For many years, the
space movement in Washington – including the National Space Society – was
represented in Congress by an organization called the “Space Exploration
Alliance,” which tended to be a spokesman for myopic efforts to raid the
federal treasury without much concern about how to do the best we can for the
grand vision of humanity really settling space. Do we really just want want a
bigger collection of baseball cars of people who have touched the surface of
the moon, o9r an expansion of “banana republic” kinds of narrow eocnomicd
activities in space? Is tghere any chance of humans REALLY expanding into
space, developing a solid eocnmic base which make sense without subsidy, and
can grow economically without relying on a growth in spending by governments on
earth?
Charles Miller, an
activist with the Space Frontier Foundation, approached me one day, as I am
formally the Executive Vice President for Policy of the National Space Society
(at least until the lawyers and the big lobbyists catch up with me, as they
have tried to squash him at times). He said: “Why don’t SFF and NSS get
together and start a new alliance, an alliance for space development (ASD), to
focus on the economic DEVELOPMENT of space? And why don’t we set up new sets of
Congressional visits organized around that theme?” I strongly supported that
idea and discussed it with the executive committee of NSS. They approved it…
but I do not yet know whether the kinds of formal structures they have in place
will really live up to the larger need and hope. There are still lots of folks
who think that the job of a lobbyist is to instruct constituents on exactly
which lone items should be supported in their institutions, without wasting
time on why or on where we are headed in the bigger picture.
In any event, at the
start, I proposed the following declaration to be the charter for such an
alliance, if it ever really materializes as envisioned, and to guide
constituents to talk about whatever part of the vision they feel most called to
discuss with their representatives in Congress:
Proposed Declaration Defining the new Alliance for Space
Development (ASD)
Paul J. Werbos,
2014
ASD plans to develop,
adapt and change a wide variety of position papers, in response to
opportunities which come and go. But these specific opportunities will all be
within the more fundamental goals of the organization.
The Alliance is
dedicated to unifying the efforts of many groups towards one overriding goal,
which guides all else: to achieve the economically sustainable human settlement
of space. We don't oppose OTHER values on space and earth, but we agree to
focus on trying to get to this one, to make it work. We know it is a difficult
goal, but that makes it all the more important to focus our efforts and our consciousness
to make it happen. This is the one unconditional commitment of ASD.
Why do we want humans in space? For the same
reason we want humans on earth. As sane human beings, we will always fight for
the survival and growth of humanity, both on earth and in space. We are fully
aware of the many obstacles, challenges and risks to human survival and growth,
both on earth and in space, but we will never hide from these challenges and
will never forget the real bottom line.
To achieve this goal,
we will support activities aimed at building the four pillars which our hopes
here rest on:
1. NEW MARKETS from
space to earth, large enough and tricky enough to create"multiplier"
effects beyond what the existing applications in space provide. Space
"tourism" (which is sometimes just recreation and sometimes
more serious) and energy from space are the two obvious possibilities, but we
are open to others, such as higher levels of communication capabilities to
bring better internet capabilities to the poorest people on earth. Whatever the
risks in these markets, we need to do the best we can to open up the full
potential of the new markets, both through changed regulation and technology
development. That's a top priority.
2. ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
will also be crucial to making space activities sustainable, affordable and
profitable on a larger scale. Most urgent is the development of new technology
to allow reusable access to space at minimum marginal) cost, designed with
foresight, looking ahead to the hope of large launch volumes to serve new
markets. DARPA's XS-1 project is a unique shining light in this space, but
earlier projects at the height of the cold war (like Science dawn, RASV and
TAV) developed low-cost technology still essential to the possibilities
before us. ASD will not advocate who develops this technology -- new space, old
space or governments. Rather, it will try to provide encouragement and support
for any player ready to do the serious advanced technology work. In addition to
access to space, better technology for transportation beyond low earth orbit is
also essential, and other elements of crucial economic infrastructure to
improve cost-effectiveness of all efforts in space, even to the end of the
solar system and beyond. ASD will advocate upgrading almost ALL
government space activities to take more time but do things right, at lower
cost, by allocating effort to advanced technology development to do the mission
better.
3. NONTERRESTRIAL
materials are another basic pillar of humanity's hope for self-sustaining
economic growth in space. This will take more time than the initial development
of new markets, but it is an essential requirement which we must meet sooner or
later. We have no interest in putting boots on the moon -- but we do have an
interest in rational steps as part of a strategy to get real economic value
form the moon and from the asteroids, and eventually Mars. The economics
history of earth tells us that the best strategy is not to develop just one
source of materials, but all of them, starting with what is easiest to get to,,
and planning to phase the key decision making into market systems as they
become able to take over.
4. HUMAN ABILITY to
live and work in space, in the long term, is the fourth and final fundamental
pillar of human settlement, and an other basic commitment. To make this real,
we agree, at a minimum, that human presence in space should remain continuous
and permanent, initially through ISS but through larger, expanded systems in
the future, without any retreat.
For more on space solar power, see http://nss.org/EU,
and my article on SSP in Ad Astra, summer 2014.
For more detail on some of these points, see my
response (slightly edited) to the open request for comments from Tom Kalil of
OSTP:
Dear Dr. Kalil and friends,
On October 14, you quoted Phillip Metzger as
saying: “If we want to create a robust civilization in our solar system, more
of the energy, raw materials and equipment that we use in space has to come
from space.” Then you ask how to do it. My friends and I believe we can help a
lot in answering that question. I attach
two samples of aspects we have looked at.
First, let me thank you for posing such an
important question. In many, many areas of science and technology, people waste
huge amounts of money in efforts which do not keep returning to the big
questions of what we are really trying to do. The US space program has
certainly experienced a lot of that. While we did not communicate as well as
Dr. Metzger this time, some of us have advocated exactly the same idea, and
spent many years tying together some of the things which need to be tied
together. We have lots and lots of backup material on all the points.
There is a lot of crucial (even urgent) work needed which has fallen between
the cracks, due to myopic players in the game.
Second, though I am not representing NSF in
this email, I have worked there for 25 years now and learned a lot about
the key technologies. You probably know about the collaborations of Mike Roco
and Bill Bainbridge (who is under open attack from Lamar Smith). Bill edited a
special issue of Futures in 2009, and asked me for an article which addresses
your question in a more detailed, analytical way: P. Werbos, Towards a Rational Strategy for the Human Settlement of Space, Futures, Volume 41, Issue 8, October 2009. Since this was work of a government employee, I
was able to legally post it on the web: http://www.werbos.com/E/
We have looked intensively at all four
“markets” in the one-pager. One of special interest is space solar power (SSP).
A new design paradigm has arisen, based on Japanese funding and a one-time NASA
project, which in my view has really serious potential. I say that as one of
the directors of the NSF program in Energy, Power, Controls and Networks, with
a prior background building energy econometric models and continuing
involvement in activities such as the IEEE-USA energy policy committee, ourenergypolicy.org and others. Attached is a draft report
on renewable energy research, highlighting SSP as one of four key options; this
is not the official view of NSF, but since I wrote it and you are in the
government I figure you entitled to full access. By the way, one of the things
we should do, in an ideal world here, is add an item to Richard Voyles’ NRI
solicitation using this SSP ALPHA assembly as a testbed challenge,
perhaps funding a preliminary effort to tighten up and refine the
challenge. Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President of India, flew to the NSS annual
meeting last year, and argued very hard for a new international effort to
develop that technology, which he sees as very essential to the needs of India
and other developing nations; we lost touch when he went on the campaign trail
for Narendra Modi, but from OSTP the opportunity still exists. Of
course, SSP would be an important energy source for use in space as well as to
earth.
Most urgent of all, in my view, is the need for
more effective work on lower cost access to space, as in the IEEE-USA position paper on that challenge. There is hope of
bipartisan action there, given the strong support by people affiliated with the
Marshall Institute and others more aligned with the Administration. http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/
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