The Shuttle’s Ignominious Conclusion

Thoughts from Ed Driscoll, over at PJM. As he notes, Lileks has some reflections as well:

NASA is keen to tell you there’s a still a future for sending Americans into space, but there’s a general cultural anomie that seems content to watch movies about people in space, but indifferent to any plans to put them there. This makes me grind my teeth down to the roots, but I suppose that’s a standard reaction when the rest of your fellow citizenry doesn’t share the precise and exact parameters of your interests and concerns. That’s the problem when you grow up with magazines telling you where we’re going after the moon, with grade-school notebooks that had pictures of the space stations to come, when the push to Mars was regarded as an inevitable next step.

Just got hung up on the “why?” part, it seems. Also the “how” and the “how much” and other details. I can see the reason for taking our time – develop new engines, perfect technology, gather the money and the will. It’s not like anything’s going anywhere. But it’s not like we’re going anywhere if we’re not going anywhere, either – when nations, cultures stop exploring, it’s a bad sign. You’re ceding the future. If you have a long view that regards nation-states as quaint relics of a time in human history when maps had lines – really, you can’t see them from space! We’re all one, you know – then it doesn’t matter whether China or the US puts a flag on Mars. It’s possible a Chinese Mars expedition would commemorate the first boot on red soil with a statement that spoke for everyone on the planet, not a particular culture or nation. It’s possible. But history would remember that they chose to go, and we chose not to.

No signs that anyone is serious about choosing to go to Mars, other than Elon Musk. For the record, I think that it’s important that we carry Anglospheric and western values into the cosmos, and I’m pretty confident we will. I am equally confident that we won’t do it if we persist in thinking (like the Chinese) that it will be done with a Twenty-Year Plan.

I’m wondering what the thirty-somethings are thinking today. They don’t really remember a time when there wasn’t a Space Shuttle, either under development, or flying. And for most of them, Apollo is just a history that their parents lived through and told them about (as the Depression and WW II are for me). But I suspect that they, and the generation behind, will get pretty used to the idea of a real American space industry taking people into orbit, sans a government mission-control room with lots of desks. I hope that, for them, space will finally become a place instead of a program.

[Update later morning]

More lunacy and inability to read for comprehension or discern human emotions, from Mark Whittington, who fantasizes that I am “dancing on the Shuttle’s grave.”

11 thoughts on “The Shuttle’s Ignominious Conclusion”

  1. I believe we have a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water here. Zubrin is both right and wrong. He right that going to mars is expensive, but he’s wrong in thinking that therefore only the government can do it and we need heavier lift. Note however that Elon has been able to adjust his viewpoint with the announcement of the Falcon Heavy.

    Zubrin is also right that with focus you get results. You may disagree that we should focus on mars but how can you argue against going there? Is your argument really about the destination or the method? Greason combines elements in a compelling argument that mars is the goal and the method should be steps toward that goal that include the moon and NEO.

    My concern is not so much technology but philosophy. Will we bring freedom or slavery to the solar system? Frontiers generally bring a certain amount of freedom but only ownership secures those freedoms.

    It’s been pointed out that real estate can, by itself, pay the entire cost of going out into the solar system. But they want to do it by giving Alaska sized claims to private corporations. This is the corporate state model. I’d prefer we do it by distributing ownership to all those individuals willing to risk their own assets to go. A claim as small as a single square kilometer is enough to totally finance transportation and provide a lifetime of living expenses. If you disagree, fine, make the claim a bit larger… but that has implications as well, not all good.

  2. I’m a 30 something. Terrified of heights, but always fascinated with space. When I was 12 there was a thing going on, I didn’t understand the politics of it, but I was taking speech and debate, and one of the topics we had to debate was whether we should end the shuttle program, that was in 88. I don’t know exactly how I felt about it back then, but just having to actually think about it made me believe that there were a lot of options for space, in all ways.

    We just shouldn’t close out options, if the gub is focused on making their own vehicle, fine, do it, and then watch as the private sector kicks their rear in productivity, but never shut down an option just because it wouldn’t be your first option.

  3. An option that costs 20x or more is a bad option. Twenty companies like SpaceX (and I’m sure many potential ones do exist) would mean an explosion of options in the next decade.

  4. Rand and Mark are the same person. He (they) only assumes these personas on these two sites to cause traffic to go back and forth between them. Neither one makes any sense, and they both hate the same people.

  5. Indeed, relying on the innovation of individuals and entrepreneurs instead of giant government programs is far more in keeping with the traditions, spirit, and values of America.

  6. You and Mark hate Obama, Democrats, and anyone who does not agree with you. You agree on everything else but you call each other names so that we will click on links to each other’s name an go to that person’s blog so as to see what obscure point of difference you are harping on today. There is an odd symmetry in the number of links that go back and forth. Looks like a scheme to increase traffic to me.

  7. You and Mark hate Obama, Democrats, and anyone who does not agree with you.

    I don’t hate anyone. I think you’re projecting.

    You agree on everything else but you call each other names so that we will click on links to each other’s name an go to that person’s blog so as to see what obscure point of difference you are harping on today.

    There are many things on which I disagree with Mark. And I didn’t call him any names.

    There is an odd symmetry in the number of links that go back and forth. Looks like a scheme to increase traffic to me.

    What is odd about the symmetry is that I almost never link him. I think I’ve done it twice in the last few months. You seem to be disconnected with reality.

  8. John, it’s the virus/antivirus guys that are confusing ya. Those are the same guys. Now quit revealing Rand’s secrets. This is all hush hush. Mums the word. If you don’t hear the MIB helicopters it means they’re tracking you in whisper mode. Contact Dan Ackroyd for further instructions…

  9. I’m wondering what the thirty-somethings are thinking today.

    Judging from the demographics at most NewSpace firms, thirty- (and twenty-) are doing more “doing” and less “thinking” than their predecessors.

  10. I think John Shannon was right. It’s time to toss away the floaties and go swimming in the deep end of the pool.

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