Maybe The Ming Dynasty Had The Right Idea

Legend has it (whether true or not) that, after Zheng He’s voyages were shut down, it was made a capital offense to build a ship with more than four masts.*

If I were Norm Augustine, I would suggest that NASA be encouraged to innovate by being forbidden to develop a vehicle with more capability than the biggest existing Atlas V. This would finally force them to stop wasting money on the heavy-lift fetish, and get on with the business of developing a cost-effective (and scalable) in-space transportation infrastructure. If they really want to continue to indulge in this economically irrational behavior, let them do it with their own money, or find some crazy investor, instead of continuing to screw the taxpayers.

*It was not the size restriction of the ships that prevented the Chinese from being a naval power. The Portuguese and Spanish conquered the New World with much smaller ones.

48 thoughts on “Maybe The Ming Dynasty Had The Right Idea”

  1. Why not forbid them to build any operational launch vehicle? X-vehicles would still be OK, as long as they are smaller than the smallest Delta Medium.

  2. I agree with Martijn. Otherwise, we might see NASA vehicles competing directly with commercial vehicles. I don’t like that possibility.

  3. I suspect that if you forbid them from developing a heavy lifter, their enthusiasm for developing anything would diminish. Ares I is primarily a back door to Ares V. But sure, I’d be happy to extend the ban. NASA needs to get completely out of the launch business. The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with Marshall in that scenario. They’d have to switch over to in-space hardware development. After the OMV fiasco, I’d hate to put them in charge of a tug.

  4. I wouldn’t have too much problem with them developing a big honking hypergolic Mars transfer stage. Use commercial launchers with cryogenic upper stages to get the pieces and the propellant to SEL-2. From there do an Earth swingby (fairly cheap from SEL-2) and it’s off to Mars.

    But what is it those guys have been doing all the time after the Shuttle was developed? Didn’t they do the solar array wings for the ISS? And they have a nice propulsion research lab. Let them do research into hybrid rockets, arcjet engines, ISRU fuels (methane, silanes), advanced propellants (gelled propellant, metal-loading, which would also ameliorate the biggest drawback of hypergolics: mediocre Isp and toxicity), non-toxic hypergolics replacements.

  5. non-toxic hypergolics replacements.

    I think that’s an oxymoron. Anything hypergolic is going to be pretty nasty, almost by definition. Hypergolics are not necessary for either storability or reliability. XCOR and others have been developing very reliable igniters.

  6. What about kerosene + additives / H2O2? Second question: would you rather have Marshall mess with something that’s cryogenic or something that’s toxic? 😉

  7. Isp junkie eh? 😉 Is that really all that important for only 2-2.5km/s? OK 5km/s round-trip. Especially with ISRU. I like dense. I like noncryogenic. I like hypergolic. I like reliable and reusable.

    Above all, I like the fact that it may be the least risky path towards pumping as much exploration money into the commercial launch market as possible. And it would still be possible to upgrade to cryogenic depots the minute they become available.

  8. Isp junkie eh?

    No, ISRU junkie…

    I like dense. I like noncryogenic. I like hypergolic.

    Those are highly overrated criteria.

    I like reliable and reusable.

    So do I. Your criteria are not necessary to meet those goals.

  9. Those are highly overrated criteria.

    Perhaps, but if it wasn’t for the toxicity and mediocre Isp, wouldn’t you be pleased to have them if you could? They are still nice, aren’t they?

    So do I. Your criteria are not necessary to meet those goals.

    I believe you. But isn’t it true all three do help with that? Hypergolic means no igniter that can wear out. Dense means you can use a pressure-fed system, without losing too much performance (not that you had much to begin with), so you don’t need turbopumps that wear out. Noncryogenic means less thermal cycling, which should help with reuse. Low Isp isn’t nice, but don’t the lower pressures and temperatures translate to longer engine life?

    Don’t you think that with hypergolics a fully reusable lander

    1) can be developed more quickly
    2) can be reused more often without maintenance
    3) would be easier to maintain in space

    And gels and metal loading improve Isp and reduce handling difficulties. Gels don’t splash and they are much less volatile.

    Suppose you haved metal-loaded MMH gel and NTO @370s Isp with the oxygen and metal coming from ISRU. Would you still be against a fully reusable MMH/NTO lander?

  10. Don’t you think that with hypergolics a fully reusable lander

    1) can be developed more quickly
    2) can be reused more often without maintenance
    3) would be easier to maintain in space

    Yes to one, no to two and three.

    Tell you what. Go out and raise some money to develop a reusable hypergolic lander, and see how many people want to buy it.

  11. Yes to one, no to two and three.

    Can you elaborate on that? Isn’t wearing out of igniters and turbopumps an issue at all? I thought SSME had major problems with its turbopumps which needed far more maintenance than planned. Of course SSME is a bit bigger than what you’d need on a lander…

    And more generally: how soon do you think a fully reusable lander of any kind could be built?

    Go out and raise some money to develop a reusable hypergolic lander, and see how many people want to buy it.
    LOL! I want NASA to build a fuel-hog lander, not the commercial sector, so there will be plenty of propellant launches. The more of NASA’s budget is spent on commercial launch services (as opposed to lander construction) the better. Even if NASA doesn’t do much useful on the moon, the market could still turn that say $3B a year into useful innovations. Fuel hogs are good!

  12. I’d like NASA only building launchers if they are next gen, and adaptable to some market. I don’t care if they sell launch services at cost like Shuttle was supposed to do for a while, or sell the design to be marketed; but I can see the gov developing high risk/high gain systems and advancing the state of the art. MLV, HLV, HTOL SSTO, whatever. But no way should NASA be building redundant – much less cruder – current gen launchers.

    Personally I’d leaning toward a Biamese RLV LOx/RP shuttle, but that’s just me – today.

    😉

  13. Isn’t wearing out of igniters and turbopumps an issue at all?

    Not with sufficient margin. I haven’t noticed that jet turbines are unreliable, or need an unreasonable amount of maintenance.

    And more generally: how soon do you think a fully reusable lander of any kind could be built?

    A fully reusable lander, or any in-space transportation system, is not a major technical challenge, at least anywhere near to the degree that a launch system is. What is the challenge is making it economically practical, which means having the ability to refuel it on the moon and in lunar orbit (i.e., depots). I will be discussing this in my new piece at The New Atlantis, which should be on line in the next week or so.

  14. Martin, it is highly unlikely than any American commercial enterprise will be using hypergolics in any large way. The reason is that the insurance premiums become prohibitive, both for general liability and and (especially) for workers’ compensation (insurance against injury to workers on the job, which is mandatory). Plus the town fire marshals will freak out. It was bad enough getting them to be happy with polybutadiene.

    Rand, I would really prefer we concentrate on structural reforms rather than a one-off hardware fix rule such as vehicle development size. I don’t know exactly how such a rule would get perverted and deliver unintended consequences, but if there were to be a position to that effect on Intrade, it’d be a good bet that it would.

  15. I would really prefer we concentrate on structural reforms rather than a one-off hardware fix rule such as vehicle development size. I don’t know exactly how such a rule would get perverted and deliver unintended consequences, but if there were to be a position to that effect on Intrade, it’d be a good bet that it would.

    I know. Unfortunately, structural reform is a lot harder. But I have some small hope that at least now, we’ll have someone on the twelfth floor who gets it.

  16. Ah, now that’s enlightening. Since I’m absolutely in favour of fuel hogs, I’d also be totally cool with high margins to get reliability.

    Still, I’m not sure I understand your aversion to hypergolics depots and landers as precursors. I think precursors are good. Danny Deger over at NASAspaceflight.com has suggested using in-flight refueling as a stepping stone to depots, essentially turning the lander into a depot. I think that’s a very smart move.

    Hypergolics depots sound like a very useful thing to have, even in the medium to long term. They are not a dead-end like HLVs. And they are a precursor to really, eh, cool things like cryogenic depots. Would you be offended by the mere existence of hypergolics depots or would you just want to make sure work started on cryogenic ones at once? Preferably that should be done by ULA/LM/Boeing since they are the experts on cryogenic fluid management, not NASA.

    How much sooner and how much more cheaply could you develop a fully reusable hypergolic lander, compared to a cryogenic one? Time is money after all. If we had a propellant launch program today SeaLaunch would not be in the difficulty it currently finds itself in.

    Imagine a lunar program with only commercial launchers, say two missions a year because the budget will not allow for more. Assume a lander costs $1B and can be reused five times. After that we’ll reuse it as a cis-lunar crew shuttle, makeshift mini space station or propellant depot. Shuttle fixed costs are something like $2B and assume NASA would end up paying about $500M in EELV fixed costs. A moon mission with a fully reusable hypergolic lander may need an IMLEO of about 250mT. Scrapping the shuttle and reusing the landers saves $2B -$500M + 2*($1B4/5) = $3.1B a year. It also uses 200mT more mass. Still sounds cheaper and more importantly it means 500mT and >=$3.1B a year for the commercial launch industry.

    If it takes 5 years more to develop a cryogenic reusable lander (number plucked from thin air, very interested in what your estimate would be), the hypergolic lander still provides the bigger benefit.

    Time is of the essence. The sooner we can get commercial propellant launches off the ground and lobbying power behind it, the better the effect for the commercial development of space. This is much more important than ISRU, crucial though that is. Depots and high flight-rates will reduce the cost of getting into LEO, ISRU will only reduce the cost of going beyond LEO. Getting into LEO has to come first.

  17. Would you be offended by the mere existence of hypergolics depots or would you just want to make sure work started on cryogenic ones at once?

    I don’t want to presuppose what the best technologies are. My opinion is that developing non-hyperbolics is a better use of development money, but I’m willing to let the market figure it out. If only NASA were…

    If it takes 5 years more to develop a cryogenic reusable lander

    You keep using the word “cryogenic.” What do you mean by that? There’s a huge difference in difficulty between liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen in terms of handling and storage. Going to some other fuel dramatically simplifies things.

    I see no reason that it would take even one year more, except possibly to develop and demonstrate weightless transfer procedures for LOX and other fuels.

  18. You keep using the word “cryogenic.” What do you mean by that?

    Whatever NASA has been using as an excuse for all those years. Marshall people keep harping about how difficult cryogenic fluid transfer is and how important it is to have big launchers because of the volume needed for the fluffy hydrogen. I realise LOX/CH4 is considered to be easier than LOX/LH2, but that would require new engine development. And even Marshall with its love for developing new engines won’t go there. AJ-10 with its stellar reliability record (and current use on Orion) is already available. Let’s take away their pretexts!

    I see no reason that it would take even one year more, except possibly to develop and demonstrate weightless transfer procedures for LOX and other fuels.

    OK, that makes a big difference. So how much more in total before we have (soft) cryogenic depots + reusable landers? If that’s something like 5 years, I’m still leaning towards hypergolics first. If it’s less than that, it may not make sense to do a precursor first. Then again, there’s also development risk.

    All in all I can see how hypergolic depots and landers might turn out to be not all that much easier/cheaper/faster. But I don’t see how they’d be much worse, especially since you could immediately start using “cryogenic” depots for refueling upper stages for transporting propellant to L1/LLO as soon as they became available. You could do the same for landers as soon as those became available. And I’m absolutely in favour of continuing work on CECE and starting work on LOX/CH4 engines immediately.

    Hypergolics sound like a very cheap insurance policy to make sure we get depots, reusable landers and a vibrant commercial launch market. At the very least it will deflect criticism from naysayers who claim orbital propellant transfer is too difficult. The Russians have been doing it since 1978(!) on Salyut-6 and it has seen continuous use ever since, including on ISS today. And Orbital Express has demonstrated American engineers can do it too. Space technology doesn’t get much more mature than that. Hard to argue with that.

    At worst we will have used more propellant for a couple of years than would have been the case if we had used LOX/LH2 or LOX/CH4. That means fewer missions than would have been possible and therefore less “return” on investment. But I say the commercial sector is more likely to do something that’s useful to the commercial development of space purely by launching propellant with its $3.1B of the budget than whatever NASA is going to do with the rest of the money once it reaches the moon.

  19. I realise LOX/CH4 is considered to be easier than LOX/LH2, but that would require new engine development. And even Marshall with its love for developing new engines won’t go there.

    In-space engines are not that big a deal — it’s launch engines that are hard (again, because of the margin issue). XCOR is (or at least was) developing LOX/methane engines, quite affordably.

    Hypergolics sound like a very cheap insurance policy to make sure we get depots, reusable landers and a vibrant commercial launch market.,/em>

    The way to make sure we get that is not by choosing a propellent type a priori, but by making it formal US policy to get propellant depots.

  20. This is as silly an idea as one posed by David Brin one time, to hire some Cossaks to rampage through JSC killing everyone.

  21. This is as silly an idea as one posed by David Brin one time, to hire some Cossaks to rampage through JSC killing everyone.

    Yes. It’s exactly like that.

    [rolling eyes]

  22. I have another great idea. Let’s spur innovation in automobile develpment by forbidding the building of anything larger than a Prius.

  23. The way to make sure we get that is not by choosing a propellent type a priori, but by making it formal US policy to get propellant depots.

    I’d be totally in favour of that. I’d say no manned lander before you have depots and the first manned lander has to be fully reusable. No pressurised surface infrastructure before an L1 gateway station and before ISRU prototypes on the lunar surface. If that becomes official policy, I’ll be thrilled, hypergolics or not.

    But I’d be very wary of another 10 year program, especially one run by NASA. I’d want as few new systems and technologies as possible and many small intermediate milestones. That means I’d still lean towards hypergolics, because I’m afraid NASA would screw up with anything more ambitious.

    Another thing to consider: perception of risk by Congress is also an important factor. Will you get them sold on a depots first policy without pointing out hypergolics depots provide an easy, proven precursor? After all they’ve been told how risky those cryogenic depots are. By the very people that have now spectacularly failed on what they claimed was the safer option. How on Earth would Congress trust those guys to deliver on cryogenic depots? Who would you rather have working on cryogenic depots, MSFC or ULA/Boeing/LM? And might those players not have enough of an incentive to develop cryogenic depots on their own dime once they were part of a propellant launch program? Keeping NASA out of the cryogenics business would also be an insurance against further MSFC screw-ups.

    Serious questions, even though I lean towards one answer.

  24. “Yes. It’s exactly like that.”

    Considering that the Mings ban on any ocean going craft was enforced by the death penalty, yes it is.

  25. >>If it takes 5 years more to develop a cryogenic reusable lander
    ==
    > I see no reason that it would take even one year more,
    > except possibly to develop and demonstrate weightless
    > transfer procedures for LOX and other fuels.

    Well DC-X took 3 years from RFP to functioning LOx/LH demo-craft. A reusable lander (assuming you could shuttle it to some service center to reuse it much) wouldn’t need to be horribly more capable that that.

    Oh, on a aside about ISRU. Given the launcher costs don’t vary much with flight rates, it would be a good idea to do a comparison between ISRU and just shuttling up fuel. from Earth. It looks like it would make more (assuming you have something like a shuttle) to build a LEO to Luna surface and back to LEO craft (like NASA was sketching out in the 90’s), that’s refueled in orbit and landed for servicing and reflown.

    I know, reusables and shuttles are out of fashion now a days, but it’s a lot easier then doing all the ISRU infrastructure and on site servicing center (how would you service a lander without a pressurized hanger? Doing it in space suits on the Lunar dust would be a nightmare.

  26. Considering that the Mings ban on any ocean going craft was enforced by the death penalty, yes it is.

    I didn’t say that it should be illegal. I just said that NASA shouldn’t get any taxpayer funds to do it. But please, continue to be foolishly hyperbolic.

    Martijn, please stop trying to convert me to your religion. As I said, I’ll let the market decide. I really didn’t want this thread to turn into a trade study discussion of propellant types.

  27. “I didn’t say that it should be illegal. I just said that NASA shouldn’t get any taxpayer funds to do it. But please, continue to be foolishly hyperbolic.”
    Rand, you’re the one who brought up the Mings, not I. Don’t think you can mangle an historic analogy without knowing the full history.

    In any case, mandating what NASA *can’t do* in the way of technology development is one of the silliest space policy proposals I have ever seen, which all things considered is saying something.

  28. Fair enough, it’s your site and your thread. I’m slightly hurt at the suggestion hypergolics are a religion for me. They’re not. I’d be thrilled with all cryogenic depots + landers. The reason I keep asking is because I value your opinion highly (unlike those of the usual suspects on NSF.com) and want to learn. You’ve taught me some interesting things today. So thank you for that and I’ll say no more about hypergolics in this thread.

  29. Don’t think you can mangle an historic analogy without knowing the full history.

    Mark, if you had actually read my post, I noted that they made it a capital offense. But not being able to comprehend simple English is nothing new for you.

    Apparently, you’re so anal retentive that I’m not allowed to be inspired by an historical analogy without following it to the letter.

    Very well. I think that building a rocket of more than four masts should be a capital offense, and that only eunuchs should be astronauts. Happy now?

    And I’m not mandating what they can do in terms of technology development. I’m forcing them to actually develop technology, by preventing them from avoiding it (as they’re currently doing) through designing and operating a heavy lifter with antique technology.

  30. It was observed long ago on sci.space.* that in the absence of actual demonstrated competition in the marketplace, all technical discussion about number of stages, propellant types, takeoff/landing modes, etc. is essentially theological. I am not the one that you need to persuade about what kind of propellants a lunar lander should have.

  31. So what should NASA do to stimulate this competition? Or what should Congress do?

  32. That’s a more interesting question (at least for non-engineers, who don’t get bogged down in the technologies and trades). The simplest thing for Congress to do is not authorize any funding for NASA to develop launch systems, and mandate that it purchase all access to orbit, for passengers, cargo and propellant, from the private sector. It should also resurrect the R&T studies that Steidle started and Griffin killed.

  33. An extreme form of that would be to have NASA buy all this at different locations (LEO, L1, LLO and even the lunar surface), so all transport systems would be subject to market forces. Would you even want NASA to develop a lander at all?

    And how do we get to such a model from where we are today? I could imagine NASA always going it alone first and having some COTS program follow it. But you could also do it the other way round. You could rent habitable volume in LEO, from Bigelow for instance, and transport to LEO, say from SpaceX. Once that was operational you could rent volume at and transport to L1 and so on, then something similar on the moon and so on.

  34. Would you even want NASA to develop a lander at all?

    Not really, but that would be an even tougher sell, politically. Ideally, NASA would focus on the R&D necessary to knock down the high risk items (like what they’d on the moon for ISRU tech development) and put out bids for transportation of all the needed elements. NASA needs to focus on the payload business, and get out of the transportation business. But as I said, politically, it will be hard enough just to get them out of the launch business.

  35. If you could get them out of the lander construction business at least they’d no longer have an incentive to keep churning out expendable landers. Isn’t lander construction planned to be done at MSFC, or is it going to be wholly outsourced to LM? Neither sounds very promising.

  36. I don’t think that a lander contractor has been selected yet. But presumably construction, whether reusable or expendable, will take place at some contractor’s facilities. NASA is not a manufacturer.

  37. Very well. I think that building a rocket of more than four masts should be a capital offense, and that only eunuchs should be astronauts. Happy now?

    That was really funny!

    The following comment is directed at Mark, but it might be of interest to anyone who is interested in analogies between the Ming and space exploration. (Rand, I’m reposting this just once, so Mark sees it. Thanks. Mark, I just thought you’d find it interesting – I’m not making any particular argument.)

    I’d like to recommend the comments by “Doug M.” at this link:
    http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=8533#comments

    Doug M. takes on Gregory Benford, among others, and refutes the claims commonly made by space enthusiasts about what happened when China stopped exploring and trading on the high seas in the 1400s. I particularly recommend the comment Doug made on July 8th, in which he compares and contrasts China and Japan, and then takes a swipe at libertarians. I don’t think libertarians should mind — regardless of one’s politics, it is interesting reading.

  38. In that case forbidding NASA from owning let alone developing its own launchers should do the trick. It will pretty much have to rely on depots and will have an incentive to use reusable landers because at the very least it could drive launch rates up and launch costs down. It will not protect us from NASA screw-ups, but that’s perhaps asking too much.

    So what’s the fallback position if no NASA launchers isn’t an option? All crew rotation to ISS shall be done by commercial providers and the lunar program shall use depots?

  39. My hope, actually, is that the new administrator and deputy will come up with some sensible plans without having to be handcuffed by Congress. If anything, Congress (or at least Dick Shelby) will be an obstacle to that.

  40. The unstated 800 pound Gorilla in the room is that NASA gets its political suport for the waste and excess expence – not for the missions. COTS, or a good RLV, doesn’t cost enough per mission to be worth Washington – or the voters – time.

  41. …only eunuchs should be astronauts… The feminists are gonna get you for that one. 😉

    Why is it that once an ‘administration’ is established, budget seems to be the only control? Shouldn’t we be able to hold them to a mission statement that would include them putting our RFPs rather than staffing to do things in house?

    NASA should consist of a single office, some desks and phones.

  42. All of the glamor is in the boosters, but it was the upper stage that should get a lot of the credit. The zero-G on-orbit restartable upper stage.

    So tell me, what contributed more to the early years of space and getting things done. The Agena (hypergolic) or Centaur (LH2-LO2)?

  43. Regarding H2O2/Kerosene: Sure, it is interesting for first stages, but its bad for inner space exploration. You can only get Kerosene on Earth. Kinda. It is possible to manufacture Kerosene from water and carbon using the Fischer-Tropsch process but this is a complex process involving high pressures and temperatures. Kerosene needs to be warmed up in space or it will solidify at -73ÂșC. Space can be a cold place. H2O2 breaks down unless voodoo stabilizers are added to the mix. There is a reason H2O2 was much bandied around after WWII for all sorts of applications and never picked up… It is pretty reactive.

    Regarding LOX/LCH4: Like Rand said, this is a good combination for inner space exploration. LOX is easily manufactured from all sorts of materials, including lunar minerals (think alumina), using simple electrolysis. LCH4 is a liquid in the same temperature range as LOX, with higher density than LH2, and relatively easy to manufacture using the Sabatier process. These are sometimes called space storable propellants because they are liquid at average space temperatures. LOX storage and transfer is fairly well known and used in places such as hospitals, while LCH4 is used in certain places as a fuel for buses. The Korolev bureau came up with a fast LOX/Kerosene fuel transfer system in the 1960s back when R-7 (Soyuz) was supposed to be an ICBM. It was considered too slow for military purposes (think minutes rather than the seconds the military wanted) but is ok for anyone else’s purposes.

    LH2 propellant transfer is not that big a deal either. The problem is storing it for a long time.

    IMO there are two good choices for fast inner space propulsion: LOX/LCH4 and Nuclear Thermal. Solar Thermal could be interesting but it never saw much development for some reason.

  44. I also repeat here something I said (and heard) some time ago. The reliable RL-10 engine is restartable dozens of times and has been tested with both LOX/LH2 and LOX/LCH4 fuels. So I do not see what is the fuss about engine restarts with cryogenics I see mentioned here.

  45. Doug M. takes on Gregory Benford, among others, and refutes the claims commonly made by space enthusiasts about what happened when China stopped exploring and trading on the high seas in the 1400s. I particularly recommend the comment Doug made on July 8th, in which he compares and contrasts China and Japan, and then takes a swipe at libertarians. I don’t think libertarians should mind — regardless of one’s politics, it is interesting reading.

    The problem with Doug M’s post is that he doesn’t actually refute anything. The problems he list are expected under the usual “China turned inward” theory. For example, why didn’t they adopt industrialization? Those coal deposits aren’t out of reach for an empire with the resources the Ming dynasty had. Citing “social and cultural reasons” just jibes with the usual theory. Overpopulation? Europe suffered from that as well yet they developed industrialization just the same. Then after this inconclusive list, he claims none of them had anything to do with Ming decisions back in the 1400’s even though a number of them are predicted consequences of those long ago actions.

    Later on, he compares China to Japan. The key that he ignores is that Japan didn’t continue isolationist policies after 1853. China could have chosen to do the same, but they didn’t.

    Finally, I’m not sure what the obsession with libertarians is anyway. The theory is most enticing for those who back government funded exploration of the Solar System. Those people would not be libertarians.

    My view is that Europe found a better way to develop a high tech, industrialized society. They developed the ideas, the society, the laws, and eventually the technology to build a more advanced civilization. While exploration played a vital role in European society, both as a means of building wealth and as a driver for technological development, it’s worth noting that exploration didn’t play the same role in China. There, exploration was a tool to increase the reach of the Ming empire and draw tribute from far flung places. My view is that Chinese exploration would have never provided the benefits that came from European exploration.

    In particular, I think this leads to a radically different outcome if one considers an alternate history where Europe didn’t become the most advanced civilizations on Earth. China’s place as most advanced country simply would not be contested. And what would happen to China as it “turns inward”? They’d continue to develop technology and industry at a steady, but to us slow rate. My view is that we’d see something comparable to today’s societies in terms of technological capabilities (including space flight). It’d take longer to reach that point, but it would occur.

    I think a consideration of the relative exploration approaches is worthwhile. But my view is that we can’t really forecast the far future from intent to explore alone. The Chinese approach simply was destined to fail whether it be in 30 years or 300 years. While the European approach would after the first few decades, continue even if all the governments of Europe had decided to ignore it. One approach was a fire while the other was a fizzle.

    I believe this last observation is extremely important to us because we have choices in how we attempt space development and exploration. We want an approach that will in time keep going even if something bad should happen on Earth rather than one that folds the moment funding is cut. This is the ugly thing about current NASA exploration. No matter how much money is put in, it’s still a government program that doesn’t build a human presence in space. If some future government ends NASA without a replacement, then that’s the end of virtually all US space exploration.

    As I see it, our choice isn’t between exploring and lotus eating. It’s between exploring in resilient, sustainable ways or not. The lotus eating (or other disfunctional possibilities) can happen either way. Exploration doesn’t give immunity to bad outcomes. But one approach leaves us with a stake in space even if space activity from Earth ceases.

  46. The unstated 800 pound Gorilla in the room is that NASA gets its political support for the waste and excess expence

    I’d like to see a congressional hearing live, where that is said out loud.

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