Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!jumbo!stolfi
From: stolfi@jumbo.dec.com (Jorge Stolfi)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Letter to Congress, et. al.
Summary: Sorry for the tone, but I did mean it.
Message-ID: <13306@jumbo.dec.com>
Date: 30 Aug 88 12:54:24 GMT
References: <1365@eos.UUCP> <13294@jumbo.dec.com> <1765@eneevax.UUCP>
Reply-To: stolfi@src.dec.com (Jorge Stolfi)
Followup-To: sci.space.shuttle
Organization: DEC Systems Research Center, Palo Alto
Lines: 203

I flamed:
>
>    I think [Adam Brody's letter to Congress] shows pretty well how
>    deep-rooted are the ills afflicting the US space program. [etc.]

Someone replied
>
>   Suffice it to say that you are full of blip.


Let me apologize to the net for the emotional and arrogant tone of my
posting.  (It's all the more embarassing, considering that I have often
scolded others for doing the same).  I definitely deserve all the
tomatoes and rotten eggs.

However, I do NOT apologize for the opinions expressed in that posting.  
I stand by them, word for word.

>   [Me:] I would rather see a better justification for the manned space
>   program than "The Russians are doing it".

>   [Keith Rogers:] I don't know, it worked last time, so why not this time?
>   I, for one, would not be inclined to be picky about why Congress might
>   decide to give NASA some decent funding.

Did it REALLY work last time?  You all deplore the way public support
for the space program evaporated after Apollo, and the lack of clear
purpose that has plagued NASA since then. Maybe the problem was that
Apollo had the wrong goal in the first place: not "conquer Space"
but merely "win the Moon race".  Not surprisingly, once the race was
over, the  fans left the stadium, and the viewers turned to another
channel.  Why should things have been any different? Why do you expect
things will be different after the space station race?

(I could also try to explain why I think that government by fraud
and deception is a bad idea, but it is 4:00am and I haven't had dinner
yet, so I will let you figure it out.)

>   [Me:] I note that [the letter] carefully avoids mentioning how much
>   each country *spent* last year on their space programs, and how they
>   divided the money between manned and unmanned missions.

>   [Keith:] I note that you, also, avoided mentioning these things.
>   What *are* the real numbers?

It's not fair, I asked first. :-) Anyway, here is a hint:  find out
how many of the 95 Russian launches last year were connected in any
way to their manned space program, and how many of those were actually
manned. 

>   [Me:] In other words, we must waste billions in pointless
>   manned missions today, to develop the technology needed to
>   waste MORE billions in MORE pointless manned missions tomorrow.  

>   [Keith:] POINTLESS MISSIONS?!!!  How can you say that!
>   You know as well as the rest of us that the space station could
>   serve as a platform for establishing a permanent manned lunar
>   base, and that with a lunar base we could ship into earth orbit
>   almost all the materials necessary to build solar power
>   satellites, which are far from useless.  

First, I fail to see why the proposed NASA space station would make
it much easier or cheaper to establish a lunar base.  In fact, building
and operating NASA's space station is likely to soak up most of the
available space money and Shuttle launches for the next 10-20 years,
with little room left for any other big projects such as the lunar base.

Second, it is not at all certain that lunar materials would be
competitive even for large structures like power satellites.  Yes,
I have read several studies that are supposed to prove that. They
are all incredibly optimistic about the costs and technical problems
involved in extracting metals from lunar rock and sunshine, transporting
them to geosynchronous orbit, and converting them to usable parts.
Note that most of the key technologies required for this plan have
yet to be developed.

Third, solar power satellites (SPS) are unlikely to be economically
competitive in the foreseeable future.  Note that even if structural
materials can be brought from the moon, a lot of mass would still have
to be launched from the Earth --- electronic devices, attitude motors,
construction equipment, shelters and supplies for workers, etc.  Now
add to this the (far greater) costs of establishing the lunar mining
operations.  Even in the most optimistic estimates, the cost of SPS
electricity turns out to be quite a bit more than the current price.

>   [Keith:] [The space station] could also serve as a base for
>   and help develop technologies  for missions to go get high
>   metal-content asteroids from the belt to assuage future materials
>   shortages.

At current prices, iron-nickel asteroids are worth less than a dollar
a pound.  You will need to process billions of pounds of asteroid
just to pay the cost of sending a human there. Asteroid mining for
Earth consumption is never to be competitive in the foreseeable future.

>   The other *points* to establishing a permanent manned presence
>   in space are far too numerous to go through here.  

I claim there is not one that stands up under close scrutiny.

Take for example the production of pharmaceuticals in space.  Indeed,
there are some drugs that are worth more than the cost of
transportation to and from the space station (>$5000/lb). However,
such high prices are largely due to the high costs of developing,
certifying, and marketing the product, and to the limited market for
specialized drugs.  When the production costs themselves are high,
it is because the drug is produced from expensive materials (e.g.
human pituitary glands), or is obtained in very small concentrations,
so one needs to process tons of reagents or culture medium to obtain
a pound of the final product.  Therefore there is no economic advantage
(in fact, a huge penalty) in moving any part of the production process
to space.

Besides, the pharmaceutical industry is in the midst of a technological
revolution brought about by genetic engineering.  Suppose you find a
drug for which space processing could be advantageous at at today
prices.  By the time you have designed, built and launched the
necessary equipment, it is quite likely that someone would have found a
Earth-based process that beats yours by orders of magnitude.
This is precisely what happened to the project by McDonnell-Douglas to
purify the drug erythropoyetin (sp?) by zero-g electrophoresis.
The same objections apply to other proposed zero-g products, such as
semiconductors, alloys, etc.  

Finally, note that any material processing on board of the space station
or the Shuttle, whether for production or research, will be much more
automated than in a typical Earth laboratory. For example, in the
protein crystallization experiment that flew once (twice?) on the
Shuttle, the only thing the astronauts had to do was to turn certain
knobs at specified times. Why is it that experiments of this sort 
cannot be carried on by automatic equipment on unmanned labs? 

   * * * 

I am hardly the only one to hold these views; I am basically repeating
views that I have seen many times in the press.  People of undisputed
credentials have stated the same objections quite clearly, in popular
magazines, in scientific journals, even in congressional hearings.
To my knowledge there has been little effort from the part of the
Shuttle and Space Station supporters to answer these objections.  As
Mr. Brody's letter and the above replies show, they either respond
with personal insults, or simply ignore the objections and keep on
repeating their old inflated claims.

This is clearly a lost cause. It is obvious that the man-in-space
enthusiasts and the NASA managers have decided to stick to the Shuttle
and go ahead with the Space Station, largely for selfish political
and emotional reasons, in spite of their huge costs and lack of concrete
benefits.

To the faithful disciples of Heinlein and Pournelle, the scientific
and commercial applications of the space station are not the real
justification for the manned program, but merely baits for the
"congresscritters" and the tax-paying "idiots".  (Many of the faithful
have stated this quite explicitly in this newsgroup.)  In their hearts
they don't give a damn about cheap pharmaceuticals or amazing alloys
or plentiful power;  what they really want from the space program
is just a chance to go up there.  It doesn't matter that the trip
will not make them any wiser, or the Earth any richer; they just want
to go up there, presumably to impress their girlfriends and have
something to brag about at parties.  In fact, it doesn't even matter
that their chances of ever getting there are less than one in a million,
since an essential requirement to be a space enthusiast is the ability
to ignore any numbers that could shake one's faith in the Dream.  Above
all, it doesn't matter that it costs tens of billions a year to keep
their selfish dreams barely dreamable, for they firmly believe in
their divine right have their expenses paid by those "idiots" who
dare not share the Dream.

Please note that I am not issuing a blanket condemnation against the
professionals working for the space program, either in NASA or outside
it. I believe they are in general competent and honest people, working
hard for what they believe to be the right goals. Yet, as in any large
organization with full-time membership, the good intentions of the
individuals, being directed in many different directions, tend to
cancel each other.  The total momentum of the organization as a whole
will include only the components that are common to all their members:
the desire for stable jobs, for good salaries, for plenty of toys,
and so on.  I believe this is basically the reason why NASA put all
its eggs in the Shuttle basket, why they are still committed to the
Shuttle and to manned spaceflight, and why they now want the Space
Station so badly. 

I do believe however that quite a few of the individuals connected to
the space program are aware that many of NASA's arguments for the space
station are bogus and deceptive, but have chosen not to debunk them in
public, either because they have no qualms about using such means to
protect their own jobs and further their own goals, or because they are
afraid of not being invited to NASA parties any more if they they do.  

A couple of years ago I posted to this bboard many long messages along
these lines, with plenty of numbers and objective arguments (oh yes,
and plenty of drivel, too).  I don't want to clog the net by re-posting
those old articles.  I hope this small sample will suffice to clarify
my position with respect to Mr. Brody letter and the manned space
program.  To those who got this far, thanks for your patience, and
my apologies if I have wasted your time.

                Jorge Stolfi
                stolfi@src.dec.com, ...!decwrl!stolfi

DISCLAIMER: The above opinions are not the sort of stuff my employer,
my teachers, my friends, or my mother would like to be associated with.