January 25, 2010
Have We Forgotten What Exploration Means?
Tourists arrive at the new world (Library of Congress)
Yet again, the U.S. space program is in the slough of despond, whereby previous assumptions are questioned, the current path is discarded, the program is re-directed, and luminous enthusiasm heralds the new direction…
And then it all tapers off to nothing.
As long as we are navel-gazing during this policy hiatus, I want to examine a topic that many think is self-evident: what activities do we mean by the word “exploration?” NASA describes itself as a space exploration agency; we had the Vision for Space Exploration. The department within the agency developing the new Orion spacecraft and Ares launch vehicle is the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. So clearly, the term is tightly woven into the fabric of the space program. But exactly what does exploration encompass?
Exploration can have very personal meanings, such as your own exploration of a new town, or a new and unknown field of knowledge. Here, I speak of the collective, societal exploration exemplified by our national space program. This exploration began in 1957, when the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union initiated a decade-long “space race” of geopolitical dimensions with the United States. That race culminated with our first trips to the Moon. Once its primary geopolitical rationale had been served, Moon exploration was terminated. Since then, the “space program” has been astonishingly unfocused – drifting from a quest to develop a reusable spacecraft to building orbiting space stations – and despite numerous studies affirming needed direction, unfulfilled plans to send humans back to the Moon and eventually on to Mars.
When the race to the Moon began 50 years ago, space was considered just another field of exploration, similar to Earth-bound exploration of the oceans, Antarctica, and even more abstract fields such as medical research and technology development. Moreover, many used the term “frontier” when speaking about space, touching a very familiar chord in our national psyche by drawing an analogy with the westward movement in American history. What better way to motivate a nation shaped by the development of the western frontier than by enticing it with the prospect of a new (and boundless) frontier to explore? After all, we are descended from immigrants and explorers. Over time however, few recognized that there had been a shift in the definition and understanding of just what exploration represented.
Starting around the turn of the last century, while still retaining its geopolitical context, exploration became closely associated with science. Although first detectable in the 19th Century exploration of America and Africa, the tendency to use science as the rationale for geopolitical exploration reached its acme during the heroic age of polar exploration. Amundsen, Nansen, Cook, Peary, Scott and Shackleton all had personal motivations to spend years of their lives in the polar regions, but all of them cloaked their ego-driven imperatives in the mantle of “scientific research.” After all, the quest for new knowledge sounds much nobler than self-gratification, global power projection or land grabbing.
Science has been part of the space program from the beginning and has served as both an activity and a rationale. The more scientists got, the more they wanted. They realized that their access to space depended upon the appropriation of enormous amounts of public money and hence, supported the non-scientific aspects of the space program (although not without some resentment). Because science occurs on the cutting edge of human knowledge, its conflation with exploration is understandable. But originally, exploration was a much broader and richer term. Which brings us back to the analogy with the westward movement in American history and the changed meaning of the word “exploration.” A true frontier has explorers and scientists, but it also has miners, transportation builders, settlers and entrepreneurs. Many are perfectly satisfied to limit space access to only the former.
“Exploration without science is tourism.” – Statement of the American Astronomical Society on the Vision for Space Exploration, July 11, 2005
This fatuous quote accurately reflects the elitist, constricted mindset of many in the scientific community. In one fell swoop, the famous explorers of history – Marco Polo, Columbus, Balboa, Drake – are consigned to the category of “tourist.” Overcoming great difficulty and hardship, these men sought new lands for many varied reasons. Exploration includes obtaining new knowledge but it does not end there; it begins there. The quest for new lands has always been a search for new territories, resources, and riches. Historically, survival and wealth creation are stronger drivers of exploration and settlement than curiosity.
What is missing from our current program of space exploration is a firm understanding that it must generate wealth, not just consume it. Exploration is more than an experiment. The idea of space as a sanctuary for science has trapped us in an endless loop of building expendable hardware to support science experiments. Once the data are obtained, of what use is an empty booster or a used rover? We’ve “been there” and a pipeline of new inquiry awaits, to be facilitated by new spacecraft and new sensors designed to reach new destinations of study. Hugely expensive equipment must be developed to support science while the idea of creating transportation infrastructure or settlement is branded as “budget busting” (i.e., manned space exploration cuts into science’s budget). So “exploration” lives to enable science, period.
This is our current model of space exploration. I contend that it is not exploration as historically understood and practiced. Traditionally, science (knowledge gathering) was a tool in the long process of exploration, which included surveys, mining, infrastructure creation and settlement (all advanced and protected with military assistance). This was the model of national exploration prior to the 20th Century and it is readily applicable today – if we change our business model for space. What is needed is the incremental, cumulative build-up of space faring infrastructure that is both extensible and maintainable, a growing system whose aim is to transport us anywhere we want to go, for whatever reasons we can imagine, with whatever capabilities we may need.
These changes do not require that an ever-increasing amount of new money be spent on space. Instead, true exploration requires only the understanding that it must contribute more to society than it consumes. And the American people have every right to expect as much in return for their years of supporting NASA.
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Space pioneering should be NASA’s focus!
pioneer |ˌpīəˈnir|
noun
- a person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area.
- a person who is among the first to research and develop a new area of knowledge or activity
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — January 25, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
Paul,
Your post on the meaning of the term, “Exploration” is exactly on point. Being a NASA employee, the narrow definition is exactly how the the word is interpreted at NASA (i believe), and i daresay many outside of NASA including Congress and the public have gravitated to that definition. I absolutely support the broader definition, which has definitely been lost or greatly diluted within NASA. The question in my mind is, do we re-educate everyone on the true or earlier definition of the term, or do we keep the meaning and its intent but change the word? I don’t really care, pragmatically, as long as we get back to the original intent of NASA’s “mission” by treating space as a true frontier to be exploited (use of local space resources, establishing infrastructure, etc) and settled, thereby creating wealth as you state and not just consuming it. Good luck to us…..
Comment by TonyL — January 25, 2010 @ 9:22 pm
Well said, and right on target. Unfortunately, there is a reason that “exploration” has been redefined: 19th century-style frontier expansion is held in great contempt by today’s academic, government and media elites. It is considered capitalistic, jingoistic, exploitative and unsustainable. You will be accused of wrecking the earth and then wanting to go and wreck the moon, too. The ethos of the far left is decidedly misanthropic. People will just spoil any place they go. Best to just send the robots and leave it pristine.
Comment by Bill Hensley — January 27, 2010 @ 12:06 am
Dr. Spudis’ article is spot on. I have speculated with friends on what America would be like today, were we to have had a lunar base since 1969. Would the population have been in the thousands? Would children have been born up there? Would the people have demanded political independence?
We always assumed that at first, such a base would have been supported by a well run government program with broad, deep popular support from the voter. We assumed eventual discovery of rich mineral deposits, although we could not say what these would have been. We read Clarke before watching Kubrick; the economic benefits of tourism seemed to go without saying, it was so obvious. Sometime near the end of the forty year speculation, we also assumed that the base, or colony, would have achieved economic profitability.
Why didn’t any of this happen? I believe that the “fatuous quote” above goes a long way towards explaining why our human space flight efforts have not come to fruition. It is an incomplete explanation, even as it is pertinant.
Our domestic scene, first dominated by Eisenhower’s military industrial complex, and now seemingly dominated by what might be called a social engineering complex, has effectively seen to it that people stay on the home planet. Our public education system is capable of encouraging prodigious talent, but public opinion polls would seem to indicate that our public is far less well educated than it probably should be, were we to implement off-planet exploration in a serious fashion. Our Congress is caught up in Machiavillian political shenanigans which do not serve the general welfare except in a limited sense, and cannot find in itself the ability to cooperate in achieving “a more perfect union”.
While we have many blessings in America, the subject at hand is the stagnation of our space efforts, and this is partly caused by the wilfull discarding of our various nascent programs that Dr. Spudis touches on in his first paragraph, which seems in turn, to me, to be caused by the various “complexes” that I just mentioned.
Speaking metaphorically, Epimenides was correct: “All scientists are liars”. Science will not allow a higher purpose of any sort to be created. It is a fundamental flaw in the scientific method. The fatuous quote points to this flaw. Currently, there are only two profitable activities in space: satellites and tourism; science is an expense. As for real wealth, the mineral deposits are surely out there, awaiting the eventual manufacturing ability to be realized. Exploration is simply, truthfully, and finally, not scientific at all. The scientists are experiencing the thrill of power at the controls of our space efforts, but they lack the ability to set space policy, even on a rational basis.
After forty years of trying, they have been unable to generate a profit. This is what we the people, or should I say, we the shareholders, have been asking for all along. The space program cries out for new, honest leadership.
We should go back to stay; we should build incrementally; we should not waste our efforts; we should commercialize. We have been waiting too long to purchase our Pan Am tickets to the Moon. It is indeed our right.
Comment by John Fornaro — January 27, 2010 @ 12:00 pm
John, there’s no doubt in my mind that this country would be much richer and maybe even happier today if we had established a permanent base on the Moon right after the end of the Apollo program!
While I’m no fan of the Ares I/V architecture, I hope the Congress rejects any idea of not returning to the Moon!
The idea that developing the Altair lunar lander is exorbitantly expensive is pure mythology,IMO. In fact, what really inflates the cost of the Altair is the delay in fully funding its development. The lunar module only cost $11 billion to develop in today’s dollars. Over a 7 year development time period, there’s no doubt in my mind that we could fund the development of the Altair lunar lander at less than 2 billion a year.
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — January 28, 2010 @ 5:34 am
Hi Paul,
Great article. I have been thinking about your space rational most of the week as I read the many stories prophesying the end of human space flight. It certainly appears to me that the VSE as you envision is gone and to be replace by a far future program that does not have sustainability as its core tenet.
When George Bush announced the VSE 6 years ago I was excited. When I later read the Commission’s report to the President on US space exploration policy (of which you were a member) I was doubly excited because in those pages I saw the foundation of a feasible exploration program, not just a science program – exploration not strictly for or about science, but exploration enabled by science. I was so dammed excited I talked about that report for years with my students in a space exploration course I teach.
But I also remember other thoughts from 2004: ‘Time is marching on, other initiatives have failed, this VSE is America’s last chance. If it doesn’t stick, it’s over.’ I certainly had no concrete evidence to support that thought, but it was there. And now, 6 years on, it does not appear that the VSE has stuck. Today I feel not pessimistic, but fully and rationally convinced that beyond LEO human space EXPLORATION is gone, maybe not forever, but for a very very very ….very long time.
Phil backman
Comment by Phil Backman — January 29, 2010 @ 11:59 am
Phil,
Thanks for your remarks. I will not yet despair; for one thing, Congress has yet to weigh in on NASA’s future.
But beyond that, someday, somehow, someone — a country or a corporation — will go to the Moon to learn how to use its resources. It just makes too much sense not to. It may not be the United States and it probably won’t be NASA, but somebody will do it.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — January 29, 2010 @ 12:35 pm
Paul –
You are right on with this and your previous post on the “flexible path” to nowhere. Going back to the Moon is so obvious. It’s right there – two days away! Ready to be explored, exploited, mined etc. I can’t believe it’s rejected by people who should know better. Meanwhile we’re throwing away the Shuttle for commercial LEO flights. What madness!
Comment by Greg — January 29, 2010 @ 9:33 pm
[...] in space as its #1 objective. The best arguments I have seen in that direction are the ones on Paul Spudis’s blog. When you make that the rationale, the moon becomes a required destination, not an optional [...]
Pingback by Who Hung the Moon? » Blog Archive » There is No Santa Claus; Is There an Enterprise? — January 30, 2010 @ 12:58 pm
Paul,
This is an interesting and much needed article. The comments from your readers have also been excellent. The notion of exploration in our contemporary society does indeed need to be revisited.
Your quote, “NASA describes itself as a space exploration agency,” gets to the heart of the matter. Regardless of how NASA describes itself, NASA’s legal charter – The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 – does not actually describe NASA as an exploration agency. Nor does The Space Act establish a space exploration agency.
I wrote a paper for the AIAA Space 2008 Conference concerning changes to the Space Act that may be required if NASA is to be a true space exploration agency. If you wish, I can send you a copy for review. The reference for the paper is AIAA-2008-7718-402: “From NASA to a National Space Exploration Administration.”
Regards,
Arthur M. Hingerty
Comment by Arthur M. Hingerty — February 1, 2010 @ 1:18 am
Arthur,
Thanks for your comments. I would be happy to look at your paper.
Please send it to the e-mail address shown at my web site:
http://www.spudislunarresources.com/index.htm
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — February 1, 2010 @ 5:52 am
Right on! Every organism, organization, or system must bring in more resources and energy than it expends, in order to thrive and grow. Exploration needs to contribute to society in order to be sustained. Unfortunately, the US signed the 1967 Space Treaty that essentially prohibits anyone from making a profit from space development, and the de facto acceptance of the wording of the Moon Treaty, that the resources of space are the heritage of all mankind, currently presumes that any profits made by a private commercial enterprise on the Moon belong to the UN, and require that any such enterprise create an exact copy of their facility to give to the UN, along with all their research. Under those circumstances, no private organization would or should spend any resources in developing a Moon based facility.
A farmer doesn’t plant a kernel of corn in order to only get one kernel back. They expect to get at least 3 cobs of corn on each stalk, with about 30 rows of 40 kernels each – or a return of 1200 percent. When Queen Isabella loaned the money to Columbus, she looked him in the eye and told him to bring her ships back filled with loot, or she would find him. So when his men tried to get him to turn back in the middle of the Atlantic, he really couldn’t turn back empty handed. Exploration can not exist as an altruistic fantasy.
NASA, as a government agency, can not take the next step from research and exploration, to development and exploitation. And the current international treaties practically prohibit anyone else from doing so, either.
Russia, China and the US governments aren’t bothered by that, either suspecting that if they do develop a facility on the Moon or an asteroid that produces a return, that their military can tell the rest of the world to pound sand, or ignoring the question entirely, for the same reason. A private commercial facility doesn’t have that ability.
The non-space-faring nations are comfortable with the current situation, expecting that they don’t have to do anything, and if someone else does produce a return with a Moon based facility (or any “celestial body”), the UN will make them share it.
So, what needs to happen, is that something political needs to change, so that all the nations of the world will not be left out of space development, while at the same time providing a rational property ownership regime that allows private (or public, I don’t care) commercial development to reap the returns they can from investing in development.
I propose that we cede legal ownership of the Moon to the UN, with the proviso that every nation on Earth be granted 10,000 square hectares of Moon property in perpetuity, without them having to invest anything, but they can not sell their rights to it. They could lease it to anyone who would want to develop it. The Moon is big enough, each nation could have 10,000 square hectares on the near side, and 10,000 square hectares on the far side. Conflicts of property wanted by several different countries to be decided by lot.
Further, a “World Heritage Site” be declared of 1,000 square hectares around any equipment or probes currently landed on the Moon, to be undisturbed in perpetuity.
Further, the UN agency in charge of this Moon property be instructed to sell (with proceeds going to the UN) remaining property on the Moon in some sort of “Homesteading” type arrangement, at a nominal fee (something like $1,000.00 US per hectare) to any person or organization willing and capable of launching and maintaining a functioning facility on their property on the Moon, in lots not to exceed 5,000 square hectares.
This would protect the interests of the nations of the world, and provide for development of space resources by those interested in doing so.
Comment by Harmon — February 1, 2010 @ 11:31 pm
Harmon,
Unfortunately, the US signed the 1967 Space Treaty that essentially prohibits anyone from making a profit from space development,
Actually, it says nothing of the sort. It only says that no nation can claim sovereignty over another extraterrestrial body.
I propose that we cede legal ownership of the Moon to the UN
Yes, they’ve done such a bang-up job with everything that they’ve ever touched.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — February 2, 2010 @ 8:17 am
Well, with the cat out of the bag Paul, I expect you will be writing about what President Obama’s decision for the future course of NASA means. I appreciate your latest discussing what exploration means. This is one reason why have quit using space exploration as being synonymous with human spaceflight. The term is used to broadly and its meaning has been corrupted.
I just cannot help but feel the FY2011 budget proposal is a step in the wrong direction. With no market to support commercial development, commercial human spaceflight will fall flat on its face. Space tourism alone cannot generate enough revenue. I would have been encouraged if there had been a more specific plan for expanding the market in LEO, and a detailed program to develop a heavy lifter whether through commercial or NASA’s design bureau.
Comment by Gary Miles — February 2, 2010 @ 10:11 am
This article has provoked me to do a little historical research. I highly recommend the official history of the US Geological Survey (who incidentally trained the Apollo astronauts; Harrison Schmitt was initially employed at USGS; NASA may have got the astronauts to the Moon and back safely, but when those guys were actually walking around “doing science” it was a USGS gig). The history of exploration by US federal and state agencies has always had an economic focus, ever since the Coastal Survey of 1803 was formed. The idea that NASA should only be involved in “pure” science is a brand new idea–even within NASA itself. After all, what is the purpose of the aeronautics branch of NASA if not to develop new designs that will ultimately be of some practical value.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1050/index.htm
And as for grandiose engineering projects (like would be required to create a substantial Moon base), I refer interested readers to review the history of the Bureau of Reclamation. Because of the giant dams that Burec built, they are the largest wholesalers of freshwater in the United States, and the second largest seller of hydroelectric power in the western United States. Therefore, to say that it’s not the federal government’s business to, for example, develop the techniques that could make possible large scale space based solar power stations using lunar resources: well, that’s an interesting philosophical standpoint, perhaps, but it certainly has no grounding in American history.
Comment by Warren Platts — February 6, 2010 @ 11:06 am
Science is, in general, a laudable enterprise. However, it is engineering that brings the abstract results of science into concrete realizations that can benefit everyone. The former without the latter is little better than the scholasticism of the Middle Ages–interesting for the practitioners, though susceptible to erroneous conclusions, while being of little value to those who produced the food, clothing, and shelter of the scholars.
I have wished for a more robust effort at space development for many years. In fact, I think it is imperative for anyone who does not so despise their fellow man as to be content with our extinction and the consequent loss of all human achievement when the next large asteroid or comet impacts the Earth. (In fact, it may be a very near thing if we should experience terrestrial disasters on the order of another eruption of the Yellowstone caldera.)
Fortunately, such disasters are unlikely to occur in our lifetimes or even within in a few centuries of now, but we can not know for sure. Moreover, it is certain that nothing more than possibly launching a few “time capsules” into space in a vain hope to leave some kind of legacy will be possible given the continued lack of a sustained effort to expand human habitation beyond the Earth.
With that in mind and with the intent to provide positive rewards to help motivate some effort, I am in the process of establishing a prize fund that will eventually receive the bulk of my estate as well as any donations that other interested parties may wish to make once the required legal entities have been established and the necessary registrations are completed. The fund itself will ultimately depend on growth from investment in equity index investments before the potential rewards will be of any real consequence. However, there will be plenty of time for that, especially given the current pace.
In brief, the fund will provide the following awards for the stated milestones:
1. 50% of the current value of the fund to the organization that first establishes and occupies a permanent base on the Moon.
2. 50% of the current value of the fund to the organization that first establishes and occupies a permanent base on Mars.
3. The balance of the fund to the organization that first sends a manned space mission to another solar system payable once the mission travels beyond the heliopause.
Obviously the last milestone will be a very long time into the future at the current rate, but the “miracle” of compounding should ensure that the award is a very substantial, inflation-adjusted sum commensurate with the expense of the endeavor.
The fund is the Boundless Frontier Fund and you will be able to learn more about it and track progress by visiting:
http://www.boundless-frontier-fund.org/
Of course, there is nothing much to see yet and the fund has not yet been seeded. First, the lawyers must be paid and the government requirements satisfied. Still, stay tuned. Hopefully it can be at least one positive incentive in contrast to the widespread apathy (as well as some very real hostility) with respect to manned space exploration and pioneering.
Comment by Ned Nowotny — March 11, 2010 @ 4:43 am
[...] some will argue that such a concept is implicit in the word “exploration” but until recently, exploration encompassed a much wider concept where exploration was followed by exploitation and settlement by many people from many walks of [...]
Pingback by “We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there.” | The Once and Future Moon — April 16, 2010 @ 1:15 pm
[...] nation, does not serve us well as we contemplate the exploration of our Solar System. Exploration traditionally has a much broader meaning. Columbus, Balboa and Magellan did not undertake their expeditions for science. They sought [...]
Pingback by Midwinter | The Once and Future Moon — June 21, 2011 @ 9:30 am
[...] applied science may guide us toward a new understanding of the term “exploration,” or rather, to recover an old meaning that has been lost. The idea of exploration leading to exploitation (currently tossed aside in the modern equation [...]
Pingback by The Path of Exploration | The Once and Future Moon — December 14, 2011 @ 3:47 am