U.S. They don’t, and cannot, understand that the U.S. exists and thrives because it is the UnEurope, that it was built by people who left Europe (and other places) because they wanted freedom.
I say this not to offer simply a pale imitation of Steven’s disquisition (which is the best I could do, at least tonight), but to explain why I spend so much time talking about space policy here. It’s not (just) because I’m a space nut, or because I used to do it for a living, and so have some knowledge to disseminate. It’s because it’s important to me, and it should be important to everyone who is concerned about dynamism and liberty.
And the reason that it’s important is because there may be a time in the future, perhaps not even the distant future, when the U.S. will no longer be a haven for those who seek sanctuary from oppressive government. The trends over the past several decades are not always encouraging, and as at least a social insurance policy, we may need a new frontier into which freedom can expand.
Half a millenium ago, Europe discovered a New World. Unfortunately for its inhabitants (who had discovered it previously), the Europeans had superior technology and social structures that allowed them to conquer it.
Now, in the last couple hundred years, we have discovered how vast our universe is, and in the last couple decades, we have discovered how rich in resources it is, given will and technology. As did the eastern seaboard of the present U.S. in the late eighteenth century, it offers mankind a fertile petri dish for new societal arrangements and experiments, and ultimately, an isolated frontier from which we will be able to escape from possible future terrestrial disasters, whether of natural or human origin.
If, as many unfortunately in this country seem to wish, freedom is constricted in the U.S., the last earthly abode of true libertarian principles, it may offer an ultimate safety valve for those of us who wish to continue the dream of the founders of this nation, sans slavery or native Americans–we can found it without the flawed circumstances of 1787.
That is why space, and particularly free-enterprise space, is important.
And current events are not very encouraging with regard to the direction of the country. A significant number of people (though not, I think, despite the recent election results, a majority) want to Europeanize us. If it happens, there’s nowhere to go but up.
[Update early afternoon]
(“Progressive”) Ferris Valyn is soliciting ideas for a(nother) Netroots Nation discussion on space over at Kos (he really should get his own site). I find the “more progressive than thou” food fight in comments pretty amusing.
[Friday afternoon update]
I have a follow-on post here for anyone interested.
If it happens, there’s nowhere to go but up.
And maybe that’s the real reason so many libs detest the idea of commercial space access — it’s the perfect iron curtain, the Iron Law of Gravity.
By the way, don’t discount Elhafnawey’s piece entirely. It’s raised buzz in the space blogosphere precisely because he did raise so many valid points. The “Falcon 9” defense, for instance.
That’s a specific example, but surely you don’t contest his point that there’s a fairly broad thread of argument on your blog and some others that makes strongly worded but ultimately unproveable assertions about what the commercial space industry COULD do if nutured in the “proper” way.
I would say it pertains especially to those who prefer to call themselves “NewSpace” proponents. Many of them go to Space Access every year.
It’s a fair point and one that needs to be said, because without it you lose perspective on what is real and what is fantastic.
Hmm. I’m not sure the classical liberalism in your modern space enthusiast really penetrates to the core. I suspect in quite a number it’s a fairly thin layer on top.
I’m actually reminded more of the military, which is somewhat similar, in that there’s often a layer of liberalism on top, Don’t Tread On Me, et cetera — but underneath, there are often strong ideas that men — well, civilians — are not especially capable of governing themselves, and need a pretty strong and well-funded central government to protect them, at least by funding the military (or as in the present case, space-related R&D). There’s less pure ornery-individualist entrepreneurial spirit than one might initiallly think. (If nothing else, the ventures in question — fighting wars, exploring space — normally demand big and tightly-cohesive teams. Not too many sole proprietors in either business.
What I might argue — sparked by Rand’s apparently coincidental (ha ha, says Papa Freud) mention of heterosexuality — is that the key theme is not liberalism but masculinity, id est, in both cases we’re talking about values that are stereotypically (and typically) found in men, and manly men, too, if you know what I mean. Exploring, daring danger, stiff upper lips, soaring ambition, plus the low value placed on such stereotypical feminine values as empathy (“Oh those poor astronauts!”), consensus, caution, keeping the home fires brightly lit instead of taking a torch out to explore the dark.
To be sure, classical liberalism has a greater appeal to men, or to be precise to the masculine temperament, so the association between prizing masculine values of exploration, daring, strength, altruism and classical liberal values is close. But it’s not identical, and I would say the “masculine” aspect is closer to being fundamental in the space enthusiast. This, of course, matches Rand’s assertion that space enthusiasts are born, not made or taught, meaning it’s a result of your core character.
I also should mention that actual men and women can very easily have aspects of both masculine and feminine temperament in varying degrees. Surely we all agree with The Governator that there are some girly men out there, and tomboyishness is equally well-established. When I say “masculine” I refer to an abstract ideal, not something that is characteristic of every man.
Actually, I probably just need better labels, perhaps testosterone-driven (“adventuresomeness”) and progesterone-driven (“nestingness”), since, really, there are plenty of strong female behaviours, e.g. the femme fatale, that fit squarely in what I’ve called “masculine” behaviour above (daring, adventuresome, individualistic).
Rand,
Interesting post. Two observations:
1. Equating people interested in space with explorers.
This seems questionable at best unless one uses a *very* broad definition of explorer (such as “one who is curious”). If one were ignorant of Rand Simberg’s, or Henry Spencer’s, or Elon Musk’s, or Robert Zubrin’s interest in space would anyone ever identify these individuals as explorers? It almost seems as if you’re defining explorer as “someone interested in space”.
Speaking for myself, I’ve been interested in space all my life but I couldn’t describe myself as an explorer (except, of course, in the very broadest sense). If I won a contest where first prize was a seat on Space Ship Two or $300,000 I think it would take me all of 0.003 seconds to grab the cash.
2. “I was born to think space is important.”
If space *really* is important why invoke genetics? Couldn’t you have come to the conclusion that space is important by mostly intellectual means the same way you concluded that “nuclear physics is important” or “computers are important” or “nanotechnology is important”?
And if space really *isn’t* important you’re admitting to a birth defect. 🙂
Good thinking Jim- take the cash, buy a ride (or two) on Lynx, bank the rest 🙂
Carl, not necessarily to take anything away from your thesis, but masculinity is not synonymous with heterosexuality. There are effeminate heterosexuals, and masculine homosexuals (for some reason, this brings to mind the Simpsons episode where Homer accidentally (and hilariously) takes Bart to a gay steel mill).
Jim, that’s a good point. I didn’t mean to equate the two (though there’s some overlap). I was just pointing out that there are some characteristics that people are born with. I don’t think of myself as an explorer, actually (though I suspect that I do so more than most people).
I suppose I could have come to the conclusion intellectually, but I suspect that it would be an after-the-fact rationalization. One can in fact make the case that space is a lot more important than it is treated by society (for instance, we just had another close call with an asteroid this morning, well inside the orbit of the moon).
But I’m assuming that if I had arguments I could use to convince myself, I’d also be able to use them to convince other people as well, but they don’t seem to have much effect. So I conclude that I’m a lot more amenable to them than others.
Carl Pham,
I think you’re onto something. But if you ask me its not necessarily libertarians or hard conservatives that are overrepresented in space circles, its people with outsider political views altogether. There are a lot of hippy space types out there too.
So either people with outside the mainstream politics are more likely to be attracted to outside the mainstream space advocacy, or vice versa, or else there’s a common factor that makes people in certain groups outside the mainstream interested in both space advocacy and politics (e.g., for hard conservatives, your masculinity explanation). Part of it is that space is mostly a blank canvas, so people of all stripes who get short shrift on earth can hope for a more congenial atmosphere elsewhere.
Rand Simberg,
you may well be right that its genetic. At least, I’ve noticed that when I argue for space, people mostly don’t think I’m wrong, but they still just don’t care. Or maybe its that you and I are bad salesmen.
“…in both cases we’re talking about values that are stereotypically (and typically) found in men, and manly men, too, if you know what I mean. Exploring, daring danger, stiff upper lips, soaring ambition, plus the low value placed on such stereotypical feminine values as empathy (”Oh those poor astronauts!”), consensus, caution, keeping the home fires brightly lit instead of taking a torch out to explore the dark.”
Unfortunately, Carl, this is an argument that can cut both ways. One can equally well argue that space advocacy is a refuge for “girly” men who can talk about “manly” virtues like “exploring, daring danger, stiff upper lips, soaring ambition” without ever being called upon to demonstrate them. Someone talking about kicking terrorist butt might be asked why he’s not down at the recruiting office; someone talking about colonizing the moon runs little risk of being asked why they’re not on the moon.
The attraction of the “manly” aspects of space advocacy might well be vicarious like the guy who reads and watches thrilling swashbucklers but would never dream of signing up for a fencing class or going to sea in anything smaller or less comfortable than a cruise ship.
While I’m certain the “manly” types are well represented in space circles there does not seem to be any shortage of “girly” types boasting “The meek may inherit the earth but the rest of us are going to the stars!” and then going online and ordering another pizza.
Carl, not necessarily to take anything away from your thesis, but masculinity is not synonymous with heterosexuality.
I don’t think I said it was, Rand. I may have expressed myself badly. But I agree you’re right about this.
If one were ignorant of Rand Simberg’s…interest in space would anyone ever identify these individuals as explorers?
Actually, yes. Anyone who dumps working for Big Corp to go into business for himself, fiddles around with several secondary careers (blogging, writing) , who can’t easily confine himself to one major topic in his blog does strike me as a bit of a restless explorer type.
Or were you thinking the phenomenon of “exploration” is limited to the physical world?
“Actually, yes. Anyone who dumps working for Big Corp to go into business for himself, fiddles around with several secondary careers (blogging, writing) , who can’t easily confine himself to one major topic in his blog does strike me as a bit of a restless explorer type.
Or were you thinking the phenomenon of “exploration” is limited to the physical world?”
No, actually I’m trying to make the point that if one is trying to frame an argument using words like “explorer”, which, depending on context, can encompass anything from Burton searching for the source of the Nile to someone changing careers to someone trying to find out where that annoying draft is coming from, one risks one’s argument becoming confusing at best or trivial at worst.
Few people, I suspect, would consider Rand an “explorer” based on a career change – unless they were predisposed to speak of people interested in space in flattering terms.
One can equally well argue that space advocacy is a refuge for “girly” men who can talk about “manly” virtues like “exploring, daring danger, stiff upper lips, soaring ambition” without ever being called upon to demonstrate them.
That’s dumb. “Girly” men by definition don’t need or want a “refuge,” because they don’t feel any particular desire to talk about “manly” virtues, which they consider to be immature and destructive.
No, actually I’m trying to make the point that if one is trying to frame an argument using words like “explorer”, which, depending on context, can encompass anything from Burton searching for the source of the Nile to someone changing careers to someone trying to find out where that annoying draft is coming from, one risks one’s argument becoming confusing at best or trivial at worst.
No doubt. And when riding a bicycle you risk severe brain injury, if you for example you use it to accelerate yourself to 30 MPH and then leap headfirst into a brick wall.
In either case, a modicum of competence and good sense suffices to avoid the “risk.”
If nothing else, the ventures in question — fighting wars, exploring space — normally demand big and tightly-cohesive teams. Not too many sole proprietors in either business.
There aren’t a lot of sole proprietors in the airline business or department store business, either, Carl. Do you think that only the government can run airlines and department stores?
What makes you think that only government can form cohesive teams?
Scaled Composites was not a sole proprietor, but it certainly wasn’t a national government. That didn’t stop Scaled from building SpaceShip One.
Every government agency and its supporters claims their program is analogous to the military. Not just for he Conquest of Space, but the War on Cancer, the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the Peace Corps, the America Corps, etc.
But as Heinlein said, “analogy is always suspect.” The Salvation Army is analogous to an army, but it is not an army; the Conquest of Space is not a war. Even if fighting a war requires a national government, it does not follow that something which is merely “analogous” to war requires a national government.
“cuddihy Says:
March 18th, 2009 at 8:53 am
If it happens, there’s nowhere to go but up.
And maybe that’s the real reason so many libs detest the idea of commercial space access — it’s the perfect iron curtain, the Iron Law of Gravity.”
Well, if they won’t lets us go peacable, we can always use rule .303 as our trump card.
To defent the Kos space bunch, only that doc2 idiot seems to be giving them grief. Another progressive who opposes progress.
Sheesh, Ed, a little too much stew from one oyster. First, I said zip about my personal beliefs, e.g. whether or not space exploration can only be done well by the goverment.
Second, I didn’t even say where space-enthusiasts stand on that particular point.
What I actually said is just that I see a similarity between space enthusiasts and folks who join the military, in that their favored acts of derring-do tend to need large, cohesive, disciplined teams. That means the degree to which ornery individual libertarians are going to be attracted to the business is relatively limited, and that rather than saying why are libertarians attracted to space? it might be more fruitful to say what character trait produces an attraction to both libertarianism and space? Then I tried to guess those traits.
Yes, it’s equally true running Sears Roebuck or United Airlines requires a large, cohesive team. And…er…do you suppose crabbily individualistic libertarians who hate being told what to do are going to be attracted to those careers? I’d say not.
I think Jim Davis, above, is absolutely right.
But here is a poser for you Rand, and your readers: If you think of yourself as interested in exploration, why do I see so little coverage of unmanned space exploration here? I really want to know what the river valleys of Titan look like, and I want to know what is under the ice of Europa and Enceladus, and I want to see what is waiting for us on Triton, and you had better believe I’m waiting impatiently for the results of an ongoing search for planets around Alpha Centauri and other nearby stars (a search that would be hastened and improved upon by observatories in space). Most of all, I want to find out if extraterrestrial life exists, but I also want to see new vistas and find out what’s around us. This isn’t about manned vs unmanned – none of the targets listed above are going to be visited by people in our lifetime, although they’ll surely be visted at some point, and we can start the exploration right now via robots and telescopes. I want to know what those places are like, and I’m surprised I hear so little here about the policy decisions which will either hasten or postpone the exploration of our neighborhood.
I’d like to recommend “futureplanets.blogspot.com” (for policy) and “unmannedspaceflight.com” (for science and engineering) for those interested in another complimentary way to explore space.
complementary, not complimentary. As Carl points out, individualistic libertarians are too crabby to give compliments anyway.
If you think of yourself as interested in exploration, why do I see so little coverage of unmanned space exploration here?
Bob, if you think that I “think of myself as interested in exploration,” you haven’t been reading this blog much. If you’re “interested in exploration,” maybe you should hang out somewhere else.
…individualistic libertarians are too crabby to give compliments anyway.
This is a display of profound ignorance about libertarians.
How do you reconcile the reason you gave for your interest in space above (born to be an explorer) and your lack of interest in exploration that you’re now implying. I must be reading you wrong.
You are reading me wrong. Go read again.
I didn’t say I was born to be an explorer.
I said I was born to believe that space was important.
I see a similarity between space enthusiasts and folks who join the military, in that their favored acts of derring-do tend to need large, cohesive, disciplined teams.
I think you need your prescription checked, Carl. Scaled Composites, XCOR Aerospace, etc. might be “cohesive, disciplined teams” but they are certainly not “large” in comparison to the military.
I’d like to recommend “futureplanets.blogspot.com” (for policy) and “unmannedspaceflight.com” (for science and engineering) for those interested in another complimentary way to explore space.
Because “unmanned exploration” is an oxymoron like “armchair traveller.”
According to the dictionary, exploration is “travel for the purpose of discovery.”
Staying home and watching television is not exploration because it not travel.
I really want to know what the river valleys of Titan look like, and I want to know what is under the ice of Europa and Enceladus, and I want to see what is waiting for us on Triton, and you had better believe I’m waiting impatiently for the results of an ongoing search for planets around Alpha Centauri and other nearby stars
That puts you in a small minority, Bob. Far more people would rather watch of Britney Spears (although I can’t understand why).
Carl Sagan made a case for space as high-brow television entertainment but one question he never answered was why the government should spend billions of dollars to provide anyone with televised entertainment.
Bob, I certainly agree with your passions — I, too, would like to see what’s under Europa’s ice, and whether Epsilon Eridani has Earth-like planets. Imagine how exciting it would be to see the spectral lines of free O2 in the light from an exoplanet! (Nothing we know can produce that but life.) When the MERs touched down on Mars, I used to hit the JPL link about six times a day, to see whether one or the other had advanced 60 cm or photographed a new rock. Nuts, I know.
But that isn’t really the same thing as going there in person, at great personal risk. It’s not testosterone-driven Right Stuff derring-do. It’s progesterone-driven careful nut-gathering for the winter, like most pure basic science. (Indeed, in a sentence that probably encapsulates much of the enduring tension between the “doing this for Science” and “doing this because rockets are COOL” groups within space exploration).
I wouldn’t suggest the same person couldn’t have both characteristics. I do, after all. I love robot explorers and COBE and gamma-ray telescopes, but I also think rockets are grand and would love to walk on the Moon myself.
But recognizing that they’re pursuits driven by separate underlying personality traits — and a given person may have both, one or the other, or neither — goes a long way to explaining why the robot probe and manned spacecraft communites are by no means congruent, and are very often in tension.
Scaled Composites, XCOR Aerospace, etc. might be “cohesive, disciplined teams” but they are certainly not “large” in comparison to the military
Not the point, Ed. They’re large in comparison to individual proprietorships, which is where your rugged individualist likes to be.
Also, there’s nuance here, right? Starting ventures is quite attractive to libertarians. They just tend to sell and get out whenever the thing becomes large enough to start having Company Policies and regular Friday management meetings. It’s not reasonable to look at where the action is among space enthusiasts right now — mostly small start-ups — and draw conclusions. You have to factor in all those large teams that worked for decades for Rockwell, Hughes, NASA and so forth. (And still do; I’m not sure it’s quite fair to say nothing interesting or useful is going on at the big boys, although I realize saying that here puts me at risk of virtual defenestration.)
If libertarianism were a precondition to being a space nut, then there wouldn’t be enough space nuts to staff the big aerospace companies all those decades. They’d all have gone nuts in the first 5 years and fled.
Rand, you’re right. My mistake. Sorry.
—
Edward, as I’m now currently sensitized to reading errors, I can say with confidence that you’ve misread the dictionary. I bet that whatever dictionary you used also had words such as “examine”, “investigate”, and “scrutinize” (which covers telescopes) as well as “travel” (which arguably covers robots, which surely do travel places, but if not, then they are a way for us to examine, investigate, and scrutinze our future travel destinations.)
The VSE must drive you crazy. All those billions of our money, spent by the government, for future televised entertainment. “www.nasa.gov/externalflash/Vision/index.html” is a flashy site, featuring Armstrong, Aldrin, and shuttle astronauts shilling for their fellow astronauts to have their own big TV moments.
—
Carl,
Thanks for your comment. First, my tunnel vision compels me to point out this paper: “www.geosc.psu.edu/~kasting/PersonalPage/Pdf/Segura_etal_A&A_07.pdf” which discusses the possibility of planets with stable abiotic oxygen and how these will be taken into account in the context of the terrestrial planet finder (if we ever fund it).
I also want to strongly recommend “oklo.org”, as the best extrasolar planet site on the web. As for your other comment, I think Jim Davis said it quite articulately, but once again: being interested in rockets is not the same as being interested in taking bodily risks. If you’re interested in (or don’t mind) bodily risk, you’ll be doing activities that involve that now, and not at some future date when space travel is more available and affordable. (Of course, you personally might indeed be a mountain climber or a base jumper, etc. And also of course, I don’t think it would reflect poorly on you if you are not.) Forget about government for a moment — even if all future space travel is privately funded, I think most of us would be interested in it even if we ourselves didn’t get to go and just had to watch it on TV.
Rand, if I understand this right, space is important to you mostly because after America becomes a fascist-not-that-there-anything-wrong-with-that socialist leftist hell, space colonies can provide a libertarian bastion.
Additionally, space is important to you because it offers: fun tourism, vital asteroid deflection capabilities, energy possibilities (solar, He3), platinum and other rare mineral resources, and finally, alternate homes for the human race in the event of a catastrophe. Did I miss any reasons? All of those additional reasons have either been debunked (eg He3) or are not actually important (fun tourism). So that leaves libertarianism, the topic of your post.
How will space habitats enable human liberty? Won’t habitats be like ocean-going ships or antarctic bases, the sort of places where you have to rigorously follow the regulations or you will not only endanger yourself but everyone else too? What is the minimum size for a sustainable space habitat? How will it work? I’m not asking these questions to needle you, but rather, to do one of two things: 1) To ask if anyone has fleshed out a vision of libertarian living in space 2) To encourage you to try to flesh out such a vision. When I think of space colonies, I think of Gerald O’Neil’s visions, which I don’t think would allow for libertarianism. Do you agree? If so, what’s the alternative vision for a space habitat?
Sorry: asteroid deflection is important and has not been debunked. But statistically, it can probably be delayed for 50 years, so it is not that important. And unmanned deflection is a reasonable approach.
Er…Bob, are you just giving me the reference to back up my assertion? Let me quote from page 675:
Our results show that for a habitable planet, rainout of oxidized
species onto a reduced surface will inhibit the generation of an
abiotic “false positive” signal with strong O2 or O3 absorption.
As summarized in Fig. 12, this result is robust to both high stel-
lar UV output and high atmospheric CO2 abundances, as abi-
otic O2 and O3 are not visible for any of our cases, even in the
extreme case of a planet with an atmosphere containing 2-bars
of CO2 and in orbit around a high-UV star.
In short, because O2 is such a reactive species, even if you start with huge quantities of CO2 and invoke high photolysis rates, the O2 produced just oxidizes your rocky surface and disappears. There’s a good reason the Earth’s crust is 40% oxygen by weight.
being interested in rockets is not the same as being interested in taking bodily risks
To be sure. But I suggest they are both manifestations of an underlying character trait. C’mon, Bob, if I assert that people who like to count cards in Vegas and people who like to solve logic puzzles have a certain similar underlying character trait — a fascination with breaking logical system codes, let us say — would you argue I’d said everyone who loves ciphers loves to gamble, too? Character traits are broad things, they can manifest in actual behaviour in different ways. Consider it the equivalent of the many “outlets” a love of power over others can find, from committing serial rape to running for Congress (assuming arguendo those are truly ethically distinct categories).
even if all future space travel is privately funded, I think most of us would be interested in it even if we ourselves didn’t get to go and just had to watch it on TV.
Yes, but you might be very disappointed, too. Or, if you’re not, then I suggest you’ll be interested in watching it when it happens, but you won’t be very interested in making it happen now, years ahead of time, before it’s on the tube. I think there’s a useful distinction between “midly interested observer” and “space nut” that is missing in this dialogue.
How will space habitats enable human liberty? Won’t habitats be like ocean-going ships or antarctic bases, the sort of places where you have to rigorously follow the regulations or you will not only endanger yourself but everyone else too?
Bob, I think you’re identifying libertarianism with its logical extreme only, not allowing for the compromises that everyone makes with reality and others. Libertarians are not antisocial fruitcake survivalists (for the most part), who routinely retire to huts in Montana and live off roots and grubs to avoid having anything to do with other people. It’s not that libertarians are averse to any rules whatsoever, it’s that they want maximum flexibilty to pick the set of rules under which they live.
So the better analogy in the hoped-for future space-based libertarian paradise is not ocean-going NOAA ships but ocean-going pirate ships. Yes, aboard each individual ship you must follow the rules pretty strictly, but between ships there is no requirement of consistency, such as NOAA enforces on its ships. That means, ideally, you have maximum flexibility in deciding the rules under which you live. You can either find a habitat with those rules, or, if you get enough like-minded people, you can found your own.
It’s this model that dominated early colonization in the New World, after all. Early pioneer communities were typically far more intrusive in terms of monitoring personal behaviour than the big cities that came after. However, there was so little connection between the communities (meaning weak local, state and national government, not to mention weak economic ties) that communities could and did vary significantly in their rules, both written and unwritten. Living in backwoods South Carolina would be very different than living in urban Boston, and different still from a Quaker village in Pennsylvania.
It was attractive to liberty-loving immigrants not so much because there’d be no rules, but because there was sufficient variation that you could pick a set of rules you liked, or even get like-minded people together and found your own community, with its own set of (probably quite restrictive) rules that you all liked. Europe, with its increasingly centralized culture and rules, was far more monolithic. Where could you go if you didn’t like the rules and customs the Bourbon court imposed on 17th century France? Nowhere.
Clearly the absolute key to such a vision is the ability of smallish habitats, say no larger than a village, to be functionally independent of others, and of the home planet. That doesn’t mean they don’t trade with each other, but it means the interdependence is not so strong that there is no choice but a uniform code, uniform rules, uniform unwritten social expectations. Whether that is a plausible prospect is a big unknown. The history of humanity in hostile Earthbound environments is not encouraging: there are no colonies of crabby individualists on Antarctica or beyond the 3 mile territorial limit on the continental shelf. Maybe the view isn’t good enough.
Carl, if there is rain, no problem. But there are situations where there is no rain. From the first page of the paper:
Two situations,in particular, appear capable of producing “false positive” signals.The first is a runaway greenhouse planet, like early Venus, on which large amounts of hydrogen escape from a hot, moist atmosphere (Kasting 1997; Schindler & Kasting 2000). Because the hydrogen originates from H2O, oxygen is left behind. The escape of a terrestrial ocean equivalent of hydrogen, unaccompanied by oxygen sinks, could leave an atmosphere containing
∼240 bars of O2 (Kasting 1997). A second conceivable “false positive” is a frozen, Mars-like planet that is large enough to retain heavy gases but too small to maintain volcanic outgassing (Kasting 1997; Schindler & Kasting 2000). The frozen surface would inhibit the loss of oxygen by reaction with reduced minerals, whereas the lack of outgassing would eliminate reaction with reduced volcanic gases (primarily H2) as an oxygen sink. The martian atmosphere contains 0.1%O2 and would likely have
even more if the planet were slightly larger so that it did not lose oxygen to space by nonthermal loss mechanisms (McElroy & Donahue 1972).
Both of the “false positives” mentioned above apply to planets that lie outside of the liquid water habitable zone around their parent star.
As to the rest of it, perhaps we’re both guilty of projection, but here’s me: absolutely fascinated by astronomy and planetary science, equally fascinated by rockets, propulsion techniques, fast watercraft and weird transportation methods but basically adverse to anything that will get me hurt or killed (to a fault). Every once in a great while I take a bodily risk in pursuit of my interests (I once flew a single seat open cockpit wing-in-ground-effect machine at 60mph at an altitude of about four feet despite not having any pilot’s training, which actually would have helped keep me safe from the flip-over problem that WIGs suffer from, and while it was thrilling, I generally hate that kind of thrill and only did it because I wanted to know what it would be like!) I anticipate watching astronauts do amazing things on television, and I will do so with avid interest. As for making it happen, all I’ve done is write and talk to politicians, as well as mild public outreach. Not sure what else to do.
Carl, your second comment about libertarianism is very interesting, and I hope libertarians will comment on it. I’m not one, but I think libertarians oppose restrictive government, and I’d be surprised if they are going to be pleased with the prospect of picking and choosing which restrictive government to control them. Even if you start out with a group of like-minded people, the need for regulations would lead to a powerful government, and power corrupts. Finally, pirate ships? Ha! That’s great! Very creative. I don’t know enough pirate history to be sure, but I bet that being low on the pecking order aboard any pirate ship would be pretty demoralizing if you valued your personal liberty, and getting to pick which pirate ship wouldn’t suffice.
Back to O2 leading to false positives: On page 676 he covers apparently rare cases where the planet is in the so-called habitable zone and does have water, and yet still has abiotic 02 in the atmosphere.
Bob, I don’t think “raining out” here specifically requires rain. In other words, I think it’s “raining” in the sense that sediment “rains” down on the ocean floor all the time.
The model just seems to define a constant sink current at the bottom of the atmosphere which corresponds to redox reactions of O2 (and other species) with the surface, with the magnitude of the current coming from someone else’s empirical estimates. This is what they call “raining out” but it doesn’t seem to require transport by actual rain. Indeed, that would be strange, since over geological times diffusion will do just fine. It doesn’t take that long for O2 at +100km to diffuse down to +0km.
They do mention (but do not treat IIRC) the case of a planet with a max surface temp below 273K, and assert that the lack of liquid water would slow up (or stop) the redox reactions at the surface. The logic here escapes me. To be sure, liquid water is handy indeed for redox reactions — iron kept dry rusts very slowly, after all — but we’re talking geological times, billions of years. Frankly, I don’t see it mattering. You are simply not going to have (for example) any FeS at the surface and 20% O2 in the atmosphere, not after half a billion years.
I totally don’t by the “Venus” exception here. Under runaway greenhose temps, the oxidation reactions will go much faster. I’m a little suspicious of treatments that focus on gas-phase kinetics entirely and ignore (or over-simplify, or treat by assumption) the gas-surface kinetics. There’s a lot of surface. But maybe I’m just missing something.
It could be (especially given the limitations of simulating for a long time) that they’re just asking whether a false positive could exist for a short time, geologically speaking, e..g. a million years or less. I suppose the existence of such statistical freaks are relevant because axiomatically we assume a photosynthesizing planet is very rare anyway, so we’re unable to ignore even very low probability false positives. Haven’t thought about it enough to have a strong opinion.
Hmm. I’m not sure your personal history really argues against my point. I don’t really equate “derring-do” with recklessness. Indeed, there’s a strong theme of good control of what’s happening in the behaviour. It’s…hmm, how to put this…it’s enjoying the mastery of the danger. The situation has to be intrinsically dangerous or challenging, e.g. if you completely screw up you’ll die, but that doesn’t mean at all that the adventurer is careless and takes unnecessary risks. Quite the contrary, I would say; a fighter pilot (for example) is very careful, as careful as he can be, knows his machine very well, thinks out what he’s doing as far as he can. As I said, it’s more the mastery of the beast, the raw forces, that is attractive, than any semi-suicidal needless flirtation with harm. (Which is why it’s stereotypically male, huh? The attraction of mastery.)
I bet that being low on the pecking order aboard any pirate ship would be pretty demoralizing if you valued your personal liberty
Yes and no, Bob. It depends a lot on what the first derivative is, too, i.e. d(liberty)/d(time). if you start off low, but have high expectations of advancing, you may be happy enough. Generally, I believe the major restraining force on all crew of early sailing warcraft (which all had hideous living conditions), whether pirate or conventional naval, was the lure of plunder (or “prize money”) and the possibility of a life on your own quarterdeck.
In other words, opportunity is a very important component of how people rate their liberty. Not just how free they are right now, but how free they will be, starting from where they are right now.
Not the point, Ed. They’re large in comparison to individual proprietorships, which is where your rugged individualist likes to be.
Is Burt Rutan working for Scaled Composites against his will? Or does he not fit your definition of “rugged individualist”?
When you compare space exploration to warfare and say both require “large teams,” clearly that does not imply a team of 30 people. The US military has 3 million active duty and reserve personnel.
If libertarianism were a precondition to being a space nut, then there wouldn’t be enough space nuts to staff the big aerospace companies all those decades.
Who said it was? If libertarianism were a precondition for being a space nut, NASA would have centers named after libertarians instead of liberal Democrats.
The mainstream aerospace contractors I’ve met tend to be left of center and bemoan the fact that the government won’t give their companies more money for NASA projects instead of military projects.
I think libertarians oppose restrictive government
Not absolutely, any time any where. They’re not anarchists. They are quiet happy with laws against murder and rape. They love laws guaranteeing property rights, of course.
And they are fine with these laws, the right laws, you see, backed up by a strong and effective police force, themselves kept in check by strong individual liberty rights, guaranteed by…well, at this point the libertarian fantasy world gets a little fuzzy, that old problem of quis custodiet ipsos custodes. There’s often some hand-waving about how an enlightened citizenry will rise up (somehow) and guarantee threatened rights of an individual, on a Paster Niemoller basis (“it could be me!”).
More reflective (experienced? cynical?) individuals will argue, as I have above, that the only real guarantee of individual rights is your right (and ability) to just leave, to vote with your feet and go somewhere else if your individual rights aren’t generally respected by the majority. This gets us back to Rand’s point, that for a very long time in Western human history there has been that ability, to take off over the horizon if the local autarch got too oppressive. (China seems to have developed differently. No where to go because of the powerful Mongol state to the north and east, the Pacific to the West and South? Got me.)
We are living in the first major age when that is simply not possible. With the convergence in the First World of governing philosophies and major social myths, we really are on the verge of One World Culture, inescapable anywhere on the planet (unless you want to go back to the Dark Ages, in Iran, or right back to the Neolithic, in Africa). Some folks find that thought….disconcerting. Do I want to live as just one more well-socialized worker ant in an increasingly dense and organized megatonnage of other worker ants? Take pride increasingly only in our massive collective achievement — the mighty tower! the bones picked clean! the healed plant! — and decreasingly in what I wrest from chthonic chaos with my own two hands? Well…
Edward, as I’m now currently sensitized to reading errors, I can say with confidence that you’ve misread the dictionary.
I’m not surprised, Bob. You’ve shown a great tendency to say with confidence things that aren’t so. 🙂
I bet that whatever dictionary you used also had words such as “examine”, “investigate”, and “scrutinize” (which covers telescopes) as well as “travel” (which arguably covers robots, which surely do travel places, but if not, then they are a way for us to examine, investigate, and scrutinze our future travel destinations.)
Hm. It’s unfortunate that you weren’t sensitized to the difference between literal meanings and figures of speech. 🙂
If you can’t tell the difference between exploring a foreign land and watching the Travel Channel, that’s your problem. There is a difference whether you recognize it or not.
The VSE must drive you crazy. All those billions of our money, spent by the government, for future televised entertainment.
And your point is what? Simply that you believe if the government does something, that proves it’s the right thing to do?
Missed this before:
As Carl points out, individualistic libertarians are too crabby to give compliments anyway.
Are you feeling unappreciated, Bob? You’re the most reasonable soi disant leftist squish I’ve met in a long time. I’d be happy to share a lifeboat with you, and certainly happier than with, e.g. 66% of the potheads at reason.org. One odd peculiarity of we lovers of liberty is we prize individual character — grace, wit, good sense, loyalty, empathy — over intellectual convictions. You’re OK, just deluded in certain ways. I’m sure you’d return at least half that sentiment, although I wouldn’t bet anything valuable on which half, ha ha.
Better now?
Isn’t the idea of O’niell space colonization that groups of people of all stripes can go out and create whatever societies turn them on? The libertarians want to go out and create the space version of Hong Kong. Perhaps a group of nudists want to go out and create their own colony where nudity is acceptable.
Liberals are supposed to be in favor of diversity. Shouldn’t they therefor be in favor of the kind of space development where everyone can go out and do their own thing? One would think that they would at least be in favor of getting rid of those pesky libertarian types by getting them to leave the Earth.
I guess I am clueless about the liberal mind.
I just saw the Daily Kos comments about a new space round table. “doc2” seems to be more opposed to government funded space programs than about purely privately financed space projects. What is the problem with this worldview? Even on the ‘net (where all of the loonys hang out) there seem to be very few people who oppose privately financed space ventures, as opposed to government-funded space ventures.
Kurt, as liberal, I have no probelm with diverse space colonies doing their own thing (as long as they aren’t torturing children or something). My contention is that libertarians would find them restrictive. Heck, maybe I’d find them too restrictive too. Carl mentioned pirate ships, but think about suburban developments with restrictive covenents — I hate them! I bet most libertarians do too. I’m arguing that while suburban neighborhoods sometimes have overly-restrictive rules to supposedly maintain real estate values, space habitats would have highly-restrictive rules for safety reasons, just as ships and antarctic bases do. Have you ever seen the website (and book) “Big Dead Place”? It was written by a witty alcholic disfunctional worker at McMurdo, and it reveals how civilian workers chafed under the restrictiveness of life at the largest US base in Antarctica. McMurdo doesn’t sound like a good place for a libertarian, and yet McMurdo a much more benign and forgiving environment than a space habitat.
So, my question is: how can space habitats be the sort of places libertarians would enjoy living in, as opposed to places where they’ll grit their teeth and chafe under restrictive centralized regulations until they make their money and leave?
So, my question is: how can space habitats be the sort of places libertarians would enjoy living in, as opposed to places where they’ll grit their teeth and chafe under restrictive centralized regulations until they make their money and leave?
Is this some kind of trick question?
They can be that way because the libertarians will design them to be that way. McMurdo was not designed by libertarians, as far as I know.
I don’t think libertarians hate the concept of gated communities, Bob. What’s Galt’s Gulch, after all? Would the denizens allow a flood of looters to move in, gain a majority on the council, and begin to impose “progressive” government? Certainly not. So there’s definitely a gate there.
Again, there’s a difference between a classical liberal and a Rousseauian back to nature anarchist. Hayek himself pointed out that a strong government has a very important role to those who love individual liberty — in guaranteeing that liberty against the whims of the mob. The Founders felt very similarly, which is why they did not set up a democracy.
The key point, however, is limited government, and it’s not limited in power — c-liberals do not want police armed only with batons, and judges empowered only to admonish and impose fines — it’s limited in scope, in the tasks with which it is charged. A government that strongly defends my right to quiet enjoyment of my property, despite the fact that most of my neighbors are rowdy colleges students who want to party all night, is OK with most c-liberals. But there’s a profound difference between that and a government that proposes to come onto my property, metaphorically speaking, and tell me what I can and can’t do there for the sake of some abstract idea of public morals, or which proposes to draft me into unwilling service of others for the same abstract idea.
I’m not sure your examples of scientific research bases is especially applicable. (And you could adduce the same things about NASA spaceflights.) Part of the purpose of government regulation in these places is to avoid embarassment to the government. You’re not allowed to say “fuck” where cameras might see it, in other words. This is exactly the sort of “public morality” nonsense that c-liberals consider not a legitimate function of government. Presumably, if c-liberals set up their own space hab, this function will be ruled out of bounds from day 1.
I wondering about the details of the design.
I wondering about the libertarian aspects of the design, but I suppose the engineering details of the colony must be known as well. So, for example, on a spinning habitat, there will be regulations about where masses can go, so as to not throw the habit off balance. There will be restrictions on air quality, obviously, and restrictions on activities that can start a fire or cause a hull breach and so forth. There will be restrictions on radio broadcasting (just as there is here on Earth). The right to private property will have to be subservient to the needs of the habitat, right? Will economic competition within the colony be how to get things done? If there is aquaculture farming, will different groups compete for customers, or will the function of the farming be too vital to allow people the freedom to fail?
This is hard, because it requires me to envision a space habitat at the same time that it requires me to think about libertarianism. Rand, you’ve had more practice than me at both of these issues. It would be interesting to hear you (or one of the other libertarians here) flesh out some of the aspects of being a libertarian in space.
Maybe what I’m asking is: what would a libertarian coal mine or steel mill be like, for those living in the company town?
what would a libertarian coal mine or steel mill be like, for those living in the company town?
Well, presumably, the owners of the company would be the workers, so it would look pretty much the way they wanted it to look. If it were otherwise, it would be silly to call it libertarian.
To what extent is there a commons on a libertarian space colony? To what extent are there centralized resources that must be available to everyone? To what extent will people be doing their own thing, setting their own hours and even their own goals, and to what extent will they need to synchronize their activities with others. Once the population is large enough, the need for sharing resources and synchronizing activities will require some sort of centralized authority, and soon after, you’ll be chafing under its requirements.
“doc2″ seems to be more opposed to government funded space programs than about purely privately financed space projects. What is the problem with this worldview?
I’m not sure what problem you see, but I’d say this analysis is overly simplistic because of the implicit assumption that “government funded space programs” means NASA. In actuallity, the military has a very large unmanned space program. So, there are at least 8 possible groups people could beling to:
1) Those who favor funding for NASA, military, and commercial projects.
2) Those who favor funding for NASA but oppose more funding for mil and commercial.
3) Those who favor funding for NASA and mil but oppose more funding for commercial.
4) Those who favor funding for NASA and commercial but oppose more funding for mil.
5) Those who oppose funding for NASA, military, and commercial projects.
6) Those who oppose funding for NASA but favor more funding for mil and commercial.
7) Those who oppose funding for NASA and mil but favor more funding for commercial.
8) Those who oppose funding for NASA and commercial but favor more funding for mil.
Of course, there are also different programs within NASA, the military, and commercial space, so you will find people who support funding for one NASA program and oppose funding for another. And there are different types of “support.” One person may support funding for a program and believe it should be increased every year, while another supports funding the same program but believes the current funding is adequate (or perhaps even excessive).
Pundits seldom deal with this complexity because it does not lend itself to 1000-word essays.
Carl mentioned pirate ships, but think about suburban developments with restrictive covenents — I hate them!
Bob, the point you miss is that no one forces you to move into a development. You are not bound by such covenents unless you agree to accept them, usually in writing.
By contrast, the US government requires you to accept a great many restrictive covenents (they call them “regulations”), and you can’t avoid those as long as you live in the US. Some even apply to US citizens living abroad.
I find it odd that you would hate voluntary regulations that you agreed to but love mandatory regulations that are forced upon you.