Formal Debate Series I - Space Exploration

That's true. I'm still getting used to this whole format I suppose. Let's carry on!

As per your point 1. above

1. National prestige is important, and the moon landing did inspire people to go into science, some in no doubt ending up @ NASA, but in the end increasing NASA's budget by say 15% or 25% will not really have that much of an impact in terms of national prestige.. not nearly enough to really impact the economy in the short term.

2. There is plenty of prestige to go around. The curiosity landing was just amazing, Hubble has been sending back some just mindblowing imagery, the ISS is pretty much ran by America, private American companies are starting to get involved in space tourism and other space ventures, and America really has a lot to be proud about as far as space exploration & technology goes.

3. In this age of internet lolcats and special effects it isn't as easy to excite the general public as it was back in the 60s. People just don't care as much about space exploration.. This doesn't extend to everyone, but the average joe could care less about the latest ISS docking or an asteroid rendezvous. The one project I could think of that would excite the public to similar levels as the moon landing would be a manned mission to Mars and we are still at least a decade away from that.

To your third point:

1)You are entirely wrong - people are still excited by outer space exploration. When the Sojourner rover began exploring the Martian surface, a record number of people tuned into NASA's website to see coverage of the exploration. There are many, many websites dedicated to space exploration, and even this site, which has nothing to do with space, has it's own threads and subforums dedicated to the topic that recieve many visitors.() Millions of people flock to the National Air and Space Museum, the newly opened space shuttle exhibits and other museums dedicated to just this topic every year.

If we stall out now - and again, that is exactly what will happen if we don't increase funding now - what will students, dreamers and lovers of all things otherworldly have to look forward to? Missed opportunities, past glories? That is the path to decay and irrelevance. NASA offers a path forward not only for our country and our vital youth, but for all of humanity that watches with excited eyes as we peel back the secrets of the universe, as we push into the unknown and expand the very nature of what humanity is as NASA reaches further into the majestic void.

Special effects themselves are born of the microelectronics brought about in part by the need of NASA for lightweight and powerful computer chips. Let's face it - our special effects and lulcats are awesome in the extreme. But they will never compete with the overwhelming power of a black hole, or the secrets we can glean from its mechinations or those of the other wonders this universe holds.

I argue that we must go forever forward, drawn forever forward by the guiding light of knowledge. There lies the answers to our problems, there lies the salvation from the many the many ills of this small blue dot, wracked with strife, discord and the scramble for resources. We can push past the problems of today and find the solutions of tomorrow, and through this, increase our national prestige which is vital to our economic future.

I just realized that you will next post your third claim, which means I actually won't get to post last as you get the last response to my final claim. I don't care though, let's roll with it. I can pwn you with or without the first and last posts.

Substantiations for claim 3.

3. The private sector has been pushing for a more active role in space exploration and great strides have been made in this area recently; this is the perfect opportunity for private companies to step up to the plate.

Click to expand...

1. SpaceX is just about ready to launch the first ever (I believe) private resupply mission to the ISS. They have a contract for 12 such launches and obviously NASA is paying for these missions, but this is the sort of thing that will benefit NASA in the long run: The more entities there are out there competing for contracts, the cheaper resupply missions and space launches will be. Private companies taking over certain aspects of what NASA does will be good for the organization in the long run, and times when $$ @ NASA is sparse is an excellent time for private entities to come in and compete.

2. The future of American space exploration surely lies in private enterprise and the free market; that's what a large part of America is all about! Throwing billions of extra dollars at NASA might be a waste of money if private enterprise can do it cheaper; they just need the opportunity! It's not easy to compete with an organization funded by tax dollars - Since new funding is in question due to the financial problems facing the country, it's a bit of an opportunity for private enterprise to move a couple steps closer to becoming a large part of American space industry.

I refute both of the points you raised to substantiate your third claim:

1)Many private sectors of their economy (and the space sector especially) - are bankrolled in large part, and especially at their outset - by the federal government. We could not have private resupply of the ISS without COTS, we will not have a thriving entrepreneurial space sector without massive government assistance. The current level of funding at NASA strains it's ability to accomplish various programs, and COTS is one of them. In fact, several promising initiatives by companies such as Andrews Space, Spacehab and Planetspace were elimated from the COTS program by lack of funding.

Another first round finalist, Rocketplane Kistler, was later eliminated and funding withdrawn as they were unable to procure sufficient private investment. Already, the current funding situation is causing NASA to pick just two winners, SpaceX and Orbital Science, and cast the rest of the lot of promising companies aside as losers.

Could those companies have succeeded given enough funding? Possibly.
Could SpaceX and Orbital sciences succeeded without funding? Highly doubtful

We have already artificially narrowed competition and entrepreneurial initiatives in space due to lack of funding at NASA. If you think the private space sector is the way forward in space, then you need to fund it enough to get it off the ground, just as the airmail service did for the likes of Boeing and the currently enormous air transportation industry. NASA is the outlet for that funding, they are the most logical outlet for government money into this sector and no matter how you look at it, this industry cannot survive right now without that money.

In the end however

1. SpaceX is going forward with their goal of being a profitable private company offering services to NASA as well as other clients, even without the extra NASA funding you seek. They have a 12 launch contract with NASA with the first one occurring in a couple days.

Orbital Sciences are due to perform a test of their launch vehicle in October as well as a a demo mission in December.

This shows that private entities operating orbital transportation services is viable even under current levels of funding.

2. Rocketplane Kistler's contract being terminated due to their inability to secure sufficient private investment has nothing to do with tax dollars that go to NASA.

To your first point:

1)Two new companies, one of which is yet to demonstrate hardware on orbit, do not a thriving new industry make. What is being created is a duopoloy, and does not actually present an opportunity for real competition in the nascent private space access industry.

It is obvious that this new industry has potential, but currently the barrier to entry is too large for companies to manage it on their own and having only two companies may not create the thriving industry that is desired. To create competition, you need more competitors in the market. Current NASA funding does not provide for that.

2)At the current level of funding, those are the two big players participating in the COTS program and Commercial Crew Development programs, and they will be the only ones. That is assuming of course, that neither company misses a technical or funding milestone, as Rocketplane Kistler did (and funding and technical milestones go hand in hand), and have to be dropped from the program.

This isn't unlikely, it's already happened. And if it does happen again, there will be no money to award to another company as it has already been handed out (most was withheld from Kistler and then redistributed to Orbital Sciences - the development funds are now largely spent). Imagine the political fallout if a SpaceX capsule collides with the ISS, or an Orbital Sciences rocket explodes on the launchpad.

This could lead to some peculiar situations:
-grant a monopoly and destroy competitiveness to the one company that survives
-let the new private space sector go if no companies survive
-increase NASA's budget to bring in new companies

I suggest that to put this new industry on more solid footing, we need to increase NASA's budget to ensure redudancy in case a company falls out of the program and to ensure more companies can enter the market.

3)There are currently only contracts available for 12 resupply missions. After that, you will have to increase NASA's budget to fund any more as they are currently full up on their budgetary commitments. What are these two companies supposed to do if they are unable to develop enough profits, technology and stature in the industry by the end of the current NASA contracts to win other private contracts? There are other established private players that can do what SpaceX and Orbital Science could do with their launch vehicles like launching satellites (which is the lion's share of commercial activity in space). To do loftier things, like colonization efforts or launching orbital manufacturies and the like, will require more capital than it is likely these companies will gain through current NASA contracts.

Without increasing NASA's funding, it will be very hard for these companies to accomplish what other firms already do or push into new ventures that the others aren't in currently. Those other companies are not launching colonies, mining asteroids or setting up manufacturies precisely because the private sector cannot in this economic climate (where business loans for risky ventures are hard to come by) meet the capital requirements to do all of these things that make this new industry exciting.

Regarding your above point 2.

1. The COTS program initially saw 20 companies enter into the contest. 3 were selected as winners. One of those, as you have pointed out, has dropped out due to non-debate-related financing issues, and we are left with 2. One drop-out is hardly a case for worry. Your conclusion that the situation could end up in one of the pecular situations that you list is nothing more but wild conjecture.

2. NASA pays Russia over $60 million to send 1 astronaut into space. SpaceX will be charging NASA about $20 million for the same job.

It is definitely in the interest of NASA to keep this program running, because in the end it will save them a lot of money. That, and relying on a foreign power for Earth to orbit launches is nowhere near ideal... New funding for the project in the future is definitely needed, but at the moment things are progressing rather smoothly.

3. The potential problems you list with SpaceX and Orbital, such as a rocket explosion or collision with the ISS, is again wild conjecture.

Fact check:
The first round of the COTS competition only had 2 winners, SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler. The latter company was later dropped from the competition before the second round. The second round later advanced Orbital Sciences. There was never 3 simultaneous winners.

To your point 3:
1)The assertion that launch failures or accidents in space are wild conjecture is itself absurd. A quick google search will in fact show that many, many launch attempts have failed miserably -this is undisputable.

It happens to everyone, both established and new players. One of the premier space fairing nations, the Russian Federation, has had a string of spectacular failures of late- on top of deadly accidents on the pad and during reentry. SpaceX itself has faced a launch failure that set their program back. Even NASA, the pinnacle of space exploration, has also lost astronauts in accidents on the ground, on the way up to space and on the way down.

Further, the Mir space station was irrevocably damaged in a collision during a routine resupply mission. Honestly, I do not understand how you see failure as conjecture, it is inevitable. If it is a bad enough failure, it will put the prospects of the respective companies in jeopardy. It is already extremely expensive and difficult to insure rocket launches because failures are so common and catastrophically expensive.

We need to bolster the program so that other companies can offer true competition (who's to say $20 million is the floor of launch costs - there is only one company really in the market for this service right now and as yet their costs are hypothetical, not proven) and redundancy to insure against failure.

Regarding your fact check: You are right that there were never 3 simultaneous winners. It is worth nothing however that there were 6 companies involved in the 2nd round and that at various stages of the contest various companies were given various contracts. This is just to highlight the competitive nature of the program; you paint a slightly different picture.

Space and launch accidents do happen, however:

1. No resupply mission has ever collided with the ISS, which you outline as a potential issue. The MIR collision you reference happened because the Russians were trying to cut down on costs and were attempting to dock manually, shutting off their automated docking system.

2. The SpaceX launch failure I believe you are referring to happened back in May when the ignition sequence was aborted during launch. This sort of thing happens from time to time and is really an example of them being overly careful rather than some sort of a catastrophic launch failure.

3. Accidents happen, but there is no reason to think that increased funding to NASA today will help SpaceX or any other private organization recover from a catastrophic event.

4. Like I mentioned earlier, over 20 companies were initially involved in the COTS competition. That speaks volumes of the interest by private enterprise in space exploration and cooperation with NASA. If SpaceX for some reason fails, American free market spirit and ingenuity will ensure that somebody else steps up to the plate.

For clarification, the SpaceX failure I was actually writing about was the Falcon I rocket, which failed catastrophically on 4 of 5 launches. Also, all of the non-winners in the COTS programs were given no financial support - they were given contracts that allowed them access to technology and information only.

To your forth point:

1)Yes, the fact that 20 companies tried out for the competition does show interest. The fact remains, however, that almost none of the losers of the competition have gone on to develop launch systems or capsules.

The reasons for this are simple: cost and risk. The dollars sums involved are simply beyond the reach of just about all private firms in the arena and even if they had the cash, they risk losing massive amounts of money on failures. They are also taking on the additional risk that they will develop systems to meet a demand that is fixed and finite. Currently, there no plans for, or funds allocated for, a program similar to COTS after it has been completed and thus no market beyond the program. This is why NASA needs more funding, to ensure that the COTS program has enough life for the winners of the program to develop meaningful systems and go on to create new markets for their services. Currently, they offer the service to the small market NASA provides, what lies beyond that is anyone's guess.

I for one, don't want to see these companies wither on the vine because of short-sightedness that fails to provide adequate life to the program for its dependents to grow to viability.

2)I raise a question: would air transportation exist without the airmail service? Well, almost certainly. However, it would have taken much longer to achieve a viable business model without that crucial government backing. The entrepreneurs then were as clever and industrious as they are now, but the fundamental factors - the high cost of entry to the market and the lack of developed techniques and technologies - that would have stunted the industries growth then threaten to do the same to the private space industry now without adequate program funding. I refute your notion that private industry will magically materialize money through free market spirit and ingenuity when loans are so hard to get, financial markets are distressed and their is little tolerance for risky new endevours with dim prospects for immediate returns on investment from the venture capitalist sector.

Don't forget we are still reeling from the Great Recession, and by the time the Great Depression hit, the air transportation sector was already established. That makes a huge differrence in the prospects of the two industries.

3)If American free market spirit and ingenuity will ensure someone steps up to the plate, why hasn't it happened before now, without government assistance? The markets aren't there without this program, they will evaporate with this brief program, and the requisite technologies haven't been developed and cannot be developed by the private industry without government assistance and will not be sustainable without it. That is why we need to increase funding to NASA; to ensure that at this critical junction, this new industry will be put on solid footing to go on and make profits and stand on their own eventually without NASA. They aren't there yet, and it's hard to believe they will be there without additional funding for this program. Plus, we are only talking about 2 companies, not even a whole industry. Additional funding can give rise to more than just 2 players in this market - that is true free enterprise.

I'm up next for my final claim.

My third claim:
NASA should recieve increased taxpayer funding to push the boundaries of science forward.

1)I will use the example of the laser (not a NASA invention, I'm using it to prove a point) as a classical example of an invention without a purpose. The basic research into the laser goes back all the way to Albert Einstein and when it was finally built in the 60's, no one knew what to do with it. Now however, it underlies fiber optic communications, blu ray playes, laser pointers and a $1.7 billion dollar laser market.

If we wish to grow our economy, we need to invest in serious R&D, and NASA does this better than just about anyone else. Many technologies and basic science research that NASA undertakes is not immediately profitable, but will lead to major long term breakthroughs (like the laser, which started as a set of equations on Einsteins desk) that will radically expand the economy. I should point out, that the kind of basic R&D and science work done by NASA is expensive, and the private market often shuns this kind of research as their is usually little immediate payback; especially so in tight credit markets where companies need to trim spending and focus on profits right now instead of long term investments.

If we increase NASA's funding, we will see major gains to the economy as new scientific theories are concieved, tested and eventually put to use.

2)NASA supports science through it's outreach programs with K-12 schools and Universities. They provide live feeds from orbit straight into elementary schools, publish lesson plans and videos for science teachers, and support research at universities. Through these programs, NASA pushes science forward by helping raise the next generation of STEM workers and researchers from the time they enter school all the way through graduate degrees.

These workers and reseachers in turn push science ever farther forward on their own as they begin working in the world and this will in turn massively grow the economy. We need to expand our understanding of science to grow the economy and to expand science, we need an educated workforce that is excited by technological growth and exploration. This is how NASA feeds into this virtuous cycle - by supporting classrooms, teachers and universities. If we want to continue on the path toward major economic growth through scientific advancement, we need to continue and expand NASA's ability to do this.

Right now, China and other countries are ramping up spending on their space programs. If we want to keep and expand our lead in science, technology and the economic growth that follows those things, we should step up funding for NASA as it positively impacts education all the way down to the Kindergarten level. We need more science, faster right now. The current track NASA is on will deliver less basic science slower as it struggles to meet it's commitments.

3)There is enourmous value in expanding science research just for science's sake. No one does this better than NASA, as the payoffs can be long term and it is unprofitable in the near term. NASA is struggling to meet all of their commitments and as a result, promising programs like ExoMars (a probe to find signatures of life on Mars) are being abandoned by NASA. This is an ongoing problem as the Orion program, the Aries replacement and COTS continue to eat up a major portion of NASA's budget. It causes NASA to abandon useful scientific endevours to focus on other priorities. In the case of ExoMars, the Russian Federation stepped up to meet NASA's commitment.

The United States will not be able to compete in the quest for knowledge as long as they are under tight budgetary constraints and other countries are able and willing to step up and spend more. There are wonders of the universe that don't come with immediate dollar signs, but they further our basic understanding of how the universe works, which certainly pays off in the long run. We risk having many missed opportunities as other countries uncover these wonders.

4)Science is essentially a public endevour done in the public interest. When times are hard, such as now, there is a dwindling capacity for the private sector to invest in science. This threatens our economy directly through layoffs, and indirectly in the slower pace of scientific advancement that yields long term gains. Right now is the perfect time to increase NASA's funding to give a boost to scientific research, keep scientists and engineers at firms with NASA contracts and ties on the payroll, and to ensure that our economy will be well placed to race forward and out of the recession armed with new scientific discoveries.

Regarding your above points 1. 3. and 4.

You are incorrect about NASA leading R&D initiatives in the U.S. While the agency's research over the years has resulted in a lot of new technologies, NASA's main research goals are incredibly esoteric; there will be side benefits from time to time, such as memory foam, but it is other companies and organizations that lead the U.S. in terms of R&D that is done that leads to consumer grade goods, new innovative products, and an impact on the economy.

Out of the 100 R&D100 winners last year, a highly prestigious award given to the best R&D done in the country, only 2 ended up in the hands of NASA. In contrast, 36 were given to the U.S. Department of Energy.

If your goal is to increase R&D efforts in the country, giving extra money to NASA should not be anywhere near the top of your list; there are many other organizations who should be getting this funding instead, if that is your goal.

NASA, as I pointed out, does support a lot basic research. This is incredibly important to keep in mind - as the kind of R&D that leads to consumer products is based on fundamental research that can seem like a dead end. It's hard to seperate the one (R&D that goes directly to consumer products and basic science R&D) from the other as they are so thoroughly intertwined.

Again, we need more of this basic research as the private sector largely counts on government agencies like NASA to do it for them. NASA is a great place to park that research money as so many technologies have been spun out of NASA technological research and so much of the advances in our consumer electronics and other consumer goods have their roots in basic R&D from NASA. A quick google search will confirm all of the things that we depend on or that make our lives more comfortable that came ultimately, from NASA.

Also, one year of awards is an incredibly narrow frame of reference, and it also could just as well reflect that NASA hasn't been able to do as much R&D because they are so overcommitted to other projects.

1. I've looked through the award winners for this particular award (which seems to be one of the, if not the top R&D award in the U.S.) and NASA usually only wins a handful of awards (2,3,4,5). The Department of Energy in contrast consistently seems to win over 25 of these a year, with 49 out of the 100 awards going to them a couple years ago.

Surely if you want to promote R&D efforts in the U.S., you'd want to increase funding of the Department of Energy and similar agencies instead.

2. NASA's R&D, like you said, doesn't yield immediate benefits in terms of R&D and science research. Consumer & economy impacts are usually not felt until many years down the road. This is because NASA's R&D focuses on esoteric needs relevant to the space industry. It is only in some cases that their research happens to result in technologies that can be marketed to the general public and have a measurable impact on the economy.

To your second point:

NASA's research is not relegated only to the space industry. Everything from the battery industry to the airplane industry to hand tools benefit from NASA R&D. They deal with a lot of things, and even when they are researching ideas and technology for the space industry, it commonly has real world applications. And many of the gains are immediate - just look at the long laundry list of spin off technologies that have been born of NASA research.

They are mostly spin-off technologies that are not the result of the direct research performed but rather unforseen or unplanned for applications of the R&D performed by NASA. For example, memory foam was the result of research that was initially meant to improve the safety of aircraft cushions. This can be contrasted with a company that would hypothetically do R&D to produce memory foam specifically, instead of it being an off-shoot of other research they happen to be doing.

NASA's main goals are space oriented and their R&D reflects that. There are other applications of the technologies that they innovate, but the main goal and direction of the research is key: A company or organization with the consumer market in mind specifically will be far more efficient at having an impact on the economy in the short-term (and likely the long-term as well)

Increasing funding to NASA with research and science in mind is inefficient for these reasons - unless your goal is to increase space-based technology R&D specifically. There are other organizations that specialize in the type of R&D and science that would most benefit the consumer market and have a more immediate impact on our lives and our economy. If your goal is to increase science and R&D in general, NASA is not the place where you should be increasing funding.

I think you are severly understating NASA's impact on many other technological fields. Take data crunching, microelectronics and image generation and medicine for instance.

Satellites like the James Webb Space Observatory or the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or even ground based telescopes produce mountains of data that needs to be categorized and sifted through. NASA develops the methods, techniques and technology to do so and what they develop applies to many other fields, as data is generated and sorted pretty much anywhere a computer chip and/or a network is involved.

The microcontrollers that actuate commands to various parts of the spacecraft also have uses everywhere from airplanes to cars, trains and many other fields. You posit that many of things NASA researches is strictly relegated to space-based fields; this is clearly not the case.

The electronics of today also descend largely from the microelectronics (for the time they were micro - it's amazing how far R&D can push these things) used to operate satellites, rovers and capsules over the decades that faced severe mass, space and power requirements. If that list of requirements sounds familiar, it's because it's the same things required of the chips and components in your cellphone.

As I stated before, many companies simply do not or cannot invest in the kinds of basic physics and technological advancements that NASA can. The payoff is not immediate enough, the capital costs are too high and access to credit right now is hard to come by. Those companies rightly need to focus on their bottom lines until things pick up, but our society should not pay the penalty for this as long as we have such a large and active publicly funded research insititution that can pick up the slack. That's why NASA needs more funding right now.

We also can count on fancy 3-D movies and intricate simulated images of all kinds of computer generated models and recreations of real-world events. NASA studies how to do this, and their research pays society a dividend every time a blockbuster 3-D movie hits the screen or a news report contains a detailed recreation of an event for which no video exists.

The media and researchers also uses electronic means to sort through degraded signals and incomplete data sets to undestand what's going on in say, the Zapruder film or to peer through the layers of a Da Vinci painting. NASA developed many of these techniques as they figured out ways to communicate with distant satellites through radiation soaked-space with primitive radio links.

The field of medicine has also seen major advances thanks to NASA. CAT and MRI scans trace their ancestry to NASA efforts to take better pictures of the moon, for instance. The elderly walk with assitance from lightweight foldable walkers made of material created for the aerospace industry by NASA. Pacemakers contain technology developed by NASA for satellites. The list in this industry and many others goes on and on...


So no, it is not fair to classify NASA research as applicable to space-based endevours soley. What they do spills over into almost all other fields and we are better for it. Both on purpose and accidentally, NASA R&D applies everywhere and makes our economy and lifes stronger. You can't deny this fact with a straight face, much less so in an economic climate that so strongly discourages the kinds of R&D NASA does and as a consequence of these economic conditions should do more of.

Well, that's all from me folks. Thank you CFCers for your time, patience and input.

A special thank you to Warpus for being so congenial and for putting so much time and effort into setting this up with me and for seeing it through.

When I say "space-based" I am also including things like Earth-based telescopes; they are collecting data from space. That was poorly worded on my part.

You are right that the scope of a lot of research that NASA conducts is just too great for private enterprise to invest in without government subsidies.. You are also right that the financial reality of a lot of this research is that there won't be an immediate payoff - another reason why private enterprise might not want to get involved. These things are not in dispute by me.

What I am disputing is this: Why does NASA need extra funding for these research projects now?

Surely any extra money that gets allocated for scientific research and R&D in the hopes of stimulating the economy should be given to companies and organizations that specialize in bringing products to the consumer market. NASA does not specialize in this area.

That's all from me as well! Thanks to all who took the time to read this, hobbsyoyo for spending over a week interacting with me and helping formulate the rules, as well as offering his wife to the winner, and of course our moderator Jim Lehrer.

That's all she wrote folks. Poll coming in the Peanut Gallery thread soon.

(I don't know if I'm supposes to report the thread for a closure or ask for it in a post, so I did both and I apologize if I annoy any mods. Will a mod kindly close this thread please?)

The poll is now up in the discussion thread. Don't forget to vote! http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=476921