Reprint: On Castles and Foundations
[Note: Digging around on archive.org for my old Prometheus Downport Project stuff, I found this oldie but goodie that I felt was worth reprinting. My views on a couple of the topics have changed a bit over the past 15% of my life since I wrote this, but I figured it was worth putting up. This was one of the original intro pieces to the Prometheus Downport Project]
Many of us have dreamed of living and working in space. Our youth was filled with movies about spaceships and aliens, big orbiting space stations and space pirates, warp drive and laser beams. Whether you were born in the heady era of 2001: Space Odyssey, the time of Star Trek, or Star Wars, it was similar. As we grew older, we eventually grew a little wiser, and figured out that it is unlikely that antigravity or warp drive will ever move out of the realm of science fiction. But, for the most part, we still hold on to some of our old dreams. While it may seem fantastic to us now, there is nothing physically impossible about large orbiting space stations, thriving bases on moons and planets (and between them), trips to the gas giants, and many other things we saw as children.
I like the quote above, as it gives me hope. While many of these things may be castles in the air, Thoreau is quite right. Our work does not need to be lost. I'm sure many of us have become rather disillusioned about the possibility of ever going to space. It only took about a year or two from my visit to Cape Canaveral and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum when I was 15 for the wonder to start wearing off and the reality to start setting in. The technology to do many of the things we saw in 2001: Space Odyssey is not really that far beyond the technologies that put us on the moon over 30 years ago. In spite of being given almost half a trillion dollars (in 2003 equivalents) over the years since Apollo, NASA has delivered very little that helps to promote the development of space. NASA's budgets are limited, and aren't going to go up anytime soon. It seems to many as though we are doomed to spend the rest of our lives watching government employees fly around in circles, but it doesn't need to be so.
The critical part of the quote, though, is the last line. Far too many space enthusiasts, myself included, have forgotten this important lesson. Some abandon hope and move on to greener pastures. Others live in fantasy worlds where Klingons really do exist and warp drive will be invented any day now. Most space enthusiasts, while being a lot more realistic than that, still suffer from focusing way too much on the castles in the air, and far too little on how to get from here to there. If I had every paper study on space stations, lunar colonies, mars expeditions, and reusable launch vehicles, it would probably weigh more than the Saturn V that sent the original Apollo missions heavenward on their journey to the Moon. As John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace recently quipped, "We need a lot more building, and a lot less studying." What we need, is to start building foundations up to reach our castle in the air. This involves taking off our rose-colored glasses, and taking a stark look at the real state of space development, which admittedly is not very pretty. But there is hope if we act wisely.
First off, we need to realize that NASA isn't going to get us into space. I repeat, NASA will not get us into space. There are thousands of excellent engineers working there, but NASA has lost the vision, the drive, and the leadership it needs to really do anything significant. $15B per year is a lot of money, even if it is only 1% of the total government spending. With good drive, management, and incentives, NASA could accomplish a lot with this. They have accomplished some pretty impressive things over the years with their unmanned space probes and landers, but in most of their other endeavors, they have done rather poorly. They are currently tied down by the need to complete the International Space Station, which should keep them preoccupied well into the next decade. Between that, trying to fund the Orbital Space Plane, and trying to keep the Shuttle Program running, they really do not have the resources or energy to pursue anything outside of Low Earth Orbit before the the mid-2020's, if that soon. They will send probes to various places, and will do some good aeronautics research between now and then, but the soonest that they could realistically place a man on the moon again (barring the cancellation of ISS, STS, and OSP, or a massive funding increase), is around 2025. The fact is, if we want to go, we can't wait for them. They're too preoccupied and too bureaucratic to do much anymore.
Second, and slightly counterintuitive considering my first point, we have to stop thinking of NASA as an enemy. NASA isn't going to get us into space, but it won't keep us from space either. I know far too many space activists, including myself in the past, who like to rant and rave about how "NASA is preventing us from going into space." I've come to realize over the past few years that this isn't really the case. NASA isn't out to get us. They're not focused enough to do that. I prefer the analogy used at the most recent Space Access Society by Henry Vanderbuilt. He compared NASA to an old aging dinosaur and the new entrepreneurial space companies to small mammals. He said, "In the land of the dinosaurs, mammals occasionally get stepped on. Not that the dinosaur intends to, or even notices (other than the gooey mess between its toes)." It just happens. As a coworker of mine once said, "Never attribute malice when ignorance or stupidity will explain it." NASA will occasionally try to do things that commercial companies are doing (and step on them a bit in the process), but it is more likely out of curiosity, nerd envy, and the desire to try things out that others are doing that look cool, than out of a cold-hearted effort to wipe out any competition. So, while we should try and watch where their feet are going, and try to scurry out of the way, we shouldn't waste time on trying to kill NASA off, as it just isn't likely to happen anytime soon. More importantly, killing NASA off in itself will not get us into space.
Third, we need to avoid focusing on big "UberProjects". The day will come when massive O'Neill L5 colonies, kilometer wide Space Solar Power farms, and Mars Missions will be within the realm of economic reality, but trying to go straight to them from where we are now would be like trying to force-feed a T-Bone Steak to a 1 year old. In the Philippines they always liked to say "gatas bago sa karne", which means "milk before meat." We need to look at where we are (and where things will be in a year or two) and find small, incremental steps that we can take now.
Which leads me to my last point. Fourth, we need to actually be doing things. Not just doing more studies, having more daydreams, or making more layouts for "future mars bases", we need to actually start taking steps and "bending metal." This can be done on many different levels, but the key is to identify current markets that can be attacked for reasonably low amounts of capital. These can be directly aerospace-related markets, or could even be completely unrelated commercial markets, it all depends on your resources and capabilities. Some people may actually have the resources and capabilities to build a small capsule that could be launched on current expendable launch vehicles, others may need to start much smaller, maybe just building rocket engines and model rockets. Or maybe building consumer goods that use aerospace technologies. There are many groups out there taking this approach who are starting to really accomplish things. My hat is off to the Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace, Interorbital Systems, TransOrbital, SpaceDev, and other groups who are moving things along. We don't need to lobby congress for money. We don't need to convince NASA or Boeing that our idea is the way to go. We just need to find steps that are realistic for us to take, and little by little move forward with them until someday we have built a foundation that reaches all the way to our castles in the air.
~Jonathan Goff
30 May 2003
If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.
--Henry David Thoreau
I like the quote above, as it gives me hope. While many of these things may be castles in the air, Thoreau is quite right. Our work does not need to be lost. I'm sure many of us have become rather disillusioned about the possibility of ever going to space. It only took about a year or two from my visit to Cape Canaveral and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum when I was 15 for the wonder to start wearing off and the reality to start setting in. The technology to do many of the things we saw in 2001: Space Odyssey is not really that far beyond the technologies that put us on the moon over 30 years ago. In spite of being given almost half a trillion dollars (in 2003 equivalents) over the years since Apollo, NASA has delivered very little that helps to promote the development of space. NASA's budgets are limited, and aren't going to go up anytime soon. It seems to many as though we are doomed to spend the rest of our lives watching government employees fly around in circles, but it doesn't need to be so.
The critical part of the quote, though, is the last line. Far too many space enthusiasts, myself included, have forgotten this important lesson. Some abandon hope and move on to greener pastures. Others live in fantasy worlds where Klingons really do exist and warp drive will be invented any day now. Most space enthusiasts, while being a lot more realistic than that, still suffer from focusing way too much on the castles in the air, and far too little on how to get from here to there. If I had every paper study on space stations, lunar colonies, mars expeditions, and reusable launch vehicles, it would probably weigh more than the Saturn V that sent the original Apollo missions heavenward on their journey to the Moon. As John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace recently quipped, "We need a lot more building, and a lot less studying." What we need, is to start building foundations up to reach our castle in the air. This involves taking off our rose-colored glasses, and taking a stark look at the real state of space development, which admittedly is not very pretty. But there is hope if we act wisely.
First off, we need to realize that NASA isn't going to get us into space. I repeat, NASA will not get us into space. There are thousands of excellent engineers working there, but NASA has lost the vision, the drive, and the leadership it needs to really do anything significant. $15B per year is a lot of money, even if it is only 1% of the total government spending. With good drive, management, and incentives, NASA could accomplish a lot with this. They have accomplished some pretty impressive things over the years with their unmanned space probes and landers, but in most of their other endeavors, they have done rather poorly. They are currently tied down by the need to complete the International Space Station, which should keep them preoccupied well into the next decade. Between that, trying to fund the Orbital Space Plane, and trying to keep the Shuttle Program running, they really do not have the resources or energy to pursue anything outside of Low Earth Orbit before the the mid-2020's, if that soon. They will send probes to various places, and will do some good aeronautics research between now and then, but the soonest that they could realistically place a man on the moon again (barring the cancellation of ISS, STS, and OSP, or a massive funding increase), is around 2025. The fact is, if we want to go, we can't wait for them. They're too preoccupied and too bureaucratic to do much anymore.
Second, and slightly counterintuitive considering my first point, we have to stop thinking of NASA as an enemy. NASA isn't going to get us into space, but it won't keep us from space either. I know far too many space activists, including myself in the past, who like to rant and rave about how "NASA is preventing us from going into space." I've come to realize over the past few years that this isn't really the case. NASA isn't out to get us. They're not focused enough to do that. I prefer the analogy used at the most recent Space Access Society by Henry Vanderbuilt. He compared NASA to an old aging dinosaur and the new entrepreneurial space companies to small mammals. He said, "In the land of the dinosaurs, mammals occasionally get stepped on. Not that the dinosaur intends to, or even notices (other than the gooey mess between its toes)." It just happens. As a coworker of mine once said, "Never attribute malice when ignorance or stupidity will explain it." NASA will occasionally try to do things that commercial companies are doing (and step on them a bit in the process), but it is more likely out of curiosity, nerd envy, and the desire to try things out that others are doing that look cool, than out of a cold-hearted effort to wipe out any competition. So, while we should try and watch where their feet are going, and try to scurry out of the way, we shouldn't waste time on trying to kill NASA off, as it just isn't likely to happen anytime soon. More importantly, killing NASA off in itself will not get us into space.
Third, we need to avoid focusing on big "UberProjects". The day will come when massive O'Neill L5 colonies, kilometer wide Space Solar Power farms, and Mars Missions will be within the realm of economic reality, but trying to go straight to them from where we are now would be like trying to force-feed a T-Bone Steak to a 1 year old. In the Philippines they always liked to say "gatas bago sa karne", which means "milk before meat." We need to look at where we are (and where things will be in a year or two) and find small, incremental steps that we can take now.
Which leads me to my last point. Fourth, we need to actually be doing things. Not just doing more studies, having more daydreams, or making more layouts for "future mars bases", we need to actually start taking steps and "bending metal." This can be done on many different levels, but the key is to identify current markets that can be attacked for reasonably low amounts of capital. These can be directly aerospace-related markets, or could even be completely unrelated commercial markets, it all depends on your resources and capabilities. Some people may actually have the resources and capabilities to build a small capsule that could be launched on current expendable launch vehicles, others may need to start much smaller, maybe just building rocket engines and model rockets. Or maybe building consumer goods that use aerospace technologies. There are many groups out there taking this approach who are starting to really accomplish things. My hat is off to the Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace, Interorbital Systems, TransOrbital, SpaceDev, and other groups who are moving things along. We don't need to lobby congress for money. We don't need to convince NASA or Boeing that our idea is the way to go. We just need to find steps that are realistic for us to take, and little by little move forward with them until someday we have built a foundation that reaches all the way to our castles in the air.
~Jonathan Goff
30 May 2003
Labels: Lunar Commerce, NASA, Space Development
posted by Jon Goff at 11:20 PM
1 Comments:
I don't know myself. I've heard some convincing arguments that NASA obstructed the MX Missile conversion program (converting MX Missiles to a rocket platform) that E'Prime Aerospace (with the blessing of the Department of Defense) did back in the mid-90's. But that sort of company is more likely to fail than not. So I don't know if the rumors are true or a transference of blame.
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