Space & Campaign 2004

A Feminine Space Policy?

1 Comment

Dwayne Day says that this is what we seem to have.

It’s an interesting thesis, I guess, from a sociological standpoint, but I’m not sure how relevant it is to those of us trying to influence things for the better (i.e., in the direction of vastly larger numbers of people in space).

As I wrote to him when I saw a draft of this a couple weeks ago:

While “colonization” is clearly politically incorrect these days, I don’t think that leadership is, and there would have been no (or at least no more than he received anyway) negative repercussions from its usage.

The real problem with “leadership” as a goal is that it’s such a low bar. If there really were a race, and there really were one or more robust spacefaring nations on the planet, then leadership would be important, but sadly, as pathetic as the program has been for the past three decades, it’s still number one by almost any measure. The only real hope is for the private sector to go out and start kicking some butt.

Anyway, I wonder how necessary such language really is. It seems to me that the goo goos who go for this kind of language (“cooperation,” “exploration”) probably are unlikely to support space programs anyway. It might be better to use more robust language to get stronger support from those who do support it.

One of the disquieting things to me about the January 14th speech was that, after hearing it, I still wasn’t sure why we were doing it. Given that the Europeans aren’t going to like us regardless of what we do (short of castrating our economy with Kyoto, signing up with the ICC, etc.), we might as well state some clear economic and national security goals that are complemented by the exploration initiative.

Of course, I think that this is all orthogonal to our actual future in space, since regardless of the presidential justifications for it, government space programs are doomed to mediocrity by their nature, and we’ll have a sufficiently robust private sector in the next couple decades such that NASA will become superfluous.

[Thursday update]

As Dwayne notes in comments here, he expanded on this topic quite a bit in comments over at Jeff Foust’s place a few days ago.

I should also note that the discussion took an interesting side turn when the question was asked “What is exploration?” particularly as opposed to “science.” This is a very key question on which current policy rests, and I’m going to give it some thought, and its potential implications in a future post.

Political Commentary

“A Fingernail Scratch”

This story has been around for a while, but now it’s appearing in major newspapers. It will be interesting to see if it develops any legs. If so, it could take a lot of the wind out of Kerry’s “wounded in Vietnam” persona.

During the Vietnam War, Purple Hearts were often granted for minor wounds. “There were an awful lot of Purple Hearts–from shrapnel, some of those might have been M-40 grenades,” said George Elliott, who served as a commanding officer to Kerry during another point in his five-month combat tour in Vietnam. (Kerry earlier served a noncombat tour.) “The Purple Hearts were coming down in boxes.” Under Navy regulations, an enlistee or officer wounded three times was permitted to leave Vietnam early, as Kerry did. He received all three purple hearts for relatively minor injuries — two did not cost him a day of service and one took him out for a day or two…

…Back at the base, Kerry told Hibbard he qualified for a Purple Heart, according to Hibbard. Thirty-six years later, Hibbard, reached at his retirement home in Florida, said he can still recall Kerry’s wound, and that it resembled a scrape from a fingernail. “I’ve had thorns from a rose that were worse,” said Hibbard, a registered Republican who said he was undecided on the 2004 presidential race.

It has an appearance (at least to me) of a deliberate attempt to get a “million-dollar wound” that would get him home early, while burnishing his presidential credentials in a Navy gunboat, a la the original JFK. It’s certainly a better way of “maintaining his political viability” than Clinton, but it doesn’t look great, particularly considering that Max Cleland, who lost three limbs, didn’t get a Purple Heart at all (though apparently his injury wasn’t a direct result of combat).

Political Commentary

“A Fingernail Scratch”

This story has been around for a while, but now it’s appearing in major newspapers. It will be interesting to see if it develops any legs. If so, it could take a lot of the wind out of Kerry’s “wounded in Vietnam” persona.

During the Vietnam War, Purple Hearts were often granted for minor wounds. “There were an awful lot of Purple Hearts–from shrapnel, some of those might have been M-40 grenades,” said George Elliott, who served as a commanding officer to Kerry during another point in his five-month combat tour in Vietnam. (Kerry earlier served a noncombat tour.) “The Purple Hearts were coming down in boxes.” Under Navy regulations, an enlistee or officer wounded three times was permitted to leave Vietnam early, as Kerry did. He received all three purple hearts for relatively minor injuries — two did not cost him a day of service and one took him out for a day or two…

…Back at the base, Kerry told Hibbard he qualified for a Purple Heart, according to Hibbard. Thirty-six years later, Hibbard, reached at his retirement home in Florida, said he can still recall Kerry’s wound, and that it resembled a scrape from a fingernail. “I’ve had thorns from a rose that were worse,” said Hibbard, a registered Republican who said he was undecided on the 2004 presidential race.

It has an appearance (at least to me) of a deliberate attempt to get a “million-dollar wound” that would get him home early, while burnishing his presidential credentials in a Navy gunboat, a la the original JFK. It’s certainly a better way of “maintaining his political viability” than Clinton, but it doesn’t look great, particularly considering that Max Cleland, who lost three limbs, didn’t get a Purple Heart at all (though apparently his injury wasn’t a direct result of combat).

Political Commentary

“A Fingernail Scratch”

This story has been around for a while, but now it’s appearing in major newspapers. It will be interesting to see if it develops any legs. If so, it could take a lot of the wind out of Kerry’s “wounded in Vietnam” persona.

During the Vietnam War, Purple Hearts were often granted for minor wounds. “There were an awful lot of Purple Hearts–from shrapnel, some of those might have been M-40 grenades,” said George Elliott, who served as a commanding officer to Kerry during another point in his five-month combat tour in Vietnam. (Kerry earlier served a noncombat tour.) “The Purple Hearts were coming down in boxes.” Under Navy regulations, an enlistee or officer wounded three times was permitted to leave Vietnam early, as Kerry did. He received all three purple hearts for relatively minor injuries — two did not cost him a day of service and one took him out for a day or two…

…Back at the base, Kerry told Hibbard he qualified for a Purple Heart, according to Hibbard. Thirty-six years later, Hibbard, reached at his retirement home in Florida, said he can still recall Kerry’s wound, and that it resembled a scrape from a fingernail. “I’ve had thorns from a rose that were worse,” said Hibbard, a registered Republican who said he was undecided on the 2004 presidential race.

It has an appearance (at least to me) of a deliberate attempt to get a “million-dollar wound” that would get him home early, while burnishing his presidential credentials in a Navy gunboat, a la the original JFK. It’s certainly a better way of “maintaining his political viability” than Clinton, but it doesn’t look great, particularly considering that Max Cleland, who lost three limbs, didn’t get a Purple Heart at all (though apparently his injury wasn’t a direct result of combat).

Political Commentary

The Whining Of The Jersey Girls

Yes, I’m tired of it, too.

This week, as last, there will be no lack of air time for the Jersey Four, or journalists ravenous for their views. CBS’s “The Early Show” yesterday brought a report from Monica Gabrielle, attesting that her husband might have escaped from the South Tower if the facts about the Aug. 6 “PDB” memo had been shared with the public. The saga of the widows can be expected to run on along entirely familiar lines. The only question of interest that remains is how Americans view the Jersey Four and company, and how long before they turn them off.

“Turn them off,” is exactly the right response, in my opinion.

Political Commentary

“The Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations”

That’s not the phrase that the president used tonight, but he could have, given that it’s one that he’s used effectively in other contexts.

Overall, I grade him a “B” and better than expected.

Worst moment: when asked why he and Cheney insisted on appearing together before the commission, he had no satisfactory answer. My politically-incorrect response: “Because this has shown itself to be a partisan witchhunt rather than an investigation into how 911 occurred, which was its stated charter. There is safety in numbers.”

But there’s truly no good explanation for that.

Best moment: when he chastised those who thought that Iraqis couldn’t build a democracy because they had the wrong skin color.

He went some distance toward explaining “why Iraq,” but not sufficiently so to silence the critics, particularly since he can’t tell the whole story for continuing diplomatic reasons.

I don’t know if this helps or harms in the short run, but in general it gives me confidence for the upcoming presidential debates this fall.

Political Commentary

“The Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations”

That’s not the phrase that the president used tonight, but he could have, given that it’s one that he’s used effectively in other contexts.

Overall, I grade him a “B” and better than expected.

Worst moment: when asked why he and Cheney insisted on appearing together before the commission, he had no satisfactory answer. My politically-incorrect response: “Because this has shown itself to be a partisan witchhunt rather than an investigation into how 911 occurred, which was its stated charter. There is safety in numbers.”

But there’s truly no good explanation for that.

Best moment: when he chastised those who thought that Iraqis couldn’t build a democracy because they had the wrong skin color.

He went some distance toward explaining “why Iraq,” but not sufficiently so to silence the critics, particularly since he can’t tell the whole story for continuing diplomatic reasons.

I don’t know if this helps or harms in the short run, but in general it gives me confidence for the upcoming presidential debates this fall.

Political Commentary

“The Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations”

That’s not the phrase that the president used tonight, but he could have, given that it’s one that he’s used effectively in other contexts.

Overall, I grade him a “B” and better than expected.

Worst moment: when asked why he and Cheney insisted on appearing together before the commission, he had no satisfactory answer. My politically-incorrect response: “Because this has shown itself to be a partisan witchhunt rather than an investigation into how 911 occurred, which was its stated charter. There is safety in numbers.”

But there’s truly no good explanation for that.

Best moment: when he chastised those who thought that Iraqis couldn’t build a democracy because they had the wrong skin color.

He went some distance toward explaining “why Iraq,” but not sufficiently so to silence the critics, particularly since he can’t tell the whole story for continuing diplomatic reasons.

I don’t know if this helps or harms in the short run, but in general it gives me confidence for the upcoming presidential debates this fall.

Space

A Bad Precedent?

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but haven’t had the time to get back up to speed on it, after all these years, but the Law of the Sea Treaty has reared its ugly head again, and once again, it’s looking like it’s stalling in the Senate, though the Bush administration seems to be supporting it, at least in theory. It went into force ten years ago, but the US has still not ratified it, and Doug Bandow explains why we shouldn’t. Here’s the part that concerns me the most as a space enthusiast:

The treaty’s mining scheme is flawed in its very conception. Although many people once thought untold wealth would leap from the seabed, land-based sources have remained cheaper than expected, and scooping up manganese nodules and other resources from the ocean floor is logistically daunting. There is no guarantee that seabed mining will ever be commercially viable.

Yet this has not dimmed the enthusiasm of the Authority. Like the U.N., it generates lots of reports and paper and obsesses over trivia. Protecting “the emblem, the official seal and the name” of the International Seabed Authority has been a matter of some concern. Among the crises the Authority has confronted: In April 2002 the Jamaican government turned off its air conditioning, necessitating “urgent consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.” A year later Jamaica used the same tactic in an ongoing battle over Authority payments for its facility. Oh yes, half of the Authority members are behind on their dues.

Were seabed mining ever to thrive, a transparent system for recognizing mine sites and resolving disputes would be helpful. But the Authority’s purpose isn’t to be helpful. It is to redistribute resources to irresponsible Third World governments with a sorry history of squandering abundant foreign aid.

Those familiar with the history of the L-5 Society may recognize this. The Law of the Sea Treaty was the model for the 1979 Moon Treaty, which, like the sea bottom, declared everything off planet the “province of all mankind.” Here’s the key part:

The exploration and use of the moon shall be the province of all mankind and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development.

In other words, if you or I were to go develop some extraterrestrial resource (and “moon” in this phrasing really means “moon and other celestial bodies”) we would have to share in the proceeds with all other countries, including those that in no way contributed, per the decision of an as-yet-undefined international authority under the auspices of the United “Oil for Palaces corruption” Nations. I can’t think of a better way to guarantee that space will not be developed, which is perhaps the intent of the authors.

While the L-5 Society was largely ineffectual in terms of achieving its goals, it did manage to almost singlehandedly prevent the US from ratifying this treaty (an issue that few others cared about at the time except a few bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom), and that in itself probably made the existence of the society worthwhile, even for as brief a time as it lasted. Just for historical interest, note some of the names in that L-5 history of people who were instrumental in defeating the treaty. In addition to Keith Henson and Carolyn Meinel, Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson, of more recent nanotechnology fame, were also lobbying hard for this outcome.

If the Law of the Sea Treaty is ratified by the US, it would set a precedent and make it harder to argue against similar ratification of the Moon Treaty (which while in force has not been ratified by a single spacefaring nation). I’d say, thanks, but no thanks to both.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!