Space ‘Triumphs’ (Mars in another light)

Imagine your neighbor throwing a party to show off his brand new high-tech boat – or flower garden or remodeled kitchen. Pick your item and imagine the triumph in your neighbor’s eyes, voice and body language. You would surely be a spoilsport to try to rain on his parade with any kind of negative or derisive comment. What a mean thing that would be! But imagine that you discovered that your neighbor had built his invention by first raiding his other neighbor’s savings account. His fabulous new gizmo no longer looks so fabulous to you and, you conclude, it is quite perverse that it looks fabulous to him. Sure, it is still something of a wonder – what a thing to create, to build. But it cannot be reasonably denied that the means by which the fellow got the thing done, namely, by robbing his other neighbor, cast a very serous cloud over whatever wonderful thing he made that way.

Well, that’s how I see all those fabulous achievements of NASA, including some of the American government’s space exploration. It is actually worse than that. Since most of those who take part in those ventures are completely oblivious to the venality of the means by which their projects get off the ground – how their funding is secured, how it deprives millions of citizens of various amounts of wealth from which they might have produced their own more or less fabulous creations – I am not only appalled at the viciousness of these celebrations but also at the rank moral ignorance of all those who go about the celebration without a clue as to its source.

It would, indeed, be more honest to witness at least some of the folks who come on television to proclaim the wonders of these achievements if they toasted the extortionist scheme that provided them with the funding. At least we would learn that these folks are aware of what they are doing, that they are vicious but not also stupid. Instead, however, they go about their celebrations blithely, as if nothing untoward had been involved in how it all came to be achieved.

I am by no means some kind of Luddite who thinks the great leaps of technology, including space explorations, demonstrate the sin of hubris on part of the human race. No, that ignorant scientists and technologists who can stand and cheer when a brilliant payload lands on Mars and sends back stunning pictures that tell us all kinds of stuff we could make use of. It isn’t even necessary in these cases to produce immediate utilitarian results – the feats in and of themselves, like those of other human adventures, are often sufficient to cause delight for most decent people.

However, when one knows that these feats are produced on the backs of millions of tax payers – folks from whom wealth is confiscated at the point of a gun, ultimately, and who might very well have had vital objectives to pursue with the aid of their wealth and were cruelly deprived of this – there is no way to take part in all the hoopla. In fact, witnessing the morally blind pride exhibited by all those scientists, engineers, and administrators is quite painful. I must deny myself the joy I know I would feel if the accomplishments had not had been fueled by blood money.

But, perhaps I am odd. When I run across the so called marvels of past civilizations in Europe and elsewhere, such as the palaces, cathedrals, pyramids, great walls, and magnificent monuments, I find it difficult not to reflect on the deliberate, utterly avoidable human devastation that it took to get many of these artifacts produced. I always ask myself how things would have gone had all those people who were conscripted to labor on all these wondrous creations had the chance to choose their own projects.

I realize, of course, that they would probably have squandered a good deal of their lives and resources but, then, I recall that their conscripted labor and resources also went to waste a good deal of the time – in the service of wars of conquest, subjugation or confiscation, or of idolatry and frivolity. And then I recall, too, that while perhaps some of these products of forced labor, just as the recent Mars landing of the unmanned space craft, were wonderful and even helpful, we will never know how it would have gone had individuals been left free to determine to what end to devote their own labors and resources.

And, of course, it is also worth keeping in mind that many of the fabulous achievements resulting from conscripted mass labor created environmental destruction, too, which the less grandiose, more modest voluntary projects of individuals and small groups of freely united humans tended to avoid. (Just think of TVA, the Interstate Highway System, the massive canal projects and damns around the globe.)

But, yes, some of these projects are wonderful. They are only made not so by the fact that their creation violated the most elementary principle of civilized human association, freedom of choice.

Tibor Machan [send him mail] holds the Freedom Communications Professorship of Free Enterprise and Business Ethics at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University, CA. A Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, he is author of 20+ books, most recently, The Passion for Liberty (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).

Imagine, in 800 years or a couple of thousand years that our planet is no longer or is becoming inhabital due to lack of resources, including lack of water, over population, war, and impending large asteroid, whatever the case, and the people of earth failed over the last thousands years to explore research our galaxy. The consequenses would mean that end of man kind.

Remember, our sun will not last forever. It too has a shelf life and one day will exhast itself of fuel, or it's resources if you will. This is going to happen, no question.

In the future, hopefully more private organizations will become involved in space exploration. Until then, it's my opinion that we need to do what we can to look for alternative real-estate.

This artcle is trash, junk, rubbish. Here are a few things to think about.

There have been five great extinctions, the last one happen 75 million years ago and the next one might happen tomorrow. We would be very foolish not to try to get off this planet cause, there is no doubt that someday something real bad is gonna happen here.

Meteor/Comet impact:Roaches will rule again. Time since last 75my

Super volcano eruption:Humans might survive but civilization won't.Time since last 70,000 y

Gamma Ray burst: Time since last 225 my:There is a super massive star in our neighborhood it will go supernova in a million years or so.

Massive climate change: Happens all the time, could be a civilization killer.

And of course our own Sun will one day end life on earth. Right now it is in a very stable stage of it's life cycle. That will end and the Sun will fluctuate in it's energy output, bye-bye life on earth. In fact at the end of the Sun life it swells to briefly become a Red Giant, when that happens the Sun will swallow the earth. Or there will be hell on earth.

And for the really paranoid among us, our milky way in a few hundred million years will collide with a super cluster. So getting off the earth might not do it. We might need to get to another Galaxy! All in all, our space program is the best thing mankind is currently doing.

PS. I love the spell checker! Great job Jim.

In all due respect I think you miss the larger point,
which should be,who (whom) should be the biggest, baddest
entity on the block. "We The People" or Company XYZ.
For the sake of making a point lets say that Company XYZ
got to space or the moon first, what would stop them from telling us......that they now have to pay tribute to Company XYZ or they will destroy some city, country or person(s) from space and if anyone or anything threatens them they will destroy it, also. Company XYZ would then run and do what ever they wanted to and theres not
a damn thing you or I could do about it...

I think Govt is the one to run such projects, not AL Copone
.....
IMHO

The space program is really one of those functions that cannot easily be totally privatized, although much of it is contracted out. The X Prize to get into space (actually, not even as far as low Earth orbit) has been going for a while and no private concern has yet claimed it . . .

The X-Prize has only been going since 1998, and the first serious attempts to claim it will come in the next three months. That's amazingly fast. There has been no direct government money involved--and that's great. That's as it should be.

I say there has been no direct government money involved, because the contestants obviously have had access to technology related to and lessons learned through the Big Ticket government programs. That makes sense to me. That's a good, smart use of the national investment.

Technology has advanced so far since the days of Appollo that the dream of private space exploration has come to the brink of realization. We ought to encourage private development and exploitation of space--perhaps through tax breaks and exclusive use licenses.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that limits government spending to specific, enumerated areas. Quite the contrary; blah blah blah...

I must be reading a different version of the constitution than you. According to you the founding fathers didn't mean all of the specific clauses in Article I section 8 at all, and Amendment X doesn't mean anything either. IN your version of the constitution Article I section 8 says:

"The Congress shall have Power to do whatever it wants"
and Amendment X says:
All powers are reserved to Congress

I see. Here all these years I actually thought it meant what it said, but please give me a link to your version so I can read the corrected one.

However, certain elements/compounds, like helium 3, only exist in necessary quantities "out there", can be brought down to surface at reasonable cost, and are extremely valuable

I missed seeing the He³ reservoirs on Mars. Here I just thought it was rocks, dust, ice and CO₂ And I also missed the mechanism where you can bring things from space to earth at a reasonable cost. All these years I was laboring under the misapprehension that the moon rocks were expensive because it cost so much to get them.

Also, we likely won't make trips outside of Mars's orbit until we develop fusion power.

Fusion power has always been just a few years away. However, I don't expect it to be used for anything except making very loud noises anytime soon.

, if we can land on the things and mine them for useful materials that are virtually non-existant on earth but plentiful in space like irridim

You science fiction fans are somewhat self-contradictory. One one hand you say there are all these economic benefits of stuff to be had in space, but on the other you are adamant that the government rob the rest of us to get there because it's too expensive for private enterprise to get to space.

And for the really paranoid among us, our milky way in a few hundred million years will collide with a super cluster

I dunno, all of the things you mentioned are very low probability events, but what the heck, if you think these are important, go for it. Spend every cent you have on space exploration. Set up a scholarship fund for some pasty faced nerd in grad school at Cal tech. Just let me spend my money on the things that I consider to be important.

I think you miss the larger point, which should be,who (whom) should be the biggest, baddest entity on the block. "

I believe that we already have that distinction without wasting billions on pictures of rocks. Hmm how many LOSATs can you buy for $820 million? How many TV's. How many Winchester .338 magnum's? How many single family homes? How many college educations for the children of the people who earned the money? And $820 million is just the tab to put a few hundred lbs of robotic equipment on a one way trip to the cheapest nearby planet.

Compare the Keck to the Hubble as an example. So far Hubble has edged over the $2 billion range (remember the thing didn't even work until they sent a shuttle to fix it) and now they're going to let it burn up in the atmosphere. the Keck telescopes which are giving just as good images as the Hubble and when the Keck interferomer is complete will have far greater resolution and cost under $30 million (according to one source I heard $12 million), and most of this was privately funded.

Let's see Hubble $2,000,000,000, Keck $30,000,000. Hubble getting discarded in about two years Keck going on into the forseeable future. Yep sure makes me want to put my money on government funded research.

My Lord you wake up early.

I missed seeing the He3 reservoirs on Mars.

Who said there was or wasn't?

And I also missed the mechanism where you can bring things from space to earth at a reasonable cost.

Gravity. Once we have a moon base, dropping payloads down to earth only requires heat shielding and parachutes. Cheap.

All these years I was laboring under the misapprehension that the moon rocks were expensive because it cost so much to get them.

That will remain true until we have a platform outside of the Earth's gravity well. Then costs plummet.

The fallacy of this logic is that Spending begets Spending. In order to get votes for money for NASA, promises of pork in another state are given. To solidify support for that pork, still more pork promises are made. And on and on and on.

At least with space exploration we have some sense of accomplishment and something to show for our spending, even if it is only "dust and rocks".

Who said there was or wasn't?

You were the one who said He3 was available in space. So where is it?

Once we have a moon base, dropping payloads down to earth only requires heat shielding and parachutes. Cheap.

If this were true (which it's not), then why doesn't the moon fall on us - serious question? In earth orbit is NOT out of the earth's gravity well (obvious, because it it weren't in earth's gravity it would go sailing off.) The moon is in earth orbit, so even to get to the moon, you have to fight earth gravity all the way intil you hit the balance point between moon gravity and earth gravity and then you have to match moons orbital velocity. To get back to earth you have to overcome moon gravity and overcome the orbital velocity. If you just get it off the moon it will go into earth orbit. All of you science fiction fans forget that earth gravity is not the only thing that you have to expend energy on. There is solar gravity and orbital velocities too. LOTS of energy required for these.

You were the one who said He3 was available in space. So where is it

All over the moon and it appears to be on many planetary moons in our solar system. The moon's alone is a vast quantity. You are not seriously doubting the presence of He3 there are you?

Regarding payloads dropped to Earth:the energy needed to manuever a payload from Moon to earth is far less than the reverse.

But this is relative; the measure to be judged is the cost compared to the gain. The He3 is extremely valuable. The less costs involved with obtaining the fuel, the better. A Moon base would lower that cost in the long run, considerably.

The less costs involved with obtaining the fuel, the better. A Moon base would lower that cost in the long run, considerably.

Two things:
One. What use is He3 btw. I understand that it has some possible uses in thermonuclear weaponry, but other than that what?
Two. If it's all over the moon how do you gather it up? There are tons of gold in a cubic mile of sea water, but no one extracts gold from sea water because it costs too much to concentrate it, and that's right here on earth where you don't have to pay $50,000 a lb to get the machinery in place. Remember the Appolo mission sent back egregiously expensive rocks because of the cost involved in obtaining them, not anything of intrinsic value.

There ain't nothing in space that is worth the cost of getting it.

Pretty much what I thought. Let's start with their first statement

For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that the He3 fusion plants have been proved out,

Well they haven't and probably won't any time soon, but what they really left out is the concentration an how much lunar rock you'd have to process to get significant amounts of He3. I didn't see the concentration of He3 in lunar rock mentioned anywhere, but it has to be vanishingly low.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Clear as the morning air. Really, it aint that difficult. Even a Libertarian could understand.

I think you are missing the big point. If we are to live on the moon, we will be heating up Lunar regolith anyway, for a large amount of reasons. One of the by-products is a fantastic source of energy. Did you happen to read what it's worth, etc? Building a reactor for this, mining it, etc., are all minor problems compared to the gain. Honestly Occupied, I am beginnging to think that, even if Mars were covered in gold, you would complain about it being "not worth it". Hell, I could make a case that He3 is far more valuable than gold.

If we are to live on the moon, we will be heating up Lunar regolith anyway

Nope you are missing the point. There isn't anything on the moon mars venus etc. that is worth the cost of getting it. Heinlein notwithstanding, we can't "live" on the moon as a self sustaining entity. It costs too much for what you get. When you see the economically viable self sustaining antarctic civilization then you might have some sort of basis for your assumption (but even antarctica has air and doesn't cost .1% of the GDP to get there)

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