What NASA Should Be

By | February 16, 2006
3 Comments

In our last edition of Fast Forward Radio, Phil and I got into a discussion about whether NASA as an organization should be completely rebooted as a “push prize” dispenser. This new NASA would make a master plan of the space technology it wants to see developed, and then develop push prizes to inspire others to develop the technology. The private sector would begin to take the lead in space.

In the show I took the position that NASA as it exists today is still useful. I could have been more effective in explaining why.

apple_1.jpgI am a big believer in push prizes. If your goal is to see technology developed, then the push prize is the most cost-effective means to make it happen. And I’m completely dissatisfied with space development as it exists today. With some notable exceptions, space tech has been static for thirty years. Think of what that would mean in the field of personal computers. The Apple 1 is 30 years old this year.

We have commercial satellites, a far too-expensive and dangerous orbital program, some probes and rovers, but no human presence beyond earth orbit, and no private space program except for a few multimillionaires who can catch a ride with the struggling Russian space program. We have the hope that Virgin Galactic will develop from the success of SpaceShipOne, but that’s about it.

NASA critics put some blame on NASA itself for this state of affairs – as if NASA has preempted space. Er…there’s room out there for everybody. The problem is that space is just too expensive with current rocket technology.

If some aerospace firm decided to launch a billion dollar Moon program to harvest helium-3 for possible fusion in a reactor that hasn’t been developed yet, how long would their stockholders put up with that? I’m guessing not long.

So, the functions of NASA should be:

  1. To do valuable things in space that the private sector won’t do because the lack of a profit incentive (pure science programs like the Hubble Space Telescope), or where potential profits are too uncertain or too long-term for the private sector (like harvesting helium-3), and
  2. To encourage the development of technologies that will allow the private sector to do more in space.

    This would include development of the space elevator and the airship-to-orbit programs.

NASA seems to have learned the value of push prizes to accomplish basic research cheaply. But I’m not certain that NASA has fully accepted function #2 as an important goal. NASA should be doing everything in it’s power to get the private sector into space. Right now, that doesn’t appear to be the priority it should be.

On the other hand, the critics who would defund NASA to create a push prize dispensary forget the first function. I don’t think that Jerry Pournelle – the NASA critic Phil and I have been linking to – goes that far. Pournelle would pull 20 billion a year for the next 10 years out of NASA’s present budget and devote that to push prizes.

That sounds like a great idea provided function #1 projects wouldn’t be abandoned.

  • Phil Bowermaster

    The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether there shouldn’t be two agencies — one to set vision and dispense incentives, the other to make and enforce policy. The two functions don’t necessarily belong under a single roof.

  • Rik

    No, definitely not two agencies. It’s problem of course is that there is NO policy. But if there were one, a single agency could dispense prizes according to it’s policy. So, yes: they very much belong under one roof. And while we’re at it (I include myself), why not expand the idea somewhat?

    If you think that people will alter themselves, and pay no attention to mr Bush’s warning about human animal hybrids, I think there had better be an agency enforcing safety. This agency, say: an all new FDA, does not question whatever it is you want to be, as long as your method, drug or whatever is safe. (more on my own blog)

  • Karl Hallowell

    Rik,

    I think there’s good cause to split up parts of NASA. The space science stuff is in direct conflict (and unfortunately losing) with the manned space program. Certainly that should be split off. Perhaps it can be merged with NSF or put under some umbrella organization. I agree with Phil here though. Enforcement and vision/incentives are pretty different. The police don’t decide what society should be doing. It’s not their job. I see little benefit to a unification of these tasks.

    Second, I’m not clear on what the point was about human-animal hybrids. First, why does this need to be regulated? If I have a cat-girl fetish and as an early adopter of this sort of technology wish to transform myself into a female hybrid human/cat (all the way down to the gene level even germ line), how should the government regulate what is likely to be inherently very risky to me? The issue of third party harm seems limited. The world is unlikely to be harmed by the cat-girl threat. OTOH, I can see some third party risk in the tools required to make cat-girls out of existing human beings.

    The FDA isn’t likely to rule that experimental biological manipulation on a human being is “safe”. But then neither is sky diving and bungee jumping. Yet people are permitted to engage in these activities.