April 13, 2012
Analogy for Space: Aviation or Seafaring?
From the oceans, from the stars. Arthur C. Clarke
Space flight has very little in common with aviation; it is much closer in spirit to ocean voyaging – Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible, Harper and Row, New York, 1963.
The current drift of America’s civil space program has many reaching to discuss the philosophy and methods we rely on to pursue space travel. Of late, the quote above (which I first read in high school in the late Sixties during my Arthur C. Clarke omnivorous reading campaign) has been tapping me on the shoulder. Clarke’s captivating style gripped me for some time as I worked my way through both his fiction and non-fiction oeuvre. Curiously, the above thought has stayed with me, and although I’d forgotten exactly where and in which of his books it occurred, I knew it was his and was able to find it.
From the beginning of the Space Age in 1957, spaceflight and rocket development has had a strong association with aviation, particularly the military variety. The first astronauts were all military aviators (regardless of their branch of service) and those origins solidified the association of aviation with space. Air Force public relations devised the term “aerospace” to make the association explicit. The Army and the Navy had their own missile programs but the bulk of the early research and development was done to facilitate the deployment of a land-based ICBM system under the control of the Air Force. Early ICBMs like Atlas and Titan (developed to lob nuclear warheads) became launch vehicles for the first human missions into space.
The analogy of manned spaceflight to aviation (at least in the first fifty years of spaceflight) is not altogether inappropriate. Military and commercial aviation involves small crews that leave from a home base, travel great distances, sometimes fly over unknown territory (where they seldom land) before returning within a few to tens of hours. Flight durations are short and the ability to deliver crew and cargo is limited. In the military, this operational template is defined as a “mission,” where principal tasks are completed and then preparation for the next mission begins. The only “permanence” in aviation is the mission.
The template for aviation has some resonating parallels in manned spaceflight. The pilot’s objective is to complete the assigned mission and return to base. Astronauts can travel great distances, but are able to land at distant destinations only under extraordinary circumstances. Mission duration (e.g., to the Moon) is short, on the order of a few days. Single-purpose, one-shot trips are common and have little capability to deliver a large number of crew and large amounts of cargo. Although the current plan is to carry more people on longer trips beyond low Earth orbit, the focus (mission) remains fixed on completing the task and returning home – not on creating a permanent, beneficial presence.
A navy has a different operational style. Sea voyages can last many weeks or months, even years. Navies can travel to any distant land, anchor off shore and explore it at length. Ships are typically able to deliver large amounts of cargo and carry large crews and supplies; ships can remain for as long as is necessary to complete their assigned tasks, which can include extensive reconnaissance, including stops of varying lengths to many different ports of call. A navy must be re-supplied on occasion and requires logistics bases (coaling stations, in 19th century terms) for replenishment and refurbishing. A navy both projects power and creates presence; it is the international face of the nation from which it originates.
In contrast to its parallels with aviation, space has yet to show much correspondence with seafaring. But we should begin to think in such terms – to move away from our emphasis on one-off missions and toward sighting distant lands and conducting remote reconnaissance aimed toward the creation of a long-term presence. The International Space Station, now continuously occupied for over a decade, is a first step and transition toward this new template. Note that such occupation does not necessarily imply settlement or even that the same people have been there for a decade. But we are moving gradually toward that concept as human presence extends to longer periods of time. As we move outward from LEO, we will build beachheads – staging nodes and depots (logistics bases). Here, spacecraft can refuel and provision themselves for journeys onward to more distant destinations.
Clarke was articulating the natural progression of human reach and operations. To transit and settle a frontier, we initially survey and scout on custom-designed trips to obtain knowledge for future exploitation. As we transition from this “Mountain Man”-stage of pioneering (occasional random visit to scattered points in the wilderness) to permanent bases (outposts) and then settlement (built around trading posts), we need an operational template that satisfies the new needs of space pioneers. In order to attain and exploit the vast utility of space, longer presence of larger crews and more complex logistical arrangements (the attributes that a space navy provides) is required.
None of this is to say that a space air force is obsolete; forward reconnaissance on the edge of the frontier will always be required. But as that frontier pushes ever outward, to distances that demand more significant logistical requirements, the naval analogy becomes more pertinent. After all, John F. Kennedy (a former naval officer) did call space “this new ocean.”
Perceptive guy, that Arthur C. Clarke.
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It gets back to the historical view of exploration, where exploration is about land one can set foot on. You aren’t exploring if you haven’t made it to new land. Oceans offer, in this archaic view, nothing to explore. You travel across them to get somewhere. It’s been said before that the only reputable destination for space exploration is a natural solid body. Maybe even with some gravity. LEO, of course, in this view, not a reputable destination (which might surprise some astronauts). Gerard O’Neill had a different picture. He wanted to mine solid bodies to build free flying cities. I guess that’s the equivalent of building islands in the ocean, which is hardly consistent with that historical view of exploration or settlement. Those cities would, I presume, also not be reputable destinations. O’Neill didn’t care to colonize the Moon, and maybe not even Mars, yet he was a space visionary right up there with Clarke. In O’Neill’s mind, settlement was a concept that transcended existing planetary bodies.
Comment by Hallie Wright — April 13, 2012 @ 5:59 pm
There is a long history of ocean exploration that does not involve finding “land to set foot on” — the 1872 oceanographic voyage of the H.M.S. Challenger comes to mind.
I am arguing for the development of a capability to go and explore anywhere and everywhere. One needs the logistical supply chain to enable such space faring and it cannot be acquired from empty space.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — April 13, 2012 @ 6:17 pm
Gene Rodenberry also got that one right! Haven’t you noticed that most of Star Trek’s technical jargon and hierarchical terminology has naval origins? Starfleet is a nautically-oriented service branch of explorers, scientists and guardians. I do not know if Mr. Rodenberry knew that quote from Mr. Clarke and was influenced by it as he envisioned the plot points for Star Trek, but this an astonishing verification of his beautiful vision. May it all become true and let us pray that the good Lord allows us to bear witness to that moment!
Comment by Prof. R.E. Irizarry — April 15, 2012 @ 12:11 am
The voyage of the Challenger is hardly one that the public considers to exemplify exploration. How many people know that the space shuttle was named after this ship? I may be wrong, but I know of no statues erected in honor of the leaders of that expedition.
Looking at our current military activities in Afghanistan, my guess is that our supply chain is firmly based in the U.S. To my knowledge, in order to support those activities, we never decided to manufacture our ammunition or MRIs in, say, Turkey.
Therein lies the difference. If we’re talking about exploration, as in going to find new things, having an Earth-based supply chain is just fine. It’s when we’re talking about settlement and colonization, which in my mind is quite different from exploration, that you’d like opportunities to lower the recurring costs on the supply chain. Those opportunities, however, require very substantial up-front investment. That investment requires that settlement and colonization be an unambiguous goal. Right now, to our space program, it is simply not.
The terms “exploration”, “settlement”, “expedition”, and “adventure” are often hopelessly confused. If you stop to think about it, they mean very different things.
Comment by Hallie Wright — April 15, 2012 @ 11:15 am
Paul,
I agree 100%. We need to become a spacefaring civilization and move beyond the “everything has to be tied to one-off missions” mind-set NASA’s had for the past several decades.
~Jon
Comment by Jonathan Goff — April 16, 2012 @ 11:36 am
IMO,establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon and Mars should be NASA’s priority right now since this could also have a positive economic impact. So I believe that NASA’s manned space program should be currently focused on pioneering the solar system.
However, an appropriately shielded artificial gravity producing interplanetary vehicle capable of transporting humans anywhere in the solar system could come out of such a program.
So after the pioneering of the Moon and Mars, followed by private investment, NASA could focus on the manned exploration of the solar system.
Manned missions to the surfaces of Mercury, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, Hygiea and even Callisto could all be achieved by mid century by simply using the interplanetary transportation infrastructures developed for cis-lunar space and Mars. A base on Callisto could teleoperate rovers on Ganymede, Europa, and Io, Moons within Jupiter’s dangerous radiation belts and maybe floating probes within the Jovian atmosphere. And this could be applied for the manned exploration of the moons of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Before the end of this century,its possible that humans could travel to or near the moons every planet in the solar system.
Then I guess it will be time for us to focus our terrestrial and extraterrestrial resources on getting some of us to the stars:-)
Marcel F. William
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — April 16, 2012 @ 1:40 pm
Comment by Prof. R.E. Irizarry — April 15, 2012 @ 12:11 am
“Gene Rodenberry also got that one right! Haven’t you noticed that most of Star Trek’s technical jargon and hierarchical terminology has naval origins?”
“I do not know if Mr. Rodenberry knew that quote from Mr. Clarke and was influenced by it …”
My understanding is that Rodenberry had said that “Profiles of the Future” was one of the inspirations for Star Trek (along with a book from the Rand Corporation called “Habitable Planets for Man” – an attempt to calculate the number of Earth Like planets in the Galaxy).
Comment by Joe — April 17, 2012 @ 10:18 am
“However, an appropriately shielded artificial gravity producing interplanetary vehicle capable of transporting humans anywhere in the solar system could come out of such a program.”
Water and Bombs by way of the DOD is the only way it is going to happen.
Comment by GaryChurch — April 17, 2012 @ 6:34 pm
Hallie said:
“Oceans offer, in this archaic view, nothing to explore. You travel across them to get somewhere.”
Not all the time, and in some crucial cases, not at all. For instance, look up the terms “Western Approaches”"the Broad Fourteens”, and “the Long Forties” in the history of the Royal Navy. These were areas crucial to the trade of Britain, and much of Western Europe, with the rest of the world. Controlling them meant control of trade, and its wealth. Thus, these places were long the destinations for squadrons and fleets of the RN, taking station for years at a time, as well as being places of passage as you suggest.
There are a number of places likely to be similar in the settlement of the Solar System. The Earth/Moon L1 and L2 points are among them. Also, the trojan points of L4 and L5 in both the Earth/Moon gravity well, and in the Jupiter/Sun gravity well.
Comment by Tom Billings — April 17, 2012 @ 9:35 pm
Hi Paul,
I think you are offering an insightful shift in perspective. Just like in “wet” navies, our ships will have to provide the necessities of life for their crews for extended periods of time. They will have to provide their own maintenance and “live off the land.” And as in the time of sailing ships, we will have to maneuver within the constraints of our environment — then winds and currents, in the future gravity gradients and inertia. Socially, crews will need to deal with the same issues of small communities in confined spaces for long periods.
All appropriate images to consider while the space program “reboots.”
Robert Heinlein would be pleased.
Regards,
Ken
Comment by Ken Del Piero — April 18, 2012 @ 7:03 pm
The Gene Rodenberry connection is more direct than than Arthur C. Clarke. Anyone who read his and Steven Whitfield’s book from 1968 “The Making of Star Trek” knows that Rodenberry was in the navy in W.W. II and explicitly modeled Star Fleet on the navy. Star Fleet has admirals and the Enterprise has a bridge and torpedoes.
Comment by Mpd1958 — April 19, 2012 @ 10:44 pm
http://waterandbombs.blogspot.com/
Hey Joe, my new blog!
I have always been fairly unhappy with the effect Star Trek has had on popular culture concerning space travel. The transporter was used in the series to save money on special effects so they did not have to have shuttle craft landing all the time. Warp Drive? Violates the laws of physics- FTL travel makes the public think we can actually go faster than light. We can go to the stars maybe even in this century but they will be one way trips. That’s just the way it is. Stargates and hyperspace, like airline and space as an ocean analogies, do more harm than good.
Comment by GaryChurch — April 21, 2012 @ 4:57 pm
I hope that you’ll post an article with your thoughts on the new asteroid mining venture that was just announced. In my thinking, telerobotic mining on the Moon seems the most cost-effective approach to accessing space resources.
Comment by JohnHunt — April 24, 2012 @ 3:48 pm
Hi John, “telerobotic mining on the Moon seems the most cost-effective”
There are no robot mines on Earth and there will not be any in space John. I have turned wrenches on and troubleshooted systems on everything from main battle tanks to all weather rescue helicopters and it all breaks, needs maintenance, or requires a fine touch to operate effectively. That is the way it is now and how it will be until some form of artificial intelligence that can solve the hundreds of unforseen problems can be mass produced. Like fusion, intelligence may be one of those things that can only happen under certain conditions (like in a star or a bomb). And that may be a good thing.
Space Mining, like space tourism, is a deception- it is not possible to mine anything in space cheaper than on Earth. Space tourism is a cheap and nasty path to tax dollars going into investor pockets and relies on the very low public awareness of what space travel is all about. It is not about going in endless circles at very high altitude. To travel you have to go somewhere. Like the moon.
The Moon has water, solar energy, thorium for nuclear reactor fuel, and a vast amount of matter to tunnel into and construct an underground base. Once a certain amount energy can be produced by manufacturing solar panels, and a certain amount of food can be grown, and some basic industrial shops are in operation- the moon base will be self-sufficient and then becomes a place for people to live.
Until that happens- all the profit motive publicizing is just a scam. There is no cheap and there is no market until vast governmental resources build spaceships and off world colonies. And the only reason to build off-world is insurance against something very bad happening on Earth- which makes it a DOD mission.
And since they have all the money that is what will work. Unfortunately cold war toys and secret programs are easy money- they don’t really have to work.
Spaceships are hard money and the only way to get the defense industry to build them is force them. And since they own the politicians it is kind of hard to do that.
Comment by GaryChurch — April 24, 2012 @ 8:35 pm
Sorry, I forgot to add the most important part-
Corporate greed as I described in post 13 is what is making us an endangered species. Right now. We think we are the center of the universe but we are not. We could disappear tomorrow and it would just be another one of thousands or even millions of species in the universe too stupid to survive. People scoff at talk like this but it is true. We can’t handle the truth.
Comment by GaryChurch — April 24, 2012 @ 8:43 pm
All appropriate images to consider while the space program “reboots.”
Thanks, Ken! Let’s hope that the program does “reboot.”
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — April 25, 2012 @ 12:35 pm
I hope that you’ll post an article with your thoughts on the new asteroid mining venture that was just announced.
Hi John,
I’m thinking about it, but it’s hard to discuss something that has not been fleshed out to a degree where it can be discussed, even conceptually. In the meantime, I have written previously on the value of asteroid missions vis-a-vis lunar missions:
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2011/08/destination-moon-or-asteroid/
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2011/09/destination-moon-or-asteroid-part-ii-scientific-considerations/
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2011/09/destination-moon-or-asteroid-part-iii-resource-utilization-considerations/
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — April 25, 2012 @ 12:39 pm
http://edlu.com/alien-civilizations-asteroids-and-the-fermi-paradox
Hi Dr. Spudis,
I don’t know if you have ever met Ed Lu but I think his work and yours compliment each other. Perhaps you two could join forces and publish something- I have also been corresponding with author Michael Belfiore and also with George Knapp- a host on the UFO/conspiracy radio show Coast to Coast am (with also hosts real scientists on occasion)
United we stand, divided- we go extinct.
Comment by GaryChurch — April 25, 2012 @ 7:01 pm
“I hope that you’ll post an article with your thoughts on the new asteroid mining venture that was just announced.”
I agree with you Paul, John is thinking of something that is really hard to discuss and to write. But with his statement he really indeed is interested with topics about aerospace and I love it too. I also find discussions like these worth while. I am imagining how it is to live in the outer space with all the help from the advancements that scientists can come up. By the way, I really appreciate how you dig up the history to relate aerospace to aviation and to seafaring. Somewhat they are interrelated. I love aviation so I take time reading a lot of blogs about aviation and now I’m starting to relate it also with aerospace. Thanks for posting this blog!
James David teaches people how to buy single engine airplanes & has a passion for the Cessna 152 Performance
Comment by James David — April 26, 2012 @ 2:21 am
I am 53 and grew up addicted to the space-race. Since I live south of Houston, I knew a lot of people who’s parents worked for NASA, and even a couple of astronauts’ kids. Does anyone else believe that NASA abandoned its Von Braun-inspired grand vision of space exploration at the end of the Gemini program, before Apollo even flew? I wonder if NASA lost its nerve?
Comment by Michael — April 29, 2012 @ 3:01 pm
Michael,
Does anyone else believe that NASA abandoned its Von Braun-inspired grand vision of space exploration at the end of the Gemini program, before Apollo even flew?
I have discussed this very topic in a previous post:
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2012/03/legacy-of-a-space-titan/
I think that the “von Braun architecture” has always been the agency’s emotional aspiration, but political needs and realities have taken priority for most of NASA’s existence. Now, with no goal in sight, aimless drift has set in. It’s not a matter of nerve — it’s a matter of will.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — May 1, 2012 @ 1:53 pm