Werner von Braun, Carl Sagan & Gerard O'Neill

Submitted by Bill White on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 5:48pm

Science and Tech

In my previous space-themed diary I wrote about three divergent narrative-paradigms (a less accurate yet trendy term might be "frame") that I find useful when approaching space policy discussions. Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation apparently coined these terms using Sagan, O'Neill and von Braun as caricatures to illustrate his point:

Saganites: "Space is big, billions of stars, isn't God's creation incredible...DON'T TOUCH IT."

Von Braunians: "We vill go boldly into space, and you vill watch on television, and you vill enjoy it." That's the current space program.

O'Neillians: "We will build the tools, go into space, and use its resources to expand humanity and freedom into the cosmos."

Rick Tumlinson, disciple of Gerard K. O'Neill

When interviewed for a 2004 Popular Science article, Tumlinson expanded on his thoughts:

In a paradigm Tumlinson dreamed up, the space world fractures into three groups: Saganites, O’Neillians and von Braunians.

Saganites, named for astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996), are the philosophers and voyeurs of the cosmos, intent on low-impact exploration that promotes a sense of wonder. They consider the universe an extension of Earth, and want space explorers to be politically correct pacifists and environmentalists.

O’Neillians take their name from Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill (1927 - 1992), who imagined city-size colonies in space contained on vast, rotating platforms (think of the space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey, with its spinning rings and artificial gravity). Getting people out of here en masse was the thing—not to kiss Earth good-bye in the rearview mirror, but to give it a chance, by consuming extraterrestrial rather than terrestrial resources. (An O’Neillian motto, riding a bumper sticker of his day, read: “Save Earth: Develop Space.”)

Von Braunians are, strictly speaking, the old guard, named for the V-2 and Saturn rocket-meister Wernher von Braun (1912 - 1977). Von Braunians advocate a centralized approach: large expensive projects like the ones NASA undertakes, projects that ordinary people can be proud of but not participate in.

The Popular Science article then expands on Tumlinson's understanding of these concepts:

In a nutshell: Saganites say, Look but don’t touch; O’Neillians, Do it yourself; von Braunians, We’ll do it for you.

Saganites are about indulging our sense of awe. They believe all space races we can imagine now are just tune-ups for the real event—which will happen when we discover, through SETI, or planet-hunting interferometry probes, evidence of probable intelligent life. Saganites would like to see humanity develop international space treaties, to view space as a common resource.

O’Neillians are about free enterprise, manifest destiny and everyone’s right to a piece of the private-entry-to-LEO pie. They believe space is fair game for development.

Von Braunians are about national prestige—NASA’s very reason for being, and surely the biggest single driver of space-faring to date. When Kennedy announced Americans would be first to the Moon, when Nixon signed off on the space shuttle program, when Reagan OK’d the space station—they were all serving up old Wernher, wrapped in Old Glory.

Speaking for myself, I am not comfortable that Tumlinson accurately depicts Sagan and von Braun in their human fullness however as caricature he might not be too far off the mark.
I have also recently completed a fascinating and highly recommended biography of von Braun by Michael J. Neufeld titled: Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War and on page 468 Neufeld wrote this:

"But he [von Braun] was also increasingly a face from the past. In 1974 the "visionary" torch was passed when Princeton physics professor Gerard K. O'Neill dropped a bombshell in the space advocacy community. He proposed huge cylindrical colonies in space orbiting at the "LaGrangian points" where the gravity of the Moon and the Earth balanced out. Von Braun, although still enamored of the idea of bases on planetary surfaces, was intrigued by these concepts but recognized that they were highly optimistic. The Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan was another rising star of space promotion - indeed, he was destined to be von Braun's successor in that role - but he soon refused to support the NSI because it was so tilted toward the space shuttle and human spaceflight. In 1979-80 he would help found a competing organization, the Planetary Society, that focused on supporting NASA's increasingly impressive robotic exploration of the solar system. Sagan and von Braun had known each other since the late 1950s, and the older man had a high opinion of the astronomer's popular writing, but the liberal, Jewish Sagan grew skeptical of von Braun because of questions about his Nazi past and his opportunism."

My own involvement in space advocacy suggests to me that the National Space Society does reflect more of the influence of Werner von Braun (one of its founders) while the Planetary Society reflects more of the influence of co-founder Carl Sagan. Finally, Tumlinson and the Space Frontier Foundation rather openly assert that they embrace the legacy of Gerard K. O'Neill.

Gerard K. O'Neill -- Save the Earth, Develop Space

Gerard O'Neill also founded the Space Studies Institute which has posted this short biography of O'Neill written by Freeman Dyson at the SSI website:

O’Neill founded the Space Studies Institute with the intention of introducing a new style into the world of space technology. His purpose was to organize small groups of people to develop the tools of space exploration independently of governments and to prove that private groups could get things done enormously cheaper and quicker than government bureaucracies. And to bring his vision of the free expansion of mankind into space to a wider public, O’Neill wrote books. His first book, The High Frontier (William Morrow, 1977) has been translated into many languages. It established O’Neill as spokesman for the people in many countries who believe that the settlement of space can bring tremendous benefits to humanity and that this is too important a business to be left in the hands of national governments. In 1985 the US government recognized his status as an advocate of the private sector by inviting him to serve on the National Commission on Space.

Carl Sagan -- Is anyone out there?

In contemporary America, Carl Sagan may well be the most well known of the three men I discuss here and in the interest of brevity I offer this Wikipedia summary of Sagan's stance on space exploration:

Sagan believed that the Drake equation suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would form, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations pointed out by the Fermi paradox suggests technological civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly. This stimulated his interest in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such a cataclysm and eventually becoming a spacefaring species. Sagan's deep concern regarding the potential destruction of human civilization in a nuclear holocaust was conveyed in a memorable cinematic sequence in the final episode of Cosmos, called "Who Speaks for Earth?". Following his marriage to his third wife (novelist Ann Druyan) in June 1981, Sagan became more politically active — particularly in regard to the escalation of the nuclear arms race under President Ronald Reagan.

As an aside: On the Drake equation whether "Anyone is out there" here is a link to my recent Daily Kos diary: The Age of Contact

Some supporters of Carl Sagan have criticized Tunlinson for his Sagan-ite caricature, pointing out that Sagan did support the eventual goal of spacefaring. While I believe Tunlinson may be a tad too hard on Sagan, I also believe this passage from Neufeld (an excerpt from the passage cited above) also is accurate:

The Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan was another rising star of space promotion - indeed, he was destined to be von Braun's successor in that role - but he soon refused to support the NSI because it was so tilted toward the space shuttle and human spaceflight. In 1979-80 he would help found a competing organization, the Planetary Society, that focused on supporting NASA's increasingly impressive robotic exploration of the solar system.

I will baldly assert (the full argument is too long present here) that the current ESAS architecture - the proposed Ares 1 rocket and the proposed Ares V rocket - embraced by NASA Administrator Dr. Michael Griffin arises from a Sagan-istic narrative frame that believes the commercial development of space is a bridge too far for the moment and therefore getting scientists to Mars so they can do science should be the core mission of American spaceflight.

Werner von Braun -- We shoot for the stars but sometimes hit London

This single sentence from Neufeld's biography well captures the amazing poignancy of the life of Werner von Braun (as well as his remarkable ability to land on his feet):

"[H]ere was a man who had shaken the hand of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon - but also Hitler, Himmler, Goring, and Goebbels."

Mort Sahl's famous riff is of course priceless:

"Ve shoot for ze moon, but zometimes ve hit London."

And yet there can be no doubt that in 1945 the Americans managed to snag "better Germans" than the Soviets did. At least with respect to rocket science. Another wikipedia passage:

Apollo space program director Sam Phillips was quoted as saying that he did not think that America would have reached the moon as quickly as it did without von Braun's help. Later, after discussing it with colleagues, he amended this to say that he did not believe America would have reached the moon at all.

Neufeld's biography portrays Werner von Braun as coming from a devoutly Lutheran Prussian family devoted to civil service. After the rampaging Red Army devastated those parts of Germany later transferred (back?) to Poland via massive ethnic cleansing, von Braun simply grafted his loyalty onto the United States. I leave questions of the full extent to which he was amorally opportunistic as a matter of biographical discretion.

Concerning the narrative framing of spaceflight, Werner von Braun is perhaps the antithesis of Gerard O'Neill. Compare this (repeated) passage from O'Neill:

O’Neill founded the Space Studies Institute with the intention of introducing a new style into the world of space technology. His purpose was to organize small groups of people to develop the tools of space exploration independently of governments and to prove that private groups could get things done enormously cheaper and quicker than government bureaucracies.

with this passage from Neufeld's biography (page 458):

"[H]is Prussian civil service mentality meant that he thought government was a higher calling than the corporate world. He also saw the state - first German, then American - as the primary vessel for realizing his dream to be the Columbus of space. Corporations, depending upon their competence and luck, might or might not have a part in such a project, but only nation-states had the resources to finance and direct huge guided missile and space programs. In that sense, von Braun both foresaw the need for and was ideally suited to leadership of state-dominated military-industrial enterprises."

Whether Werner von Braun could have adapted his obvious genius and talents to a more commercial approach to spaceflight is a hypothetical question we can never fully answer.

A Nation of Shopkeepers -- ("L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers")

Werner von Braun (the child of Prussian civil servants) might very well share Napoleon's Continental contempt for the mercantile English view of world affairs. Adam Smith is said to have been the source for Napoleon's gibe (from the Wealth of Nations):

"To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers."

Why did America launch Project Apollo? The reasons (IMHO) are entirely von-Braun-ian. Project Apollo was part of our ideological struggle with the Soviet Union.

The Space Shuttle program and President Reagan's Space Station Freedom (later morphed into Bill Clinton's International Space Station) are also symbols of the geo-politics of nation-states (both competitive and cooperative) and Soviet efforts to copy our Space Shuttle with Buran did help bankrupt the USSR.

What now? What should NASA's mission be going forward? Should we spend tax dollars to facilitate an O'Neill-ian future of private sector entrepreneurial activities in space? Or acquire scientific data on the Cosmos as Carl Sagan desired? Are there geo-political benefits to a massive von-Braun-ian space program?

Whether it is POTUS John McCain or POTUS Barack Obama the next Administration will find itself at a cross-roads with respect to these issues.

The change you deserve. Registered slogan of Effexor XR.

I share your passion

(#96609)

Submitted by Kierkegaard on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 6:41pm.

for space exploration. Growing up in the '50s reading and rereading my parents "Fantasy & Science Fiction" magazines lining the shelves beside my bed, it seemed inconceivable that humans could not (or would not) successfully colonize at least the near planets (the moon, the asteroid belt, and Mars) in the course of my own lifetime. Moreover, just as it was assumed in medical circles that cancer would be cured within that decade, it was inconceivable to most younger 'hard scientists', including my father, at that time that the vision shared by O'Neill was not the correct one. After all, in the prior decade the US had turned itself into the arsenal and factory of the world, invented wonder drugs, atomic power, and the jet plane, while defeating the Axis Powers. This post-war attitude was called 'can-do', and contrasts weirdly to today's, almost as if we have in the meantime evolved into a slightly different species.

The only dissenting voices were from old fogeys; scientists who looked dubiously at the new rocketry and bureaucrats and politicians who saw no need for it, or way to budget for it. The 'Sagan' view was to be found only in the works of SF writers as politically opposite as the reactionary Jack Vance with his 'parkland trust' worlds and the leftist Kurt Vonnegut with his Trafalmadorean zoos. Thus the 'Potemkin Village' space program of Von Braun emerged as the collective reality at about the same time as JFK's 'Camelot', thanks to the threat of Sputnik. The American response to this imagined threat eventually helped destroy the Soviet Union, through the imagined threat of Reagan's 'Star Wars' program; when the USSR was forced to cancel its aerospace plane program in response to the space shuttle (which ironically, turned out to be so faulty that it could never have been a reliable military weapon), it was a turning point in the rapid deterioration of the Soviet scientific/military establishment.

All this you and I both know, though being you, I'm sure you can quibble with the details ;) However, it may well be that we share the sense that neither party nor prospective president will in any way revive NASA or our moribund manned space program in the coming years. It may well be that this nation will not be able to afford to in the foreseeable future at all. It's my growing, albeit reluctant, conviction that the future of space exploration--if there is any--is robotic, and will depend on advances in VR. If there is ever a 'faster than light' drive, 'wormhole' drive, or 'matter transmitter'--to name but three of the devices beloved by science fiction--then almost certainly they will be used for instantaneous communication or UV transport and not the transport of physical bodies. We are rapidly becoming a race too comfortable, too timid, and too risk-averse ever to successfully colonize space. In fact a cynic could even go so far as to say that it would take a Third World War (a real one, not a prolonged anti-guerilla action against savages) to cause the world even to seriously consider it again. Much less pay for it.

A Disneyfied socialist version of the Matrix movies, in short. Just like the rest of life on planet earth.

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

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Submitted by BlaiseP on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 5:32am.

I am all for a better space program, but not at the expense of a better plan for Earth exploration. Our shocking indifference to our fellow species seems depraved when measured against a flag-waving live-meat-based expedition to a nearby planet.

The Space Station in its current configuration is useless and counterproductive. More meat-based flag waving. We know quite well what happens to man on orbit: unless he lives in earth gravity, the calcium leaches out of his bones and he's obliged to spend a good deal of his day on treadmills and bone-strengthening exercises. All this has been known since the earliest space stations.

Americans built great silicon-based explorers. If we must spend money on space exploration, and I believe we should, let it be on great telescopes. We need a follow-on to Hubble, my own crackpot proposal is for pairs of telescopes, to give us the needed parallax, taking us off more primitive if clever methods of candle-based range finding.

I am often subject to moods of Melancholia, I suppose most of us have private moments of despair. I know of no thinkers who do not have such moments. In such a moment, a few years back, while my son was still in high school, I showed him the space station in my old 8 inch Dopsonian mount telescope.

We stood there in the chilly driveway. I said. "That's not an attempt to get to the stars or planets. That's an experiment on how to live on a ruined planet, a world of hard radiation and airlocks. But it's a failing experiment: before you were born, we knew everything there is to learn there, in Skylab and the Mir space stations. The Space Station isn't self-sufficient: every drop of water on orbit cost its weight in gold to lift it out there, and we don't have any way to recycle it. Never mind that we can't grow anything on orbit, or work towards some real long-term strategies for getting to Mars, only the machines will go any further out. The radiation from Jupiter would kill us if we ever got there, and Venus would cook us. No, our future is a species is the same as our current purpose, we are the tool builders and machine makers."

I'm not a fan of dystopian fiction. Eliot was wrong about the way the world ends. There will be many bangs and whimpers, but the world doesn't end. We'll be around in one form or another: we've survived the plagues and wars of the 14th century plagues and the world wars of the 20th century and AIDS. We'll survive the Gasoline Era, and in time we'll sing songs about long-gone tigers in the long-gone jungles. The oceans will acidify, the corals will die off, and the seas will go silent. But we'll make it, somehow, if we get past the hubristic death wish of My Country Right or Wrong. The corporations will solve that problem soon enough. In the future, the barons of Commerce will confront a President King John and his feckless Congress, mired in war debts and extract a new Magna Carta from that unwilling executive. Wars will be declared Bad for Business, and a through rooting-out of troublemakers the world over will end with the creation of a CHOAM.

This seems inevitable. Already a form of Landsraat is developing, in the open and without any fear of interference. Capitalism has already sorted things out simply and obviously. The large will get larger, and we are already in a sort of Gilded Age writ large.

Science fiction could never resist the urge to sermonize, to wistfully gaze into the future through the lenses of today. The only true perspective of the future is the lenses of the past, obeying the laws of refractive magnification, the eyepiece must be as far back in the past as we wish to look into the future. The futurist must be first a historian.

Dürer's Melancholia I

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Submitted by hobbesist on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 8:35am.

I've been (slowly, desultorily) working my way through Saturn and Melancholy by Panofsky, Saxl & Klibansky, which is a kind of revision and expansion of the first two authors' Dürer' 'Melancholia I'. It's a strange, magnificent work, and something tells me you'd enjoy it a great deal (if you're not already familiar, that is).

Bene vixit, bene qui latuit

I read it a very long time ago, it led me down an odd alleyway

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Submitted by BlaiseP on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 9:14am.

to a wonderful precursor to Jung, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim and his good friend, the humanist Claude Chansonnette aka Cantiuncula.

Basically, Agrippa of Nettelsheim put Melancholia in three levels, and it's Melancholia I which Dürer depicts. Agrippa of Nettelsheim wants to recycle some of the more useful parts of alchemy and magic into something of substance, elevating it from pawky superstition into what we'd now call psychoanalytics.

As far as I can tell, he is the only feminist of the era: he writes a wonderful essay on the superiority of women which introduces the concept of the arbitrary and unfair legal subjugation of women for the first time in human history.

Ah, maybe...

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Submitted by M Aurelius on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 9:58pm.

But maybe what is really going to happen is that the first human eyes to rest their gaze on the Martian horizon will, well, they won't be quite so round.

Red planet might take on a whole new meaning.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

China

(#96632)

Submitted by Kierkegaard on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 10:20pm.

won't recover from this earthquake financially for at least ten years. Its space program is dependent on stolen or bought blueprints--despite the hype, there is no new technology coming out of it. You Neo-Marxists are incurable romantics where space is concerned; Russians in the early 60s actually were told by their government that they would be retiring to colonies on the moon.

Um

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Submitted by HankP on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 12:27am.

you do know that our space program was designed almost entirely by Nazi scientists we captured after WWII? Who's to say the Chinese won't do the same (without the World War part, of course). As to the financial earthquake, they're still adding about a trillion dollars in US dollar reserves every year, that will pay for a lot of recovery.

I blame it all on the Internet

In '83 or '84

(#96691)

Submitted by aireachail on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 10:04am.

I participated in a training exercise at Wendover Airfield. The oddities and fascinations of the place would fill a book. For instance, it's the airfield where the crew of the Enola Gay practiced for their mission over Japan.

Anyway, it's remoteness made it ideal for other special projects as well, and one of those was research into rocket technology immediately after the war. In pursuit of that research, scores of German rocket scientists were relocated to Wendover. I don't know for sure if it's still the case, but when I was there during that exercise, most of the street names on the airfield were still in German...

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham

Because most

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Submitted by Elagabalus on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 1:49am.

of the Nazi scientists are dead? What do I win?! Seriously, why a manned mission? Check out this site to see what the Soviets did on a budget ...

http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

This one looks rather more like an archbishop

(#96728)

Submitted by Bill White on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 12:37pm.

than an early Soviet space probe

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.

This is very interesting.

(#96668)

Submitted by mmghosh on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 6:05am.

Thanks for the links. It would be interesting to find out what the budget was. Do you have any information about on-board computers? Did they have any, and when did the Russians start putting on-board computers on them?

IIRC, a lot of the early space exploration was done relatively cheaply. It was made a government monopoly principally because of the military implications.

Manish, try clicking

(#96813)

Submitted by Elagabalus on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 4:47pm.

on those images. He has a lot of stuff in there (although not really organized all that well) about camera systems, telemetry etc. This picture I've posted before but it is pretty amazing. It's a panorama corrected in Photoshop from the original digital signal. All the more astounding when you realize that the surface of Venus is 475° C and under 100 atmospheres of pressure!

http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Venera_Perspective.jpg

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

A couple of points...

(#96642)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 11:02pm.

First, you don't really need particularly advanced technology to go to Mars.

Second, we copy our own blueprints from a brighter era, as do the Russians. We are still launching Atlas variants. Sure, the avionics have been refreshed several times and we have slightly less old upper stages, but really, we've added no new launch technology since the Shuttle. The Shuttle was designed in the early 1970's, and it wasn't considered a sound design even then; it was a cheapened version of what NASA really wanted to do.

No engineer working today has ever participated in an American or Russian design team building a launcher from scratch. Everything has been derivative, and that goes for Ares as well.

Which is twice as damning if you consider how vastly superior our design and prototyping tools are today. Engineers in the 1950's and 60's were still using slide rules.

I won't take neo-Marxist as an insult, because it's you, but you are flat wrong. I'm a paleo-liberal with minor libertarian tendencies. A child of the late 60's, I did hold sympathies for Marxism till three things happened: 1)I grew up, 2)I visited East Berlin when there still was such a thing, and 3)Just to be sure, I read as much of Das Kapital as I could stand before coming to the conclusion that it was not just a question of bad execution, but profoundly bad ideology, much closer to religion than to rational economic or political thought. Adam Smith and the Federalist Papers made far more sense to me, and still do.

All of this before I turned 18, which was quite some time ago. I find Marxism insufferable; a dead end. Since then, the abysmal failure of any Marxist state to address environmental problems even marginally better than the worst capitalist offenders has reinforced my view.

I do accept the accusation of being a space romantic. I see nothing wrong with that. I think the Chinese might do it because they lack the timidity and excess comfort you rightly see in us today. The earthquake will have no long-term impact. In fact it may help their development in various ways.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

I apologize

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Submitted by Kierkegaard on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 9:42am.

for teasing you. Forgot the smiley. I respect the Chinese very much, though I have absolutely zero for the gangster regime that runs the country. Sharon Stone, in both the Confucian and Buddhistic contexts, was quite correct: the Mandate of Heaven has been withdrawn from its rulers. I once could speak Chinese, and have read most of the classic literary works in that language. The Han are a consensual people, and have produced very little in the realm of new technology since fireworks gunpowder, because they are far more timid than Westerners on an individual basis. I have two Chinese sisters-in-law, one from Chengdu, and they have zero interest in colonizing Mars (which even we very patently do not currently have the tech or the money to do); they think Szichuan is a primitive desert backwater. Left to themselves, the Chinese would never have invented the science fiction genre.

Here is the thing:

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Submitted by M Aurelius on Sat, 05/31/2008 - 10:45am.

Even if you are 99.9% right, that would still leave over one million Chinese space geeks from which to draw in building a space program. The leadership doesn't need to have any vision. It's enough for them to be competitive and want to achieve a goal of "national greatness" to put China on the map as a first class power.

Kennedy was a visionary, but don't be fooled. Many Americans were after the contest far more than the goal. That should be clear now that 40 years have passed with little further progress.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

Sagan's views seem

(#96310)

Submitted by Elagabalus on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 1:47pm.

downright quaint by today's standards. So the reason why we haven't made "contact" with other advanced beings suggests that other advanced beings have destroyed themselves and are therefore not around! "Who died and made you Einstein?"!!

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

Fermi Paradox via wikipedia

(#96331)

Submitted by Bill White on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 2:26pm.

Link:

(1) No other civilizations currently exist

* No other civilizations have arisen
* It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself
* It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others
* Human beings were created alone

(2) They do exist, but we see no evidence

Communication is impossible due to problems of scale
* Too far apart in space or time
* Too expensive to spread throughout galaxy
* Human beings have not been searching long enough
* Human beings are not listening properly

They choose not to interact with us
* Zoo - We are in a zoo right now
* Too alien for communication
* We are being watched, right now

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.

Technological Singularity is

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Submitted by Steve Peterson on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 12:26am.

another interesting explanation. Charlie Stross, a guy who's made some coin off singularity thinking, discusses toward the end of this article that possibility a bit.

One nutshell picture -- given how rapid our technology has advanced in just the last two hundred years, our own civilization might easily in the next thousand or two thousand years go to completely digital consciousness (other than certain religious groups) and upload ourselves into, perhaps a highly efficient Dyson Sphere, from which little energy escapes.

There's really little reason for most consciousnesses to bother going outside your giant World of Warcraft simulation, so they don't. And little energy leaks out because it's efficient.

I even read somewhere that someone suggested black holes might be these sorts of post-singularity Dyson Spheres.

I'd imagine that even then we'd still send out explorers -- but a few explorers in an awfully big haystack would have a hard time finding anything.

Anyway, given how rapidly technology progresses once we reached the signal-sending phase (only 100 years so far, and only 50 of those any great number of signals) there might be a narrow window where we'd actually see any other tech advanced civ -- and 1,000 years out of a 13 billion year-old universe is a pretty tiny target.

I do think that the Fermi Paradox is a strong indication that there's no spiffy faster than light travel technology, though.

Steven Palmer Peterson

Eh

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Submitted by HankP on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:03am.

I've always found the whole "singularity" argument to be just a bunch of hand waving and wish fulfillment, at least when it comes to the immortality part.

I also find it hard to see what interest an advanced civilization would have in our civilization outside of some of the more abstract arts like music (assuming they have ears).

I blame it all on the Internet

I'm not so sure about the

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Submitted by Steve Peterson on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:19am.

I'm not so sure about the singularity within the next 100 years business, but 1,000 years is a drop in the bucket on Galactic time but I have no idea what kind of incredible changes in technology we'll see in that time. It could easily be unrecognizable.

I agree that I don't think an advanced civilization would care much about exploring -- but we've got 6 billion people in our nascent civilization and quite of few of them have irrational desires to explore funky and dangerous places. I figure super-civs will have those outliers and oddballs too.

Just look at how excited the NASA guys are at finding slightly odd shaped dirt patterns on Mars.

Steven Palmer Peterson

I'm sure

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Submitted by HankP on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:53am.

there are amazing discoveries and inventions to be made if we don't kill ourselves off first. I'm not so sure about the lightspeed limitation (or the time traveling limitation for that matter), and maybe sooner than you think for the theoretical breakthroughs. The ability to actually use these technologies is quite a bit further off, as far as the ability to use them wisely your guess is as good as mine.

I think advanced cultures would be very interested in exploration, but they'd consider us the primitive headhunters of the galaxy at this point - violent, vicious and unpredictable. Broadcasting alien autopsy films can't help either.

I blame it all on the Internet

Excellent!!!

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Submitted by Elagabalus on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 2:21am.

My thoughts exactly! We must find a way to go faster than light so we can implement our plans for complete Universal control! HankP, you're our "go-to guy" to sort out this "hyper-drive" thingy!

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

Not black holes,

(#96470)

Submitted by Punditus Maximus on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 12:47am.

dark matter. 90% of the universe is Dyson spheres.

The mind boggles.

It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.

Yah -- I think a worthwhile

(#96476)

Submitted by Steve Peterson on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:21am.

Yah -- I think a worthwhile question to explore is whether or not we're a quickly evolved species and civilization, and how much so.

We've got a pretty nice planet so maybe we're an early wave intelligent life-bearing planet, which would partially explain that we're not seeing more stuff.

Steven Palmer Peterson

Early sounds right.

(#96477)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:41am.

I get the feeling we are early to the party as well. Not alone, just early. So there aren't and haven't been many of us.

Unless we are actually very late, living inside a simulation run by our descendants or some alien archaeological crew. To us, though, it makes no difference, so we might as well assume we are the real thing and put on the best show we can.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

I'll go with

(#96482)

Submitted by Elagabalus on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 2:13am.

early as well. After all, if the sun is just an average star and an average star "lives" about 10 billion years then the universe itself doesn't seem that old. Of course you know what this means, don't you? Gentlemen, the universe is ours for the taking!!!

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

The problems of scale.

(#96366)

Submitted by aireachail on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 4:04pm.

Those are the ones that control, I think.

Humans accomplished audio transmission by radio only 108 years ago. Heck; there are people alive today who were born before our species could communicate over distance without wires.

The nearest galaxy (a dwarf one at that) is 25,000 light years from the top of my balding head. Over such distances, most electromagnetic energy would fade into background noise, but assuming it didn't, that 1900 transmission won't arrive at our nearest galaxy until about the year...checks almanac...26,900.

Right? So far so good.

But the signal has to hit the recipient at the right stage in their technological development. If they immediately reply, we'll see the answer in the year 51,900.

That's if we're very, very lucky. With our luck, the weak wavefront carrying a 100,00 year-old message saying, "Anybody out there?" passed over Earth 109 years ago.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham

A tiny candle next to an inferno

(#96562)

Submitted by Steve Peterson on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:50pm.

I don't know if anyone is familiar with the science, but another question I have is would we even be remotely visible.

We've got a bunch of radio stations bopping around the earth -- but on a galactic scale we're a hair's breadth away from the sun. Do our radio emissions even compare to those emitted by the sun? Would we just get swamped by the inverse square law -- especially when our signals get filtered through the solar wind and various other shock-breaks at the edge of the solar system?

Steven Palmer Peterson

My understanding

(#96618)

Submitted by HankP on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 7:56pm.

is that the Earth emits more radio wave radiation than the sun.

I blame it all on the Internet

I Think It's A Matter Of Patterns

(#96563)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:53pm.

Stars and other natural radio sources make more noise, but they don't randomly emit prime number sequences. If something like that is heard--even if very faintly--it's almost certainly a sign that something has been sent intentionally.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Re 'patterns'

(#96571)

Submitted by catchy on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 2:12pm.

My understanding is that SETI programs typically search for narrow band signals circa 1 hz b/c they aren't likely to occurr naturally. MA might tell us different, tho.

There's also been some applications of Shannon's information theory to analyzing wider bands and looking for probabilistic relations between recurring elements. At least I remember reading a profile of a guy working in Mountain View on such things...

Yah, but my point is that

(#96570)

Submitted by Steve Peterson on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 2:11pm.

Yah, but my point is that even if I flic my bic in expert Morse code, that's not going to make any difference if I'm standing in front of a raging house fire.

Steven Palmer Peterson

Our electro-magnetic wavefront

(#96374)

Submitted by Bill White on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 4:30pm.

has gotten continually "denser" over the last 109 years rather than the surface of a bubble that is empty inside -- if I am seeing this right. But yes, we have not been looking very long at all, or in all directions, either.

I do like this video clip at the beginning of the movie Contact:

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.

True enough,

(#96395)

Submitted by aireachail on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 5:16pm.

what I meant was the earliest TX...the one from 1900. After that, the follow-on signals will absolutely grow steadily stronger. That said, even the densest signal will be effectvely reduced to background at 25K light years. At those distances, even a highly focused coherent beam would spread out to a level indistinguishable from baseline noise...and that's without taking into consideration the effect of dust and other attenuating factors along the route.

I'm absolutely convinced that there were/are/will be other intelligent lifeforms and civilizations out there. I'm also sure that it's our curse that we'll never know with any certainty. The vast bulk of potential worlds lie at distances so great that even one-way signals would take more time than our species will exist.

Bummer...

And I've always liked that opening. I think their scale is off, but I understand the need or cinematic license.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham

Subset of "Too Alien For Communication"

(#96348)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 3:09pm.

When able, advanced civilizations mask their emissions to try to keep control over who knows of their existence.

If most advanced civilizations went through at least a period of primitive violence, they might be inclined not to encourage other civilizations to come wandering along without invitation--they might not be friendly.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It could also be we're under quarantine

(#96342)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 2:58pm.

until we evolve beyond our current atrocious state of affairs.

I mean, look at us. Busily wiping out our fellow creatures. Any other sentient species wouldn't dare let us out of the petri dish.

My guess

(#96439)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 9:25pm.

is a combination of distances being too great and any advanced civilization being horrified at the idea of dealing with creatures like us.

I blame it all on the Internet

Hardly Seems Worth The Effort

(#96379)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 4:38pm.

We're hundreds of years (at least) away from practical interstellar travel, and not remotely a threat to any civilization who is capable of interstellar travel. If subterfuge is going on out there, I suspect it's directed at more advanced civilizations than ours.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Mostly harmless

(#96552)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:28pm.

n/t

Yep

(#96555)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:33pm.

Of course, if they're crazy enough to show up here and start walking around, bad things could happen--they could be trampled by a herd of paparazzi trying to snap a picture of Paris Hilton's nether regions. ]:-)

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Oh some are, and some do.

(#96560)

Submitted by BlaiseP on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:49pm.

I have long thought that Don King and Michael Jackson were proof of aliens among us. And Robert Smith.

The Last Line Of "Men In Black"

(#96564)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 1:56pm.

Linda Fiorentino, referring to their mission to go see Dennis Rodman, who has been revealed to be an alien:

"It's not much of a disguise." :-)

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Thanks, Bill

(#96338)

Submitted by Elagabalus on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 2:52pm.

But why was Sagan partial to (1).2 when all are equally credible? I think it was a sign of the times. I would also argue that it is probably better to go with (1).1--if only to dissuade any notions of a benevolent civilization coming to our aide when all our "groceries run out".

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

We are at that cross-roads today if

(#96346)

Submitted by Bill White on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 3:02pm.

Sagan's chosen scenario were true.

Prior to the mid to late 20th century for the human species to commit the acts needed to self-extinction would have been difficult. Not necessarily impossible (Easter Island) but on a global scale the annihilation of our species by our own hand would have been a monumental task.

Today,

IF global warming theories are correct (I set aside my opinions for purposes of this post) IF correct then we may very well extinct ourselves.

IF the USA and USSR (Russia, today) launched a full-on H-bomb war, our species extinction is quite possible and civilization extinction rather probable.

This is why I believe Sagan was partial to this view point. Maybe we could influence our future.

Thus, we are today living in the "Age of Contact" which will continue until (a) we make contact with ET or (b) enough time passes that we can be reasonably assured we are alone in the cosmos.

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.

aren't we missing Timothy Leary?

(#96257)

Submitted by Micky Love on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 8:30am.

You've got a group of 3 astronomers/engineers there, but I think Timothy Leary might make a good fourth. He was a proponent of 'transhumanism' - unlike the others. If we're serious about sending life into space, we'll need bio-engineers just as much as the skills of astronomers. We'll have to transform ourselves in the process. Space exploration may require us to bid farewell to much more than a blue planet. It might be necessary to transcend our humanity.

Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just

Mars will provide an escape hatch

(#96255)

Submitted by mmghosh on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 7:57am.

for the rich when the &%$* hits the fan, as Micky Love predicts and urban dystopia becomes reality :)

Rand has concluded that the urbanization of world poverty has produced "the urbanization of insurgency"; insurgents are "following their followers into the cities, setting up 'liberated zones' in urban shantytowns". The Rand experts are obviously talking about Baghdad's Sadr City - one of the world's largest slums - where the young and the wretched join Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army to make life hell for the American occupier (no wonder Sadr City's squalid main boulevard is nicknamed "Vietnam Street").

But the Rand crowd could also be talking about the drug-infested slums of Sao Paulo, where "faculties" are prisons dominated by the PCC, monthly contributions by members - ranging from $25 to $250 - finance drug trafficking, prison exchange and attacks, and "bin Ladens" have either to fulfill their mission and pay their debt to the organization, scoring points with the criminal elite, or they become traitors to the "Party of Crime".

So this is the way the world ends: not with a whimper, but with bang after bang, the "homeland" cities of the world crouching in their defense against "forces of darkness", or the "axis of evil", or "terrorists", Islamic and otherwise, who threaten the "free world".

"Night after night, hornet-like helicopter gunships stalk enigmatic enemies in the narrow streets of the slum districts ... every morning the slums reply with suicide bombers and eloquent explosions." It's happening right now, over there in Baghdad and over here, in the vast, messy hypercity of Sao Paulo. Welcome to the (overcrowded) Dome of Hell - and this one is not digital, it's the real thing.

Sagan wanted to terraform Mars.

(#96247)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 12:40am.

Sure as heck doesn't sound like "don't touch it" to me. Terraforming is touching it, big time.

To understand where Ares comes from, literally, read Zubrin's "The Case for Mars". Zubrin is no Saganite. He's agonostic about the means (private or public); he's fine with big government (the Kennedy model), or private initiative (the X-prize model), or a mix. He's not with Von-Braun because he wants to colonize, not prove we can build a really big rocket.

The Space Shuttle is hugely expensive and only gets to low Earth orbit. There was no chance of killing it during Sagan's time, and no chance to do manned planetary missions. I don't think Sagan was aligned with the anti-explorers such as Park. He was a planet expert and NASA's manned program had no planets in it, except Earth.

The other big project, ISS was a political creature from the start, though the political purpose changed with the times. It has virtually no scientific or exploration value. But it has been useful as a technology development platform and for development of multinational protocols and best practices, not to mention as a jobs program for US and Russian space establishments. It's been wasteful but not totally useless.

The point is that there wasn't much room on the manned side of NASA for Sagan to be interested. I never read anything from him that told me he was against manned exploration.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

Taking a "long term" viewpoint, I agree with you

(#96252)

Submitted by Bill White on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 7:39am.

Supporters of Carl Sagan have indeed [rightfully, IMHO] criticized Rick Tumlinson for his Sagan-ite caricature. That said, the Planetary Society's emphasis on robotic exploration and objectives of "terraforming Mars" someday in the distant future has roots in Carl Sagan's thoughts.

I believe he was hopeful that SETI would lead to "Contact" -- see my Orange Satan diary The Age of Contact -- and such contact would change humanity in a manner than would allow us to avoid:

(1) self extermination via nuclear war; and

(2) self extermination through environmental catastrophe.

= = =

I also agree that Mike Griffin's ESAS architecture is explicitly Zubrin-ista in its origins. As stated above:

I will baldly assert (the full argument is too long present here) that the current ESAS architecture - the proposed Ares 1 rocket and the proposed Ares V rocket - embraced by NASA Administrator Dr. Michael Griffin arises from a Sagan-istic narrative frame that believes the commercial development of space is a bridge too far for the moment and therefore getting scientists to Mars so they can do science should be the core mission of American spaceflight.

The $64 billion question is whether there is anything useful to do on the Moon.

The proposed Ares carrier rockets, the lack of lunar ISRU and the lack of reusable lunar landers and a refusal to use EML-1 or EML-2 architectures for lunar access all point to a "lunar touch and go" for practice followed by a sprint to Mars. (Given this attitude towards the Moon, I have from time to time quipped "Shiksas are for practice")

Prior to reading Dennis Wingo's Moonrush (possible lunar platinum deposits) I too was a committed Zubrin-ista and saw little of value on the Moon except an opportunity for practice packaged with a HUGE cul-de-sac.

Rule out the possibilities of harvesting asteroidal metals (remnants of impacts) from the lunar surface and I will revert to support for this "sprint to Mars" My next essay shall describe my personal travels away from Zubri-ista status.

The problem with ESAS is sustaining political support during the upcoming gap -- had Ares 1 worked using 4 segment RSRM and SSME and flown by 2011 or so -- Griffin would be assured his Ares V rocket. Now? Given the delays, it is all in jeopardy because the von Braun-ian imagery of our needing Soyuz to access ISS will not play well with the American people.

Learning to articulate arguments using all three frames be they von-Braun-ian, Sagan-istic (or Zubrin-istic) or O'Neill-ian simply shall be needful, in my opinion, if we are to sustain an American space program.

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.

The Moon has value.

(#96430)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 8:31pm.

It is a fantastic observation platform, both for astronomy and Earth observation. A Moon based optical interferometry array could in principle be built in very large sizes, several miles in diameter. It could directly resolve the planets in other solar systems and would advance astronomy by a couple of orders of magnitude at least. Hubble would be like a toy store telescope in comparison.

Unlike the Earth, the entire electromagnetic spectrum is available from the Moon. Plus the far side is protected from nearly all human radio emissions, so it's a good place for radio astronomy and deep-space communications.

As an Earth observation platform it is unique because it can be hardened and defended. Satellites are vulnerable and basically impossible to protect.

I'm skeptical there is useful mineral wealth on the Moon, except perhaps for He3. In any case I don't see Moon-based mining in the short-term.

But all non-Earth mining is welcome. Since we've exploited the good ores, we are left processing the bad ones and mining huge areas. This is not sustainable. In the Solar system there are plenty of minerals, but we have only one biosphere. At some point we need to transition to asteroid mining; infinite quantities pure metals to be had without ripping our planet apart.

I agree with Zubrin that the Moon is no place to start a second branch of civilization, but he does not deny it has its uses.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

A Healthy, Sustainable Space Program. . .

(#96220)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 8:19pm.

. . .will have to include elements of all three outlooks. The main thing that exists in interplanetary space in amounts far beyond that available on Earth is solar energy, and to fully exploit it we're going to have to invest heavily in improving satellite and energy transmission/storage tech.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I agree 100% with the need to integrate

(#96228)

Submitted by Bill White on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 9:34pm.

all three of these "narrative frames"

As for SSPS - space solar power satellites - (IMHO as always) that was a brilliant suggestion when Gerard O'Neill first proposed it.

Today, I am very doubtful the numbers will ever add up to successfully close a business case to use solar power satellites to feed the terrestrial grid. Niche military applications for remote areas? Sure, I think that could work.

One problem with SSPS is the possibility that just after massive infrastructure is deployed in LEO a terrestrial breakthrough lowers the cost of power below the SSPS level. For example, gene-modify microbes or algae to excrete methane at industrially useful levels. Methanogenic bacteria already exist even if we haven't yet tweaked them to produce useful quantities of methane.

If SSPS is built on the taxpayer's dime there will be powerful incentives to prevent other technologies from rendering those sats obsolete.

= = =

Ideologically, I would prefer that humanity discover affordable means to accomplish distributed power generation rather than reliance on massive centralized projects. IMHO, this is how the progressive Left differs from the old Left. A larger measure of libertarian sentiment has been mixed into the recipe.

I am only vaguely familiar with the arguments made by Karl August Wittfogel concerning the rise of despotism however if those arguments are correct with respect to irrigation they are likely also correct with respect to the generation of power.

Wittfogel is best known for his work Oriental Despotism: A comparative Study of Total Power published in 1957. Starting from a Marxist analysis of the ideas of Max Weber on China and India's "hydraulic-bureaucratic official-state" and building on Marx's views of the Asiatic Mode of Production, Wittfogel came up with an analysis of the role of irrigation works in Asia, the bureaucratic structures needed to maintain them and the impact that these had on society. In his view many societies, mainly in Asia, relied heavily on the building of large-scale irrigation works. To do this, the state had to organize forced labor from the population at large. This required a large and complex bureaucracy staffed by competent and literate officials. This structure was uniquely placed to also crush civil society and any other force capable of mobilizing against the state. Such a state would inevitably be despotic, powerful, stable and wealthy.

SSPS would seem to require a powerful (edit to delete "massive") centralized bureaucracy to function efficiently but maybe I haven't thought it through sufficiently.

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.

Wittfogel's thesis has been criticised

(#96231)

Submitted by mmghosh on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 10:03pm.

for a serious lack of knowledge about China by a number of sinologists, Joseph Needham, for example. You will, probably, have to look somewhere else.

Ideologically, I would prefer that humanity discover affordable means to accomplish distributed power generation rather than reliance on massive centralized projects. IMHO, this is how the progressive Left differs from the old Left. A larger measure of libertarian sentiment has been mixed into the recipe.

As regards a distrust for "massive centralised projects", this is a fantasy. Massive Governmental investments and subsidies, combined with changes in regulatory and tax legislation are essential components of changing the patterns of energy production and energy use. Also, development of oilfields by large petrochemical combines, with combined revenues exceeding the GDPs of most countries, is as much a massive centralised project as the development of hydroelectricity through a TVA approach.

No

(#96246)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 12:28am.

Subsidies or incentives can be massive and sustained while resulting in a decentralized system. The Internet is a case in point, but there are others. In fact anything using microchips has benefited from massive US government subsidies used to pay for their early development.

While wind power lends itself to the utility model, solar lends itself to decentralized models. This is why utilities like wind.

As for space, no bucks, no Buck Rogers. But there is no need to funnel them all through the same old establishment aerospace companies, who have little incentive to innovate.

My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton

I do remember that (vaguely) as well

(#96236)

Submitted by Bill White on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 11:13pm.

Drats! I now feel an itch to actually read more about Wittfogel and his critics.

= = =

I am decidedly NOT a libertarian even if I would deem myself to have a several more libertarian threads in my cloak than a typical classic big government liberal Democrat.

Yes, government is absolutely necessary but suppose there was only ONE oil field that provided petroleum for the entire planet.

Anyway, SSPS is something that could be developed as public-private partnership for niche markets but would be a boondoggle drain on the public treasury if attempted as a comprehensive solution. IMHO, as always.

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.

The only thing worse than a public monopoly...

(#96241)

Submitted by Punditus Maximus on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 11:27pm.

...is a private monopoly...

It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.

I apologize for any obvious typos

(#96196)

Submitted by Bill White on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 5:51pm.

or broken links and will work to clean those up later as I have an urgent appointment I must attend to. To my knowledge forvm.org does not allow me to save unpublished drafts.

I also have a few interesting anecdotes about von Braun from that superb biography I cite in the above story.

The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.