Category Archives: Philosophy

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Perpetuating Space Policy Myths

17 Comments

This kind of article drives me up the wall:

NASA Ames’ main goal now is to transfer technology for commercialization and the betterment of mankind… However, over the years, government and popular support for further space exploration has dwindled, despite its many benefits. So, I’ve made a list of the top 10 reasons we should continue to explore the outer depths, “to go where no man has gone before”.

It then goes on to list a number of earthly spin-offs, few if any of which have much to do with going “where no man has gone before, and at least one of which that isn’t related to space technology at all, other than it may have been helped by NASA on the aeronautics side. This irritates at least two of my pet peeves.

First is the notion that what NASA does or should be doing is “space exploration.” JPL does that, but it does it by sending robots where no robot has gone before, not man. The vast majority of NASA’s budget, and particularly the human spaceflight budget, has little-to-nothing to do with space exploration. Now, I don’t actually mind that this is the case, because I’m not that big on space exploration myself. I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do, but it’s a means to an end, not the end itself. But people who think that “exploration” is the be-all and end-all of what NASA does, or should be doing, are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Unfortunately, the public (and the media) has appropriated the word as a catch-all for orbital research, technology development, launching rockets (even for defense or commercial satellites), etc. — anything having to do with space. And as long as we misuse the language in such a way, we’ll continue to be unclear in our goals and our policy.

Second is the notion that spin-offs are a good argument for “space exploration,” even if space exploration actually results in the spin-offs (as already noted, they didn’t). The first reason is that they don’t generally come from “exploration,” even if they were a serendipitous result of some NASA expenditure. The other is that serendipity is by definition too unpredictable to use it as an argument for efficient technology development. The third is that it assumes that the technologies wouldn’t have been developed absent the space application. One of the favorite false myths of the spin-off crowd was that we wouldn’t have had large-scale-integration of semi-conductors in the absence of Apollo, which is simply nonsense. The technology was driven much more by military satellite requirements and miniaturization of warheads than by human spaceflight.

When I saw the headline, I expected to see the word “exploration” misused, because it seems as though it’s almost a professional requirement on the part of the media to do so, but I hoped to see some actual compelling reasons for continuing to fund spaceflight. For example: develop the ability to divert asteroids, utilize extraterrestrial resources beyond the silly example of “gold,” provide humanity backups in case things go sour on this one planet where we evolved, offer a new frontier for human freedom, even philosophical ones such as helping the planet to reproduce and spread the seed of life throughout the universe. But no, with the exception of orbital gold mines, it comes off as just more teflon and tang (both of which existed before NASA was formed).

Philosophy, Space, Technology and Society

Randall Munroe’s Time Comic

15 Comments

The back story.

This is something that used to concern space activists even in the seventies:

“In my comic, our civilization is long gone. Every civilization with written records has existed for less than 5,000 years; it seems optimistic to hope that the current one will last for 10,000 more,” Munroe told WIRED. “And as astronomer Fred Hoyle has pointed out, since we’ve stripped away the easily-accessed fossil fuels, whatever civilization comes along next won’t be able to jump-start an industrial revolution the way we did.”

You could think of fossil fuels as the yolk of an egg. If we eat it up, but fail to hatch and get into space, then this planet won’t reproduce.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

The Danger Of Anti-Libertarianism

3 Comments

As exemplified by Chris Christie.

One of the nastiest strawmen continually being flung is that libertarians are anarchists. No, the Occumorons are anarchists, and nihilists (or at least they look to them for their political tactics, even though they want the government around to give them stuff). Limited government, as the Founders laid it out, is not anarchy. In fact, you could almost say that a lawless government of men, like the current one, is more anarchical than one based on the Constitution and law.

Economics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Exploration Is Highly Overrated

14 Comments

Ben Wright McGee has a long essay on old space versus new, which I think misses the point, because he seems to think that space is about exploration, and then gets bogged down in the pointless argument of whether or not suborbital flight constitutes such:

In almost back-to-back recent events, what to me is an example of the true nature of the conflict between the many colliding conceptions of astronauts, space explorers, and space exploration was brought into sharp relief:

On the one hand, a NASA historian who I greatly respect alleged to me that private suborbital spaceflight and even new, commercial orbital space modules and transportation systems (which have recently received NASA funding to enhance the U.S. space infrastructure and give scientists more platforms and opportunities to conduct research), were patently unworthy of NASA dollars.

Existing Russian and U.S. systems should be relied upon, and the already pinched NASA budget, he implied, should be saved and consolidated for the more worthy endeavor of exploring truly uncharted planetary territory.

To me, this is all beside the point. There is an implicit assumption that the purpose of human spaceflight is to explore space, but that has never, ever been the case. In the sixties, its purpose was to beat the Soviets in a peaceful contest in the Cold War, and since then it’s been largely a jobs program — “exploration” was just the excuse, despite the fact that we haven’t left LEO. To me, exploration is a means, not an end. The goal of human spaceflight should be to develop the resources of and settle space, and if we’re not doing that (which we currently are not, at least NASA isn’t), then we should quit wasting money on it. But we remain stuck in this “exploration” mindset because we’ve never had a real national debate on why we’re spending this money, instead talking with hidden assumption that we all assume are shared by others, even though they clearly are not.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

The Supreme-Court Shut Outs

1 Comment

Thoughts on the constitutional recklessness of this administration:

When a president pursues policies that require such expansive federal power that he can’t get a single justice to agree, something is probably amiss.

Such overreach, though, has become a part of our political culture. Administrations of both parties are often unwilling to accept constitutional limits on their authority.

This administration, though, more than most, finds that pesky Constitution to be an impediment to its goals to “transform society.”