Jarringly out of place in the sun-drenched morning, brilliant fireworks heralded the fall of 7 brave adventurers from the heavens they explored. In the aftermath, the Majority Leader captured our national affection for space pioneers, as, once again, we collectively mourn.
From Time magazine, the context for the poignant sadness many of us feel at the passing of men and women most of us know only from their pictures: "A spacecraft is a metaphor of national inspiration: majestic, technologically advanced, produced at dear cost and entrusted with precious cargo, rising above the constraints of the earth. The spacecraft carries our secret hope that there is something better out there ? a world where we may someday go and leave the sorrows of the past behind. The spacecraft rises toward the heavens exactly as, in our finest moments as a nation, our hearts have risen toward justice and principle." (Easterbrook)
The memorials and tributes, though heartfelt, were brief. Media and Congressional attention spun quickly to what the New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg called the "long simmering debate" over funding, management, and even the very existence of our national space program. As the investigations swing into high gear, the parade of recriminations and disagreements promises to be long-lived. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Dallas Republican member of the Senate subcommittee that oversees NASA, immediately called for hearings, and ". . . expressed concern about NASA, an agency with a history of work force shortages and a new administrator who is struggling to cope with cost overruns . . . Ms. Hutchinson said she had no reason to believe that cost-cutting led to . . . [Columbia's break up]. 'But,' she added, 'I don't think that you can continue to make draconian cuts in this budget and accomplish our mission safely.'" (Stohlberg) Safety is the first, but inevitably not the only concern.
Others are less politic, more pointed in their recommendations. Gregg Easterbrook, senior editor of the New Republic, and visiting Brookings fellow, has repeatedly voiced opposition to the manned-shuttle program he considers a dangerous relic. Writing in Time magazine on February 10, he renewed his argument that "The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped - It's costly, outmoded, impractical and, as we've learned again, deadly." Five years before Challenger, Easterbrook reported his belief that the shuttle wasn't safe. This month, he again summarized his opposition:
Unfortunately, the core problem that lay at the heart of the Challenger tragedy applies to the Columbia tragedy as well. That core problem is the space shuttle itself. For 20 years, the American space program has been wedded to a space-shuttle system that is too expensive, too risky, too big for most of the ways it is used, with budgets that suck up funds that could be invested in a modern system that would make space flight cheaper and safer. The space shuttle is impressive in technical terms, but in financial terms and safety terms, no project has done more harm to space exploration. . . . This simply must be the end of the program. (Easterbrook)Easterbrook details his concerns, from cost overruns to political pork-barreling, and concludes that it's time to turn to unmanned, robotic space flight.
Whose Job Is It?
While Easterbrook and Senator Hutchinson don't question that space exploration is an appropriate role for government, others aren't convinced. In a February 4th ABCNEWS.com special, Forbes reporter Arik Hesseldahl compared the space program to the 1804 exploration of the Louisiana Territory in which Lewis and Clark's tax-supported adventure merely blazed a trail for private ventures.
When President Thomas Jefferson commissioned an expedition to what would eventually become the western part of the United States in 1803, it was the equivalent of the Apollo missions to the Moon.
Geographic exploration and scientific inquiry were only part of the mission by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark two centuries ago. In a letter to Congress seeking funds for the expedition, Jefferson said funding the missions was in the 'interests of commerce.' Indeed, it wasn't long after the two men returned to civilization that private interests took over the development of the West.
By contrast, the United States has had four decades of government-funded space exploration. Some of the technologies developed by the national Aeronautics and Space Administration have been spun off to the private sector, as well as a large part of the management of the shuttle program. But the bulk of American manned space flight remains firmly a public sector enterprise. (Hesseldahl)
While Hesseldahl is willing to concede that government initiative could give space exploration a jump start, he doesn't believe that 40 years later it should still be a public effort. Cynically, though, he sees the window of opportunity for converting to private enterprise closed. He can't imagine that any private business would purchase the aging shuttles with their outdated technology.
The debate over government funding isn't new, and calls to stop the shuttle aren't simply a post-tragedy over-reaction. The Cato Institute has long opposed the government funding of non-defense space programs. In 1995, Edward Hudgins, Cato's Director of Regulatory Studies, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Appropriations for Independent Agencies. Citing the need to ". . . examine NASA's problems in the wider context of the proper role of government in science," he argued that the agency is little more than an expensive space freight hauling operation whose existence at taxpayer expense cannot be justified.
25 years after the first manned lunar landing . . . NASA is criticized as wasteful and bloated, squandering the public's good will, enthusiasm and hundreds of billions of dollars. This is what can be expected when an enterprise that belongs in the private sector is taken up by government. . . . My recommendation is to phase the government out of non-defense related space activities by marking NASA for abolition. (Hudgins, Congressional Testimony)
Hudgins believes that when space exploration first began to seem possible in the late 1950s, Americans assumed that only government could successfully undertake endeavors of such magnitude. Looking back from 1999, he argued the error of that assumption, asking?and answering?the question, "Why Hasn't Space Flight Developed As Rapidly As Aviation?"
The explanation lies in the different development paths of civil aviation and civilian space. The Wright brothers were the first to fly, in 1903, acting as private individuals, pursuing their own vision and using their own money. Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in 1927, trying to win the privately offered $25,000 Orteig Prize. By the late 1930s the first commercially viable aircraft, the Douglas DC-3, was flying. Much of early civil aviation was funded privately. The government, of course, was interested in aircraft for defense. But often it simply offered a prize to whatever private provider could make a wing or fuselage to best meet its needs.
WWII and the Cold War saw the government pump billions of dollars into defense aircraft. But civil aviation remained in private hands. And since the airline industry was deregulated 20 years ago, the average cost of flying has dropped 30% in real terms and the number of trips in the skies Americans take annually has jumped from 275 million to 600 million.
The saga of space flight started much like civil aviation did. Dr. Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fuel rocket in 1926. In the 1930s, his funding, which Lindbergh helped secure, came principally from the private Guggenheim Foundation. But after World War II, it became a government effort entirely. The Pentagon brought Wernher von Braun and a team of scientists from Germany to the U.S. to develop more advanced designs of their V-2 rockets.
When the Soviets orbited Sputnik in October, 1957, American space policy went in two directions. The Pentagon sought intercontinental ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads. And the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established to put satellites into orbit and men into space. Unlike the history of aviation, development of military and civilian space efforts were (sic) government-run.
The landings on the Moon were great human and technological achievements. But the government's . . . approach . . . was not sustainable. In the early 1970s NASA, like any government bureaucracy, sought to maintain its staffs and budgets. [The] partially reusable shuttle was meant to reduce the costs of putting payloads into orbit. Over the decades, the costs in fact went up. Furthermore, NASA systematically stifled competing private space enterprises, turning down many offers of those providers to launch rockets and stations. A raft of regulations and government-to-government treaties hampered private space efforts as well.
But a series of small, hard-won reforms after the 1986 Challenger disaster has allowed the private sector to struggle for its place in space. For example, Lockheed Martin's Atlas launch vehicles already carry more private commercial satellites than government cargoes.But what is really needed in the 21st century is a strategy to back the government out of civilian space activities and allow imaginative private sector ideas to flourish. For example, the shuttle's 17-story tall external fuel tanks currently are flown 98% of the distance into orbit before they are pushed back toward the ocean and break up as they reenter the atmosphere. But the external tanks could be put into orbit. With nearly 100 shuttle flights to date, 100 platforms?with some 27 acres of total interior space. . . could have been in orbit today, ready to be homesteaded by entrepreneurs for hotels or honeymoon suites. (Hudgins, "Why. . . )
Hudgins predictions might seem far-fetched to some, but not to Buzz Aldrin. Tech Central Station reports that the former astronaut and his colleagues at the ShareSpace Foundation are already planning "Heavenly Hiltons." Says Aldrin:
We believe that 'civilians in space' is a theme that the American public will support since they've been paying for the space program for so long and have yet to reap the ultimate reward for their patience and support, a flight to space themselves.
. . . We believe that space tourism can become the catalyst that takes our archaic expendable space architecture to its next evolutionary level, that of fully reusable vehicles. Tourism offers a potentially lucrative, high volume traffic market model. Unlike traditional traffic models for satellite delivery, space tourism is based upon a firm commercial foundation, being a natural evolutionary outgrowth of the booming multi-billion-dollar adventure travel sector of the multitrillion-dollar travel and tourism business. (Aldrin)
A Mountain of Benefits
While the chorus of voices calling for an end to NASA may swell with this latest tragedy, it is not yet deafening. Without dismissing the magnitude of the human loss in Columbia, defenders of the space program repeat the list of spin-off benefits, and they're talking about more than Tang and Velcro.
[M]any of the technologies that the space program has spawned have taken root and flourished in the commercial world. Among other things, the space program gave rise to the 24 orbiting satellites that make up the Global Positioning System . . . .
Automakers use the system to build devices into car dashboards to enable drivers in many cities around the world to see precisely where they are on a street map displayed on the screen. Car makers also use the virtual wind-tunnel technology developed by NASA to test cars for safety and reliability. . . .
No one argues that potential technology spinoffs are reasons in and of themselves to pour money into NASA. But now, when space technology looks so fragile, may be the time to note some if its often overlooked legacies.
"We're benefiting now from what NASA did 20 years ago and 30 years ago," said Jaron Lanier, a virtual-reality pioneer who developed several technologies for NASA that migrated into commercial devices. "If we stop funding the space program will we still have the supply pipeline of things that are improving life, or will we be one of those places in the world that feels like the past?" . . .
Another fruit of the space program is satellite television, made possible by geostationary communications satellites that hover 22,000 miles up, some of which were hauled part of the way into space by the shuttle . . .
Various plastics, environmental technologies like solar cells, biomedical sensors used by emergency medical technicians, sound-enhancing circuit cards in PC's and the very idea of computer chips have roots in the space program.
'The government doesn't patent these things,' noted Arthur Molella, director of the Smithsonian Institute's Lemelsom Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. 'What the space program or military research programs allow you to do is nurture these technologies, and there's no question that corporate interests benefit from that. (Harmon)
The Debate Isn't Over
As the Congressional hearings gear up, we can expect to hear space program enthusiasts emphasize the public benefits that result from indirect spinoffs of the publicly funded space program. "'The government does things that cannot be done by the marketplace,' said Paul Saffo, a director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. 'And one is to capture the imagination, to give us something we can aspire to.'" Anticipating Edward Hudgins, we might want to ask whether Saffo thinks Wilbur and Orville Wright would have agreed.
Teacher Guide
- Copy the 4 page student handout.
- Provide a brief overview of some of the issues that have
been raised by the Columbia tragedy.
- Distribute the handout and give students time to read
the article excerpts.
- Review (or introduce):
- cost/benefit analysis
- externalities
- Divide class into small discussion groups and assign
some or all of discussion questions #1-6.
- Reconvene the large group and share results of the discussion,
emphasizing the definition of public goods, and the continuing
debate in our society over what the functions of government
should be.
- (Optional Extension) Assign students the "Choices in Space" reading by Kenneth Silber and ask them to consider the costs and benefits of the various options on the list.
Discussion Guide
Economics has long considered the question of which goods and services should be provided by the market and which should be provided by government. While favoring production by private enterprise operating in the market, economists do recognize a category of "public goods," that government must provide because the market does not. National defense, for example, is considered a true public good, and therefore an appropriate government activity. There's less consensus on many other government products and services - things like education, health care, and even space exploration. Could ? Should ? Would ? private enterprise provide these products if the government does not?
Consider the characteristics of true public goods:
- Public goods are non-rival, meaning that the consumption of the good by one person doesn't reduce its benefit to others. (For example, your neighbor's "consumption" of national defense doesn't leave less defense for you.)
- Public goods are non-exclusionary, meaning that the provider of the good or service cannot exclude those who are unwilling to pay for the benefits. (Again, we can't provide missile defense for you and exclude your neighbor.) Another way to look at this non-exclusionary principle is that public goods have significant externalities - benefits or costs that can't be confined to the purchaser and spill over onto others.
- What externalities are associated with non-defense space research
and exploration?
Various. Student answers should derive from the readings. Most will concentrate on the positive externalities, the commercial benefits that derive from scientific and technological inventions in the space program.
- Identify evidence in the reading that addresses the issue of whether
the benefits of space exploration are non-rival ("consumption" by one
person doesn't reduce benefits to others).
Various examples. Possible answers include the use of knowledge derived from the space program to create things like Global Positioning Systems. Use of the knowledge in one endeavor doesn't reduce its value to another innovator or entrepreneur. (Students may note that knowledge and applications from the space program, once declassified, are not patented. Everyone is able to use the discovered knowledge.)
- Identify evidence in the reading that addresses the issue of whether
the benefits of space exploration are non-exclusionary.
Various examples. Students may argue that it would be possible to exclude people from the use of GPS systems, but not from the knowledge of how they work and how they are created. The same argument may be used in regard to medical and biological discoveries.
- Do you believe that a non-defense space program is a public good?
Answers will vary. Expect disagreement. Require each side in the disagreement to provide evidence from the readings to address the specific provisions of the definition of public good. Decisions about the future of the space program are clearly economic decisions, in the sense that they involve cost/benefit analysis. In simplest terms, the question facing us is whether the costs of the next step into space are worth the anticipated benefits.
-
For each of the individuals, groups, or organizations listed below, what are the costs and benefits of space research and exploration if it is a government activity? If it is conducted by private enterprise?
-
Individual astronauts
Individual astronauts will assess the costs and benefits differently. However, we must assume that anyone who joins the program considers the benefits to outweigh the costs?or she would withdraw from the program. Several of the listed sources comment on the astronauts' understanding of the risks of their profession. One writer, Michael Malone, thinks the government has an obligation to help astronauts assess the level of risk. He thinks NASA should include in astronaut recruitment materials "the words from the old Pony Express recruitment poster: 'Orphans Preferred.'" (Malone)
-
Individual or teams of scientists
One of the costs to NASA researchers is that they don't have the right to commercialize their products, and so forego the potential profits. On the other hand, they don't bear the uncertainties of funding that a private researcher would.
-
Technology, pharmaceutical, engineering companies
Students should especially note the quote about NASA not patenting its inventions. The information becomes public and can be used by those who want to take the invention to innovation in the commercial realm. This is a plus for companies that depend on ongoing research. On the other hand, NASA and other government-funded research projects are competitors with the private sector for the talents of researchers.
-
Your Congressman
Students will answer this differently depending on the economy of their local area. Representatives from the Houston area, for example, would see great benefits in maintaining NASA budgets, while others might see only costs.
-
American taxpayers
Students should indicate an understanding that there are trade-offs involved. If they believe that the benefits they receive from the space program - whether it be commercial spin-offs, national pride, or the value of an increase in scientific knowledge for its own sake - outweigh the benefits of lower taxation or government spending on other programs. Part of their answer may depend on whether or not they think that the benefits of the space program would be generated even if space exploration were a private enterprise.
-
Consumers (American and world)
Again, students' answers will depend on whether they believe that the benefit to consumers in the form of commercial spin-offs outweigh the cost to consumers in the form of the money they must pay in taxes rather than spending as they wish. Some students may comment on the diffusion of space technology spin-offs to other countries as a positive externality for which U.S. consumer-citizens foot the bill. Anticipate that some will regard this as a benefit of government funding and some as a cost.
-
- Predict what would happen if the U.S. government offered a multi-billion
dollar reward to the first company to successfully land on Mars and
either return to Earth with or transmit data. It's reasonable to
predict only that offering a prize would result in an earlier and less
costly accomplishment of the goal than setting up a government project
to land on Mars. As Edward Hudgins testifies, using prizes as incentives
for the private sector to develop a needed technology to serve a government
interest, has worked in the past.
-
Lindbergh was motivated by the $25,000 Orteig prize.
-
Before WWII, U.S. government interest in the aircraft for defense was often met by ". . . simply [offering] a prize to whatever private provider could make a wing or fuselage to best meet its needs."
-
"An interagency U.S. government working group in 1987-88 considered the feasibility of offering a one-time prize and a promise to rent to any private group that could deliver a permanent manned Moon base. When asked if such a station were realistic, private sector representatives answered "Yes!" but only if NASA stayed out of the way . . . ."
- Is "multi-billion" is a big enough prize? (We'd find out by offering
it. It also seems reasonable to suggest that the less commercial
potential companies see for themselves in reaching Mars, the bigger
the prize would have to be. )
- How much is it ok to offer? (If going to Mars is the objective, the limit to the prize should be only that it would be less than government would spend to do it itself.)
-
Cited Sources and Resource Guide
Aldrin, Buzz and Ron Jones. "Heavenly
Hiltons." Tech Central Station, January 16, 2003.
(Accessed February 21, 2003)
- Aldrin and Jones propose a new private/government partnership to develop a reliable, reusable space transportation system. (2.5 pages)
Cato Institute. "35. National Aeronautics and Space Administration." (downloaded February 21, 2003)
- Pp. 377 - 388 of the Cato Handbook, detailing the organization's proposal for privatization of the space industry.
Crawford, Alan Pell. "An
'Industrial Policy' For Space?" Policy Analysis No.
69, April 25, 1986.
- Extended policy analysis supporting the commercialization of space. Interesting to compare present day reality to the predictions of this analysis written in 1986. Did the anticipated benefits materialize?
Easterbrook, Gregg. "The
Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped." Time February 10,
2003. (Downloaded from Time:com Archive, Premium Article,
February 21, 2003)
- 5 page article. Many examples detailing the cost overruns that plague the space program. (See The download is free to Time subscribers and $2.50 for others.)
Harmon, Amy. "New Economy; Even as it gazes toward the
stars, the space program has broad benefits for those rooted
to Earth." The New York Times, February 10, 2003. (Downloaded
from nytimes.com premium archive, February 21, 2003. Charge
for download from archive.)
- List of spin-off benefits of the space program as reasons for continuing government funding. (2 pages)
Hesseldahl, Arik. "The Final Frontier," ABCNEWS.com. February 4, 2003. (Accessed February 21, 2003)
- Commentary, arguing that space exploration should have been privatized more quickly and that we're now "stuck" with expensive, decrepit technological junk. (2 pages)
Hudgins, Edward, Congressional Testimony. "Testimony
of Edward L. Hudgins, February 2, 1995." (accessed
February 21, 2003)
- (3 page article) Excellent choice for a student reading. Clearly states the position of those who criticize the government's failure to privatize and commercialize the space program. Makes broad recommendations for accomplishing that goal.
Hudgins, Edward L. "Why
Hasn't Space Flight Developed As Rapidly As Aviation?"
Cato, April 21, 1999.
- A case-study by comparison, arguing that government has hindered rather than helped space science and exploration. (2 pages.)
Malone, Michael S. "Hail
Columbia . . . And Farewell." February 6, 2003. (Accessed
February 21, 2003)
- Short, half-page reading. Good accompaniment to discussion question #5 re cost/benefit decisions made by individual astronauts. Author Malone argues that "Exploration will never, ever be safe," but counsels us to accept risks, as the astronauts do, with courage and without illusion. He argues that President Bush should honor the Columbia crew by expanding the space program, and suggests that NASA append to it's recruitment posters "the words from the old Pony Express recruitment poster: 'Orphans Preferred.'"
Silber, Kenneth. "Choices in Space." Tech Central Station (Accessed February 21, 2003)
- Excellent follow up article for students interested in the various schools of thought about what should happen to the space program. Silber provides short, paragraph descriptions of 7 different program options. (2 pages)
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. "Loss of the Shuttle: Washington; Lawmakers to Take a Closer Look at the Space Program." The New York Times, February 21, 2003. (Downloaded from nytimes.com, premium archive, February 21, 2003. Charge for download from archive.)
- News report of impending Congressional and agency investigations into the Columbia tragedy. (2 pages)