The Economist seems to think so. More thoughts later.
[Friday morning update]
Clark Lindsey has a good comment over at their web site:
The author uses the cheap-shot pejorative “Space Cadet” to demean those in favor of space travel. So I will use “Earth Child” to characterize the author’s parochial one planet view.
Go read all, as he takes Earth Child to task. A lot of the other comments there are also pretty critical and disdainful.
[Bumped]
[Update a few minutes later]
More comments over at NASA Watch.
The Economist has declined considerably over the past 10 years. I had a subscription and used to read it religiously during the late 80’s and 90’s. I’ve not had a subscription for over 10 years and almost never look at it at the magazine stand.
Is the government-led Age of Space over? We can hope so. It will then be time for the private Age of Space to begin.
This stems from the whole rubrick of “America in decline” that a lot of people seem to find comfort in. We’ve seen this sort of thing before, in the 1970s. I suspect that once an adult becomes president next year, that kind of talk will subside fairly quickly.
Given the profound lack of leadership for the past four decades, I’m not sure that “government-led” is quite the right phrase. Unless it was “leading from behind.”
The Economist has been a font for anti-human spaceflight snark for years. It simply does not fit within their socialist worldview for people to be able to escape their betters.
I suspect human spaceflight shall enure long after the last foul remnant of The Economist has turned to dust.
The article made the common mistake of equating government space with all space, but I think it was quite a good article within that – I too think the government space age is over.
One would have hoped that the Economist would be on the commercial side of things and would not have confused NASA, a government department, with the future of commercial space.
The fundamental energy launch cost is around $5 of natural gas per kilogram of payload to LEO. Few economically inclined commenters seem to be aware of this. Space access is ripe for a Moore’s Law and the economic focus should perhaps be on figuring out how to enable that. It should be obvious that NASA is not going to be the source of such a Moore’s Law.
The economic resource limitations of this solar system alone would enable an economy and population on the order of a million times the size of that of Earth. Considering the interest of many economists in economic growth, it would be nice if a few would start picking up on this.
The article made the common mistake of equating government space with all space
That is a very profound mistake, and makes the rest of the piece worthless.
No, it’s just beginning…
As Churchill said: “The end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.”
Smack their peepee with a full-blown article Rand!
He does briefly mention SpaceX and the nascent commercial space industry, and then dismisses it with nary a thought. I think he’s fallen for an intellectual trap that affects many – the idea that we are somehow at the pinnacle of what is achievable by human beings. The reverse is true. We’re barely started. Hardly anything has been invented yet, compared to what’s possible. His pessimism is unwarranted.
The article also repeats the falsehood that the ISS is planned to be de-orbited in 2020. That’s not anywhere close to the truth. The Vehicle teams are assessing the ultimate lifetime of the structural elements for long-range planning. 2020 is considered a “no earlier than” date.
Back in the ’90’s and a bit beyond I had a bit of an ‘in’ with the Economist, and it showed in terms of several articles and editorials that were positive about the promise of what we would now call “New Space.”
For various reasons, most invisible to me, that attitude has petered out. This latest of their (habitually) unsigned editorials seems to be the nail in the coffin.
This is just boring obvious-mongering, pure mining of the Gaussian curve, a statement that housing prices must go up forever because we can’t see any reason for them to stop, and the weather will be sunny tomorrow because it’s been sunny all week, and man will never fly because he wasn’t born with wings.
Its profound mistake is in not understanding that human history is dominated by the punctuated-equilibrium of Black Swans, followed by consolidation. Something entirely unexpected happens, paradigms shift, we grow and change — and then as our distance from the earthquake lengthens, we start to think that the way things are is the way they’ll always be, that because Vesuvius hasn’t erupted in living memory it will never erupt, so we can plan our lives around that certainty (build houses on its slopes).
They’re certainly right that as conditions now stand, it will not be the case in the easily-foreseen future that 10% of the population (say) will be flitting around the Solar System. But will conditions stay the same? Over the short run, of course. But over the long run — of course not. Something will change. Something unexpected, something outside the tunnel vision of these planners, these green eyeshaded myopes.
In fact, they may say these things because they fear that. They may fear unexpected change, and write this way in part to convince themselves that it won’t happen — can’t happen. That their view of life as being controllable down to the last decimal place is accurate.
The obviously problem with article is said LEO and GEO weren’t the space that was ending, but NASA hasn’t gone to the space they are talking- so it was the beginning of shuttle program that ended that, and end of shuttle marks the end of the end. So does that mean it could the beginning?
🙂
The American one might be.
Since when is Elon Musk, Robert Bigelow and Jeff Bezos not American?
People need to understand that just one man, Jeff Bezos, has enough current and projected net worth to sustain his own manned space effort indefinitely if he so wishes.
He is worth around 17 billion and that is likely just the begining.
While readily agreeing that confusing government with private is an error of this article, I think another is failing to consider that human settlement off the Earth might well begin in the orbital spaces around the Earth, a region the author concedes is economically useful.
The Economist article was a load of hollow and defeatist tripe – of the type they have become so used to publishing in an unsigned manner. So, what are we to do with this errant opinion-set that will doubtless provide fodder for the spineless? But, spinelessness seems to be the hallmark of the current crop of world politicians. Enough, another discussion!
I have long looked forward to this sort of thinking because it does represent the first step in the idiots getting out of the way of true progress. Government not “doing” space is great. Now, get out of the way and let those of us who can do it just “git ‘er done”!
Dare we even think that this will put NASA back where it belongs – as a research and development arm of the government and also as a procurer of space flights and spacecraft for the government.
NASA would then be free to use some of its budget to support a lot of relatively small but important R&D efforts. Almost all parts of human spaceflight are in need of new and innovative thinking and much of it is relatively cheap to accomplish.
I liked The Economist for a long time. Then I got interviewed by them and saw the difference between what I told them and what they had already decided was the story. After that I read them with a grain of salt. Now I don’t bother to read them unless somebody links to them.
@Justin … IMO, the ISS should be turned over to our “partners” or de-orbited.
Ironic, since economics will put us in space beyond earth orbit. While everybody is looking for unobtainium, real estate alone will do the job. It’s being done now, it’s just a question of will individual free enterprise win out?
You know the old saw – that it’s always a good idea to invest in land because they’re not making any more? Well, this is the second century in which we have the ability to make that truism untrue – should there be the will.
M Puckett Says:
June 30th, 2011 at 11:46 am
As Churchill said: “The end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.”
That’s one of my favorite Churchill quotes and is applicable to this topic:
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
(speech at Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942 : Referring to the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt)
Real estate is the fundamental economic driver for space development. But that won’t start to happen until and unless secure title can be guaranteed. right now the Outer Space Treaty makes that impossible.
I second Titus. If my lifetime, I’ve never been as hopeful about the future of manned spaceflight as I am now.
Keep in mind that the Economist is a UK publication and, therefor, reflects UK biases. It has been my impression that one of those biases is a general loathing and hostility towards any concept of a frontier.
Clark Lindsey is misstating the Economist. The “space cadets” of the article weren’t “those in favor of space travel”. They were the von Braun/Clarke /Zubrin enthusiasts who were wildly overoptimistic about the cost, scope, schedule and degree of support for manned exploration of deep space.
The Economist seems to be pretty favorable about spaceflight to GEO and lower, where “the buzz of activity will continue to grow and fill the vacuum. “
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
It looks more like the middle of one of the sides to me.
I liked The Economist for a long time. Then I got interviewed by them and saw the difference between what I told them and what they had already decided was the story.
Thanks for the heads up, Jim. The Economist has declined over the past 10 years. I did not realize it had sunk to the same ethical lows as the rest of the legacy media. Its just one more reason why I will not read it anymore.
Andy Clark said: Dare we even think that this will put NASA back where it belongs – as a research and development arm of the government and also as a procurer of space flights and spacecraft for the government.
NASA needs a fundamental restructuring and downsizing, just as many businesses had to do in the late 80s/ early 90s. There are also other government divisions outside of NASA (the Air Force, NOAA, FAA-AST etc) that have space activities that are outside their core functions. Jim Bennett proposed a Space Guard to take over those functions, and to help with the fundamental restructuring of NASA required to make it that R&D and exploration arm and nothing else.
Under Bennett’s plan the procurement process for space flights wouldn’t be NASA’s responsibility. The Space Guard would be responsible for procuring launches from the private sector. That would kill the SLS and other near-future attempts at bacon-powered rocketry.
The opportunity to create a Space Guard is pretty good right now, as part of a larger federal government restructuring and downsizing. A restructuring of NASA that removes non-core functions from its purview would result in a much smaller NASA (and a smaller Air Force, NOAA, FAA, etc).
There is political hay to be made from such a move, no matter which party does it. Cutting the military slightly (the part of the Air Force that tracks satellite debris) while enabling young people to become literal Space Cadets (if they do well in their science and math)? That’s a PR bonanza. You also get a refocused NASA and other benefits.
This is probably a key tactical step in implementing Jeff Greason’s proposal for settling space.
Jim Bennett (same one with the Space Guard idea?) said: Real estate is the fundamental economic driver for space development. But that won’t start to happen until and unless secure title can be guaranteed. right now the Outer Space Treaty makes that impossible.
It is debatable whether the OST actually makes it impossible or not. However the fact that it is debatable means that nobody except True Believers are going to invest. At the end of his ISDC speech Robert Bigelow brought up Article 16 of the OST and said it is time to use it – to withdraw from the treaty altogether.
The Space Guard personnel would be (non-military) officers of the government capable of acting as a constabulary. If the US withdraws from the OST, the Space Guard becomes the logical central clearing house of land title claims on extraterrestrial bodies – for Americans or otherwise, depending on the first few precedents set.
Real estate is the fundamental economic driver for space development. But that won’t start to happen until and unless secure title can be guaranteed. right now the Outer Space Treaty makes that impossible.
The OST says government can’t own real estate in space. That’s a good thing. For one, it means they have zero jurisdiction over individuals that claim land.
If those that claim land are reasonable (limit each to one sq. km. is more than reasonable considering other plans to take half a planet) they will be supported by law. Over time no government could dispute those claims.
As Thomas Sowell points out, property rights are the single largest variable in prosperity. Reduce property rights and you reduce wealth. Distribute that wealth fairly (everyone can claim a sq.km. with a bootprint) along with buying and selling among themselves and we might see another roaring twenties.
Hmmm…”Earth Child?” In early sci-fi novels space travel opponents were sometimes called “Earthworms” or “Ground Hogs.” So I guess Earth Child is an improvement. I’d stick with Earth Worm, myself.
The OST says government can’t own real estate in space.
Not entirely correct. It says that signatory governments will not make claims of national sovereignty. Like all treaties, it is not binding on non-signatories.
It would not be binding on hypothetical future governments that might be established beyond the Earth (unless those governments are silly enough to sign on to it).
It probably isn’t even binding on state governments if, say, Texas wanted to claim part of the Moon. Although, that’s hard to say since the Federal courts would surely get involved, and who knows what they would decide.
Yes, I was imprecise. Consent of the governed is a fallacy. Force is ultimately the only law. But historical precedent would support the legality of reasonable individual claims.
Governments can sign treaties but have no moral right to take natural rights away from their citizens. They do it, but that’s the law of force, not respect for individuals natural rights which are superior to arbitrary laws.