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November 18, 2004
NASA gives us the Eye
Neal Newman, NASA attache to the US Embassy in Canberra unveiled his new sales pitch at the University of NSW.
Neal described his job as being to build interest in NASA.
The vision is to return to the moon as a first step. George W. Bush described the vision in 2003,…and there is still no concrete plan in place.
Neal Newman explained that the Apollo moon program was “not sustainable” - it cost five percent of US Gross Domestic Product, and this couldn’t continue. So NASA concentrated on the space shuttle.
The X-prize phenomenon was a shock to NASA. People happily spent twenty million dollars to enter a competition, to be the first to send private astronauts to the edge of space ,and win only ten million dollars in prize money. NASA wants to cash in on this enthusiasm.
Neal described President Bush’s 2003 new ‘vision’ for a future in space , paid for by international and private funding, rather than US government funding.
In May 2005 the repaired space shuttle launches again.
A mere five years later, in 2010 NASA retire the space shuttle fleet forever, to free funds of three and a half billion dollars per year for NASA to spend… in better ways.
In 2014, the replacement craft is scheduled to be launched.
Thats a PLANNED gap of at least four years when the US will not have any manned space flight capability at all. It looks like they are bowing out of manned space flight.
The private sector is expected to completely provide for the International Space Station personnel and supply transport. Perhaps persuaded by cash prizes, in order to gain the prestige of supplying the winning vehicle. Or perhaps another nation will create and donate the transport vehicle and staff it. They don’t know. It’ll work out somehow.
In 2008, the vision sees a Lunar robotic orbiter launched. The US already did this forty years ago.
In 2020, a mere fifteen years from now, Humans will land on the moon, …again.
Strangely, the only reason Neal could give for returning to the Moon was that it is a stepping stone to a manned landing on Mars. He’s just not trying very hard. He didn’t try to give any reasons for a manned flight to Mars, either. I guess he knew he was speaking to Space fans so he didn’t have to sell it very hard. Or maybe its been pushed so far into the future that NASA have no real plans in that direction. Robert Zubrin’s “Mars Direct” program was more believable, especially when budget is such an issue. However its been dropped.
We were introduced to “Project Constellation”
The aim is to design modules for changeable targets and technologies so as not to commit to obsolete goals or tools. To be flexible enough to take into account advances in technology, and changes in political will.
They have catchy slogan about spriral transformation being a “system of systems”. Isn’t everything?
NASA will be offering competition cash prizes to copy the success of the X-prize, and calling them “Centennial challenges” There are no specifics just yet, about the amounts or even what the challenges are, just a web site.
No plan, just a vision.
Neal then dimmed the lights to show us a slide show of NASA’s impressive accomplishments of the past, while he played a CD of the Beatles’ song Yesterday
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be,
There’s a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go I don’t know she woldn’t say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
It was like a eulogy for NASA! The party is over.
Neal turned the lights back up to give NASA’s 21st Century answer to “why go to space?”
Basically, the kids aren’t motivated to do boring industrial engineering careers, so they aren’t taking up engineering. Have a space program to excite them into taking up an engineering career, and they’ll be easily moved into the boring industrial jobs the Bush economy needs them to work in. No space program, and no motivation for young scientists and engineers that the mundane economy needs.
Neal then gave the new NASA answer for the question “why return to moon?”
Answer: “Its good practice for further away”.
This is a much worse fake answer than pretending the Enemy will launch attacks from the Moon if we don’t secure it first.
There are industrial and scientific reasons for returning to the moon, but it appears that the Bush administration and NASA aren’t interested in them, and more importantly, have no interest in interesting US, in them.
Why go to Mars?
NASA’s answer is to understand Earth better. A better scientifc answer, in everyday language, yet it doesn’t really say very much.
The vision continued:
n 2009 a robot rover will land on Mars with a fifty kilometre range.
Four years later in 2013 it will return a sample of Martian soil
After that, there is no date for humans actually landing on Mars
NASA promises to put the new Mars images straight to the internet for everyone to play with, instead of keeping them secret. This is an introduction to the new sharing philosophy at NASA’s spiral transformation.
Neal revealed at last an amazing and powerful new scientific toy, the NASA World Wind which he demonstrated for us.
Basically the NASA World Wind is a satellite mapped model of the Earth that you can access on your home computer. The broadcast images come from the Motis satellite. You can zoom in on apparently any place on Earth, and see images from the last satellite pass-over. On his laptop, he was able to zoom in to within 15 metres resolution, and find the Snowy Mountains in NSW, and his old school in California, where he could see how heavy the traffic had been earlier in the day.
The software is downloadable for free from NASA, and requires a 1 GHZ CPU and 3 gigabytes of hard disk space. They have written it so that the bulk of the rendering and search work is done over the internet by the NASA servers. They are encouraging schools and Universities to make the tool available to students and researchers, and they are adding world databases of biological, seismological, geological and geographical information to the model.
Neal recommends that the fastest access time from Sydney to the NASA servers is about 10pm.
Neal said that when online, there is up to ONE METRE resolution. This is an amazing tool to just give away free to the public. This is the sort of Big Brother use of satellites that we have seen portrayed on TV shows like Alias in the hands of unscrupulous Intelligence Agencies, now useable by anyone with a newish PC.
The software is Open Source. Its part of letting interested parties the world over help NASA. Open Source means that not only can organisations check there isn’t something nasty hiding away in the code, but that enthusiasts around the world can improve the software, and add new capabilities to it, or even sell it and make a profit.
The NASA World Wind software and databases are free because they are government funded. Thats the new philosophy. Very welcome, and unexpected.
Its also very clever. This is a fantastic and lasting Public Relations tool that instantly demonstrates some of NASA’s value without dragging people along to watch a space shuttle launch at 4am in Florida.
Another new slogan at NASA is that space travel “is a journey not a race”.
They hope to get space instruments built by foreign governments like Australia in return for Australian scientists working at NASA.
There has been concern at the aging of NASA staff, and a recognition of the need to get new blood and new thinking into the organisation, and to make use of people’s interest in space travel by listening to their opinions and suggestions.
I need a new computer so I can run the fancy software and plan to take over the world while gloating over an accurate photographic three dimensional globe of the world, while other people zoom in and watch ME.
About the author: Ian Woolf lives in Sydney, has a degree in Applied Physics, worked as a solar astronomer, software engineer, systems programmer, webmaster, Cisco CCNA tutor, Computational Theory lecturer, and subject coordinator; while changing his career to professional writing and broadcasting. Listen to Ian on the Discovery science show on radio 2SER 107.3Fm Mondays at 9am in Sydney or streaming audio on www.2ser.com, or listen to the Discovery sound archives.
Posted by iwoolf at November 18, 2004 06:42 PM | TrackBackIt appears Ian was attending a different lecture than the one I presented. It’s puzzling to me why he presents such a critical, cynical perspective of the US’s space exploration vision which is a re-doubling of what ALREADY represents 60-70% (rough guess) of the world’s investment in human space exploration. Just think where we’d be if NASA wasn’t in the game. As to specifics: The Apollo program consumed upwards of 5% of US Federal Budget, not of GDP. The Vision for US Space Exploration was announced in 2004, not 2003, and contrary to Ian’s opinion there has been a worldwind of progress in furthering the vision over the past 11 months. We are on schedule. The US Vision could not possibly be construed as the US “bowing out of manned space flight.” It demonstrates just the opposite — that the US is committed to the task of expanding human presence throughout the cosmos as never before. NASA has been making it’s images available to the public w/o copyright restriction since day one, and we’ve been distributing free, US taxpayer funded software and satellite data to the world for years — nothing new here. In the Space Shuttle’s 20+ year history, there has not been a single case of NASA “dragging people along to watch a space shuttle launch.” In fact, demand has always exceeded supply. Just see one Shuttle launch and you’ll understand. To say that the Vision is “affordable by international and private funding, rather than US government funding” is absurd. We are pursuing international cooperation because it is the right thing to do — because space exploration raises everyone’s spirits, and offers tremendous opportunities to build lasting cross cultural relationships. This Vision will succeed, and the world will be a better place because of it, whether the rest of the world participates directly or not, or chooses instead to be critical of our efforts.
Very Respectfully,
Neal Newman
NASA Representative
NASA has contributed a lot; no question. Australia has not really been serious about Space (to be fair, they made an effort to keep the Europeans at Woomera - but completely threw in the towel after they moved on). And its for the Americans to figure out their priorities, that’s their perogative. But we can still question the logic of their position as outsiders.
Is the US committed to Space Exploration ? How do we measure whether it is ? It seems funding is to be capped at the current budget, percentage, whatever. Maintaining this funding indicates some committment - but clearly an increase in funding would demonstrate a greater commitment.
Whether US Government agencies like NASA develop the technology themselves, or purchase it from companies makes no overall difference - if we have results. But what is the overall money being put in ? If the US Government utilises private money through “prizes”, well, you have non-government initiative taking the lead. Is the Government being “cheap” and “making a retreat”, or is it being “clever”, making good use of the money it has ?
There’s two issues here - efficiency of spending the taxpayer money allocated to space exploration, and the total amount of taxpayer money allocated to space in the first place.
Ian’s dissapointment at lack of progress in the proposed timetable is on the one hand reasonable given past history of space exploration - but, its better to have some goals to none. Ian also points to past innovations like Mars Direct, which seem to have been the stillborn remnants of other potential, more positive, plans.
Sure, a Space Shuttle launch is spectacular for those watching it. But so is a really good fireworks display. There’s a difference between watching a launch and being engaged in the space industry. Ian’s comment about engineering may be a bit cynical, but its nothing excessive.
Why does not engineering by itself, a demand driven by the market, entice enough people into its ranks ? The idea that you need ‘extra inspiration’ seems strange. Perhaps we’re assuming the market doesn’t work properly here…(cynically, maybe the market does work - and we’re trying to increase the supply of engineers …)
OK, the US’ committment to space exploration needs to be acknowledged. But there are other possible paths, too.
Posted by: John August at December 8, 2004 11:05 PM