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I thought that it was about time that we start to discuss one of the most
important, yet most often ingored, factors affecting Unmanned Spaceflight,
namely ITAR. From what I have noted ITAR (International Traffic and Arms
Reduction) regulations threaten to disrupt most Space Science missions.
Supposedly, ITAR was initiated to stop the flow of info to other nations that
would enable them to improve their development of arms. However, its tentacles
have now reached into Space Science and UMSF in many ways.
I want to hear from members of the UMSF community about ways that ITAR
has adversely affected a project. I also want the UMSF community to discuss
whether ITAR has become a bureacratic nightmare with no positive effects.
One aspect of ITAR that disturbs me is the cover it can provide to those that
wish to cloak their goof-ups in SECRECY. The most recent example is NASA's
announcement last week that they would not release the Mishap Report for
DART. Another example came a couple of years ago when NASA released the
CONTOUR Mishap Report with major sections blacked-out, supposedly because
of ITAR concerns.

Another Phil

Another Phil:

Yup. It certainly seems to be an effective fig-leaf at times!

Pity also the high-power rocketry community, who are getting all sorts of grief just because they like mixing up commercial quantities of explosives in their garden sheds. Or that poor Boy Scout (the bald, glowing one who nobody speaks to except from a distance of 30 feet) who built a nuclear reactor by mail order.

I suppose there *are* valid reasons for (ahem) 'care' these days, but yes, it can go too far. At least the Boy Scout got his Merit Badge before he was classed as ordnance

Bob Shaw

I have been told that the engineering data, relative to the entry, descent and landing of Spirit and Opportunity, will NOT be placed in the PDS 'possibly' because of ITAR restrictions. ITAR restrictions almost certainly led to at least one Japanese launch failure - (How does that work to America's advantage?).

In theory, ITAR does NOT apply to information the is easily derivable using basic engineering and scientific principles. On the other hand, it is easy to slap ITAR restrictions on any result that is poorly understood. Contractors will always try to error in the conservative, never releasing information when there is any question.

All in all, I am of the opionion ITAR does much more harm than good - certainly if we are withholding rocket information that could help advisaries - imagined or real - if they have the means to utilize the information, they have the means to buy the technology - either from other nations or illegal traders.

I don't know that it is fair to say ITAR is being used to hide bad news...bad news is always minimized and downplayed - the Venus Express deployment problem is textbook.

VEX isn't under ITAR though - ITAR is a US regulatory issue.

However - there is some pleasently and surprisingly candid comments on ITAR by Deborah Bass on her web log
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/features/we...eborah_bass.php

ITAR has been a thorn in our side for a long time, and it continues to hinder our work. We are doing our best to carefully get work done being mindful of the issues, but it is a struggle. Once again, the issue came up with regards to our software tools. The MET team doesn't know whether some weird restriction will pop up long after we've designed much of the whole system, so they don't know whether to design a system that is really integrated with the rest of the Ops Team, or whether they should build a system that can stand alone. Right now they are carrying both options. But it gets expensive to continue to work two parallel designs. At some point, we're going to have to commit to one or the other. The safest approach is to just do the stand-alone system. But the more desired and efficient approach is to have the MET team integrated into the whole design just as the other instrument teams are. It is frustrating.
The MET team reasonably asked when they might get a "drop dead" date by which the decision would be made regarding which path to go down. We're investigating that.

Also, the MET team is not allowed access to commands that interface directly with the lander. This means they actually don't have access to the MET_ON and MET_OFF commands! Because those are the ones that interact directly with the lander! I find this remarkable--they can send all of the internal-to-MET commands, but if the instrument isn't powered on, we could lose a whole measurement!! So I'm trying to figure out who is responsible for turning on and off the MET instrument and who will build those commands each sol when we use the MET. Some of the restrictions end up being a little silly!

I'm in danger of kicking myself out of my own forum for saying this - but ITAR seems to be one of those batches of legislation that do nothing to combat what they're designed to, and plenty of hindrance of innocent people's good work. On the one hand we have the administration asking for international cooperation within the VSE, and on the other - evidence that such cooperation is being hindered by complex legislation.

Doug

Doug:

We're watching you.

Bob Shaw

That was my point - it doesn't take ITAR to bury a problem, it is just one more excuse.

I have a couple more ITAR stories that demonstrate why ITAR imposes absolutely assinine restrictions, but it would be a violation of ITAR to share them

And if you did, then you'd have to kill us first, just to be safe.

Er...

Bob Shaw

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A few more thoughts on ITAR. First, we need to remember how close we
came to losing the ENTIRE Huygens Titan lander mission. The issue was the
software used to command the Cassini receivers. As I recall, ITAR was the
primary reason that American and European engineers were not able to more
closely check this software to detect and correct errors. If BOTH of Cassini's
radio receivers had remained OFF, then I imagine that the ITAR issue may be
getting more attention today. As it is, valuable Science data was lost from the
Huygens mission - wind velocity, as well as priceless images.

Second, as the quote from Deb Bass's blog indicates, ITAR causes headaches
on just about every Planetary mission. As I recall, ITAR caused constant grief
for the MESSENGER team. In addition, I imagine that the cost of the DAWN mission,
which includes 2 science instruments from Europe, must have taken a large
hit from ITAR.

Do any members of the UMSF community have more background on why ITAR
was inititated and if Congress is aware of the damage that it is causing in
American efforts to explore space?

Thats news to me...but I have never seen an official report on any kind about why the power cord wasn't plugged in (too short?). Was ITAR to blame, or is this just a convenient excuse?

ITAR was passed at a time the US congress was embarrassed by the fact US weapons were being used to routinely harass US aircraft, and the state department was more-or-less powerless to prosecute exporters of US weapons systems. Many of the restrictions are administrative add-ons made by a paranoid government that learned nothing during the McCarthy "there is a communist in ever corner" era. Since the president does not even have a science advisor, who is going to advise him that the law is screwing up the exchange and ultimately the value of scientific knowlege?

On the Japanese failure, an engineer explained to me that 'they kept coming to us with drawings, and we kept saying 'no, that will not work', but we could not tell them why, because of ITAR...so it was a trial-and-error kind of thing, and in the end, it was clear they had a solution that may work some of the time - which is the worst case, because it could work in the test motor and fail under launch conditions...'

...Another time we had a reason to contract a certain analysis with a Canadian firm. We couldn't send 'the' material to Canada, so we found a 'different' material with exactly the same composition in a local hardware store and shipped it to Canada instead.

[quote name='PhilHorzempa' date='Apr 17 2006, 04:57 PM' post='50945']
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I want to hear from members of the UMSF community about ways that ITAR
has adversely affected a project.

My profession includes creating visualizations of space missions and their results. In pre ITAR days it was a simple matter to contact people in JPL and have blueprint like 'vellum drawings' of spacecraft sent to me so I could create perspective views of spacecraft with their targets in the background and such. Now it is harder at best to obtain such drawings, indeed the sad saga of the repression of access to MER engineering drawings shows the sad state to which we have sunk from the openness traditionally associated with American space projects. Only one individual has been given 'official blessing' to use such information to create animations of the MER rovers, despite the presence of numerous qualified entities to do the same. The policies of restricting access to data needed to create quality science visualizations, and of creating virtual monopolies on the reciepients of such data should be addressed and corrected.

Don Davis

I saw what must be a particularly idiotic effect of ITAR tonight during a National Geographic Channel rerun of "Megastructures: Sea Launch". (from a year or so ago)

All images of the Zenit booster's 4 engines were blurred to hide engine details.

LOL - I've seen the same program here in the UK - no blurring at all.

Doug

To quote King Richard Milhouse the First: "(Expletive Deleted)"

<nixon, that is>

The worst problem we have run into that I am aware of is our inability to place our best people - often foreign nationals who are waiting for citizenship - on a project. I can't be very specific here, because of ITAR!

If you read the law, anything already in the public domain is not generally considered ITAR sensitive, but because it takes so long to get a state department ruling on a specific item, and since the penalties are so harsh, the general policy amoung US contractors is not to share anything with anyone.

I would be very interested to know how and why ITAR interfered with the conversation between NASA and the ESA, contributing to the A channel failure on HUYGENS. This is, arguably a 100+million Euro plus faux pas that should NOT have been an ITAR issue at all: All of the mission specifications were written and shared before ITAR, therefore conversing with Europians about Cassini communication protocols should not have been an ITAR issue. Bean counters have raised red flags everywhere, and it is choking the space program.

For the member who decided to private message me suggesting I am being fundamentally biased by allowing this 'political' discussion to occur, whilst not liking alternative threads such as SETI or alternative physics...

ITAR directly relates to unmanned spaceflight ( Huygens and Phoenix in particular, and opportunities for future international cooperation in general ) - those other subjects do not. I thought it worth putting this on record in the appropriate thread.

Doug

I have just read Emily's report about the OPAC meeting and the potential Europa Orbiter. Participants from other countries had to leave the room for a presentation from JPL about a Europa Orbiter, including two from ESA. After that, these ESA members presented their Europa Orbiter study. Some weeks ago I read about ITAR trouble in the development of Phoenix (Canadian instrument).

I have been to the US about ten times and I like the country and most of the people. But after 2001 it turned paranoid: Security at airports and a lot of other places (I have been at D.C. on vacation last year) is annoying and beyond reason. Less feedom, more control. But this no place for general politics. Back to ITAR.

Does anyone believe a powerpoint presentation with some fancy spacecraft drawings, some trajectories and mass guesses is relevant to national security? Is there really the belief people from other counties than the US can't do the same calculations? Maybe these ESA guys who had to leave the room? Is the interface between a Canadian instrument and a U.S. computer on a spacecraft top secret? This is a superior complex.

How can you talk about international cooperation if you keep all the stuff for yourself and the others give you? There is not only the danger you cancel an international mission for budgetary reasons (second Ulysses spacecraft, almost Cassini and DAWN) or lose interest (Spacelab, ISS) but also the trouble of integrating parts and working together and even discussing ideas. I feel very sorry for the U.S., but they will pay a high price: being second or third in a lot of fields technology wise, and kind of isolated. Trust me, others can do great things too or better (and even North Koreans can build a nuclear bomb). You will suffer most from ITAR politics, not the bad guys.

Analyst, angry and worried

I posted on TPS's Members forum in response to someone basically asking what the hell ITAR was and why we should care - I replied...

Well - I don't know the specifics of ITAR, but as I understand it, it's an array of rules dictated by legislation intended to prevent foreign countries aquiring advanced military technology or hardware from US manufacturers. One can understand the motive and justification for such laws given the global military climate...however...

The problem is, the legislation gets in the way of totally innocent 'civilian' activities, things outside the scope of the military. For instance, the legislation makes it very hard for the people working on a Canadian instrument aboard the 2007 Phoenix Mars Lander to get the information they need to control their instrument from the spacecrafts computer...i.e. the hardware and technology of the spacecraft is under the remit of ITAR regulation - so they spacecraft engineers can't share information about how it works and how to use it to the Canadian team who want to do nothing more sinister than control their instrument.

If you search for ITAR on Deborah's blog about Phoenix, you'll see first hand information about this.
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/features/we...eborah_bass.php

So - what does all this mean? Well, why would foreign engineers and scientists want to get involved with US led missions when this legislation makes it so hard to trade the information they need to cooperate? If ITAR had been in place in the late '80s and early '90s, it would be hard to imagine the Cassini Huygens cooperation ever being possible, or even more simple projects like Ulysses or SOHO. ITAR legislation needs to be modified to allow information for projects like these to me traded without limitation. It's easy to see why the advanced technology of spacecraft might be considered to be of a 'military' type - but sometimes panic-legislation can be too broad and unspecific for it's actual requirements, as is the case here.

The irony is, of course, that those who want to trade in military hardware for malicous purposes will do so despite any legislation that might be created.


Doug

Ironically, after being ejected from meeting the Europeans were later allowed to stay and listen to the Ajay Misra's update on the availability of plutonium for America's RTGS...

As Emily pointed out...

"[A]s a kid of the Cold War, it seems strange for us to be chasing Europeans out of the room one moment and talking openly about our plutonium supply the next. There were no ITAR restrictions on Misra's talk!"

--http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000570/

I also note that Emily mentioned that the ones ejected from the Europa presentation were "foreign nationals without Green Cards". Apparently having a Green Card makes foreign nationals more trustworthy.

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Stephen

It is incredible that a legal issue could directly hamper the correct working of a spaceship billions kilometres away. What they expected? That Huygens was to land in Iran?
I agree with the common trend of this thread, that some regulations may be useful for understandable purposes, but when it comes to create havoc into space program and missions, it is too much, and it will be a heavy cost for the US if it is not corrected shortly.

A little while ago, I was giving a group of foreign students a tour of an unclassified but 'ITAR sensetive' facility. It was a student group, and we had to be ITAR briefed before we could host. Basically the rule was this: We could answer any and all questions asked by the students (as long as the answer was not classified) as long as they were not adults. So we ask the adults to lag behind so we could legally answer questions. Foriegn children good...Foriegn adults bad.

I'm not a big ITAR supporter, and it's clearly gotten way out of control. But the original motivation was to stop satellite and reentry vehicle technology transfer to unfriendly foreign countries. If you think there aren't military applications of space technology, then stop dreaming.

As for the US losing through ITAR: frankly, IMHO international cooperation is overrated. There's some cost savings on paper for NASA, but most of those are lost in the communications hassles entailed at the engineering level -- most having nothing to do with ITAR.

I am not only talking about international cooperation (in science missions). Look at telecommunication satellites: The U.S. is losing grounds to Europa (good for me) because of technology transfer issues. Sometimes you can buy the satellite but not "export" it to the launch site (in Russia, China and even France).

Cooperation in science missions is not so much about cost savings but getting more money to add instruments etc. and get a better mission. Think of Cassini without Huygens or MPF without IMP or STS without Spacelab or the RMS.

I have never been to an OPAC meeting but I don't think they are discussing and showing "details" like a special microchip and it's design or the composition of the material of a heat shield. It's about the "general" stuff. Look at the presentations on the web from earlier meetings: Many spacecraft drawings never becoming hardware (sadly). Trust me, others can do this too. For good and bad.

Finally a military/political note: You don't need a state of the art 21st century reentry vehicle to attack the U.S. Something build in 1960 will be just fine. Sadly, in today's world you don't even need a reentry vehicle at all. I think we have to accept this because contrary to current political belief we can't chance it. The U.S. is loosing in (space) science and technology, without gaining additional security. This is irrational and can be explained by paranoia.

Analyst

Sorry, but I find none of those examples convincing in support of international cooperation. In my opinion, the US could have built all of them at less total mission cost to itself, and that would have supported the US aerospace industry better.

Well, this is probably straying over the line into political discussion, but while the US response to 9/11 may be partially irrational, I don't see how you could say it was paranoid in any sense of that word.

International projects are created for political purposes. Full stop.

And the costs are never so clear as they are at first portrayed, though sometimes the international element does make project cancellation that bit more difficult. It cuts both ways, though - think how much ESA and Japan have spent on unflown ISS kit, or the very slight utility which actually arose from Spacelab for ESA.

Oh, well... ...at least Russia did well - and probably China will, too.

Bob Shaw

mcaplinger, I think we don't need to discuss here the justification of US security policy (we all understand it anyway), just the harmfull effect of inappropriate steps. When it comes to "bean counting" and to failures of a spaceship, it could be called paranoïd: I hardly see France nuking the US with Huygens technology.

Not the best example you could have come up with: I don't have much trouble imagining a foreign power nuking the US with French arms technology.

That said, I think the Huygens problems had less to do with ITAR than they did with the incompetence of European contractors to ESA.
It may be that ITAR provides a convenient scapegoat for those parties.

I don't entirely agree with you on this but you are absolutely right in stating that ITAR is not the only barrier that exists. International cooperation is plagued with logistical, scheduling and linguistic\communication difficulties under the best of circumstances but the mix of large scale bureaucracy, nationalism and institutional selfishness that are to be expected in an international space exploration project means that such projects are never going to be efficient. Adding in the complications of having to filter communications that ITAR requires really makes things very difficult though, needlessly so in my opinion.

Such cooperative ventures are certainly not likely to be as obviously effective, say, as having a nice, tightly nit, socially cohesive and co-located team working on a project but in the case of things like space exploration spreading the experience around the globe is a worthy goal in itself.

On the Huygens issue I think that calling incompetance is fair as this has been root caused as a quality control oversight and using ITAR as an excuse for it doesn't hold up however there are plausible scenarios where ITAR could easily contribute to overall or partial failures in current or future missions and if that does happen it would be a real shame.

Frankly, ITAR itself is largely driven *by* paranoia. If the US did not fear that technology it has developed might eventually find its way into arms fired back at the US ITAR would not exist.

Other countries develop technology; and most if not all of them probably seek to prevent their technological defence secrets being exploited by foreign powers. Yet how many have something as wide-ranging as ITAR on the statutebooks?

For three NASA-related examples of ITAR stupidity, check out here. For its effects on the commercial space industry, check out this page in the Space Review.

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Stephen

My view, ITAR is the source of many complications, misunderstandings, complains and conflicts of many persons. It is useless due that the human being is so ingenious to look for alternatives to overcome the barriers of ITAR. I seems better to bury it since the benefits outweights far much further than the dangers of being attacked. The dangers will be always there in anywhere such as any loco carrying a personal bomb.

Rodolfo

From my personnal experience as working in a subcontractor company, I think it is not really difficult to share infos such as a computer interface. And anyway, such a document is closely knit to the considered computer, so it is of no use anywhere else. So, even if this document is stolen, it is useless as an industry secret or defense secret as well.

I don't know exacly if the Huygens problems were due to US ITAR or european contractors. Statements like that must rely on thorough inquiries, not on childish exchanges like "it's your fault -no we cannot be wrong it is you who did not understood" etc.

What is sure is that any ITAR-like regulation should result into "yes or no" for a given tech, not in harassment or ambiguous situation. And not in inappropriate situations, like in the design of a spaceship.

About paranoïa, it would not be the first example in the US: remember maccarthysm.


The problems helvick raises are more serious, but not an insurpassable barrier. When we design an instrument, it is on specifications, which are gathered in a document. And this document is part of the legal contract. The subcontractor must provide a device complying to the specs. If he doesn't, it is his fault (unless there was a technical impossibility). If he complies to the spec, but the spec turns to be inappropriate, uncomplete or ambiguous, it is the fault of the main company.

language barrier is not so strong, in a world where everybody more or less speak english. But cultural barriers are more a problem, as the description of physical phenomenon often relies on small paradigms which vary with culture and language. This can be a cause of misunderstanding or ambiguiites, like the time when, in the 1945' France ordered "corn" from the US. But they received "maize" in place of the expected "wheat".

Maybe at less TOTAL mission cost, but not without MORE U.S. money. You can't built the Cassini orbiter AND Huygens in the U.S. with less money than both vehicles did cost combined built by NASA and ESA. You may save some paperwork, but not that much. And some of this paperwork is because ITAR.

But all this is pointless: The U.S. can't (or do not want to) spend more money than it does. So you cooperate or have a less capable (or no) spacecraft. Why is Mr. Griffin asking for international cooperation in the VSE? Money. Why did Canada built the RMS and Europe Spacelab? Because money has been so tight that only the Shuttle itself could be built and operated (and only a small number of planetary probes, nothing between 1978 and 1989!). In theory you can do all this by yourself, and Europe can it too, but both don't. Money is the issue and will be for a long time. And ITAR makes the best solution, cooperation, less efficient or impossible.

Analyst

While it is certainly easier and possibly cheaper to build a rocket without international wrench turning, it is more difficult to build one correctly if the entire space knowledge base is at the disposal of the builders. The US and USSR both recognized this in the 60's and started a limited sharing of space techology in order to gain a greater potential of successful space science missions.

There are 10001 low tech ways to attack the US of A that are effective, cheap and not as easy to track and retaliate against as the most advanced and elaborate missile and re-entry system - it is laughable to suggest that the analysis of heat shield of MER 2 is a national security issue. However, a report might shed interesting light on the Martian atmosphere for anyone studying the planet for any reason. (And I am sure any invading Martians have already given it a once over.)

ITAR should be enforce in the way that was anticipated when it was presented to Congress: It should provide an effective prosecuting tool against US citizen who sale high tech weapon systems to embargoed nations. I have a forty-page legal report on the effect of ITAR on universities. The scope of the standard should be narrowed.

One thing that's both a benefit and a curse about international cooperation is that when it does actually happen, it makes a mission harder to cancel. That was instrumental in saving Cassini-Huygens -- but also, of course, in keeping the ISS going. When I heard Gerhard Neukum scolding Mary Cleave at the LPSC NASA Night for the abrupt cancellation of Dawn (including, of course, its European-built instruments), and his statement that NASA was earning a reputation as an untrustworthy partner, I couldn't help but think that one of the (many) reasons space science is being squeezed so much is because we have to honor our international agreements on ISS, which are much more valuable than a couple of cameras. How much would the Europeans scold if NASA said "Sorry, the Shuttle just can't do it anymore; ISS is as complete as NASA can make it."

I think something like ITAR is necessary but it would be awfully nice if its collateral damage to international collaboration on science missions could be reduced -- it seems to be a rather blunt instrument. I saw what a hard time the European teams had getting going on MER -- at the outset they were not even permitted to touch the computers they were supposed to use to develop the sequences for their instruments -- and many, many foreign-born grad students attending various American universities who were supposed to work on instrument teams ended up being excluded entirely from participation in mission operations. MER did appear to overcome at least the foreign-PI-isn't-allowed-to-sequence-his-instrument challenge but only because they devoted a good-sized staff at JPL to solving the problem.

--Emily

On the "why" part, check out the Space Review's A Short History of Export Control Policy.

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Stephen

I'd risk a scolding from Europe, even a good finger wagging. Look at how much the US is spending in 2006, relative to other space programs:

NASA - $17.0 billion
ESA - $ 3.7 billion (2.9 billion euros)
RKA - $ 0.9 billion (25 billion rubles)
China - $ 0.5 billion

I'm repeating myself, but I sure would like to see our ISS budget applied to something more interesting. I suppose the ESA would be upset, but they could either 1) pay the real cost or 2) hire the Russians to lift the components with Proton (which is a joint US/Russian venture btw).

It's especially annoying to be helping the ESA launch their ISS components, when they just passed a law making it illegal to use our commercial launch services. That is not good international cooperation.

There is already an international agreement that lays out who does what for the ISS. If the US is getting a bad deal out of it, then the US is to blame for not . In launching Columbus (and the module from Japan) - the US also earns itself access to a considerable percentage of those facilities time on orbit (i.e. we'll build this module, and give you 50% of it if you launch it for us)

If the US were to go "sorry - no can do" then Europe would be entitiled to some sort of renumeration imho - a deal's a deal as far as I'm concerned, if you made a bad deal, then tough luck, should have made it better.

Besides all of that - I agree with just about everyone here in saying that the ISS is a financial pain in the backside...but I still think it should be finished - the prospect for ANY international cooperation in the future will take a serious dive if it isn't.

Doug

Dunno about the RKA or China, but comparing the size of NASA's budget to the ESA's is like comparing apples with oranges given that a large part of NASA's goes towards its manned space program while the ESA has no manned space program to speak of. If NASA had no manned spaceflight program either I suspect it's budget would not be that much bigger than the ESA's.

NASA's budget may now be $17 billion, but it was less than 10 billion dollars before the ISS (& VSE) came along; and if you factor out another five billion for the space shuttle (as suggested by various sources), what's left is indeed not that much more than the ESA's $3.7 billion.

Incidently, see the graph on this Wikipedia page showing NASA's budget from 1958 through to 2005, in actual dollars (of the day) as well as in adjusted 1996 dollars. The 1996 dollars graph shows off both the spectacular spike of the Apollo moon missions as well as the ISS's less spectacular but still impressive contribution to NASA's bottomline.

(It also clearly illustrates that having gone up in the late '80s thanks to the ISS it has been coming down--in adjusted dollar terms--ever since, much as NASA's budget did after Apollo, if less steeply.)

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Stephen

If I look at the Apollo spike I wonder how Mr. Griffin could say a year ago everything is an allocation issue, e.g. NASA has the money but is spending it at the wrong things. And GWB announced the VSE in the same way. IMO you can't "go to the moon and do the other things" with the current funding level. They don't even start to develop a heavy launcher now. I guess we will be ending with up the CEV in LEO (and it's booster), wich will cost eventually only a little less than the shuttle to operate. No lunar landing. Everything else is dreaming, like in the 60ies of lunar bases and a flight to mars by 1980, and in the 70ies of Shuttle missions every week, and in the 90ies of a complete ISS by 2004.

Analyst, Pessimist

If it weren't for international cooperation, Cassini would never get off the ground.

This is the problem isnt it

"Go to the moon in this decade...here's a huge ammount of cash"

"Go to the moon...what...you want money?"

One's feasable...one isn't.

Doug

That was my point, we could be spending a lot more money on something more useful than ISS. We don't need to be spending that much money just so countries can take turns playing Astronaut.

With all the money NASA is spending, it is cutting science missions, cutting the HST budget, etc. All to pay for this ridiculously useless space station.




I'm skeptical about that statement. You mean in terms of providing money? Certainly not in terms of technology, ESA is still a beginner at interplanetary probes. Nevertheless, I think it was good to cooperate with them, I'm not saying it wasn't.

I worry about the long-term future of NASA, about the numbers of new engineers and scientists in America, etc. But at this point in time, NASA is the leader by a long way in space. Who knows what things will look like in 20 years?

I mean that Cassini was on the verge of being cancelled and was only saved through intervention of ESA director. I agree on other points, though.

Lots of 'negative' comments on the ISS here, O.K. it'isn't doing the amount of science it should do, but it could contribute in some way to unmanned space missions ( e.g. receiving laboratory for the return of surface samples from Mars r other targets in the solar system ).

It's just so damn expensive, and the committment to keep the shuttle working is a staggering drain on NASA. It feels like a strategic mistake for NASA that is holding it back.

Personally, I'd love to see a privately funded orbital habitat, purely for entertainment. Let rich people pay for it, they can fly up, have zero-g sex, come back with coffee mugs and T-shirts. And in the process, spaceflight will get commoditized.

Don:

Hmmm. Know any ex-hoteliers who might have such an ambition?

Bob Shaw

http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Moons/The.../MoonHotel.html

There you go. Hehe. I was sort of joking of course, but I do think there has to be a practical economic motive for things.

The computer industry is what I know, and there you see amazing examples of what happens when there is a motive. Like it or not, profit is the engine of invention. Consider the $200 graphics card in your PC. That card does more than a $100,000 unix workstation did ten years ago. Why is that? Computer Games, a market that is bigger than the movie industry.

Or look at movie special effects technology. I attend SIGGRAPH every year, and the problems that academic researches fiddled with for decades were solved in months when Weta or ILM were given a contract to do something for a movie.

This is what has to happen in space, there has to be an economic motive, and not just nations trying to show off. It's a motive, and it also brings in a different way of looking at things -- focus on concrete goals, awareness of real-world requirements, awareness of customer needs, etc. All things you don't get when you just have academics running the show.

Examples of selling low-risk products to the masses, not catering hi-risk adventures to the wealthy. Think of that super-subsudies supersonic transport - one lousy blown tyre and the wealthy scattered like frightened hens. Same think happened to blimps after the Hindenberg.

Space dollars need to be extracted from the weathly for the purposes of science and exploration, not written off by the wealthy for a few hours or days of barfing and getting zapped by cosmic rays. Let the dunkoffs get their near-death thrills driving racecars and falling off of Everest.

People in glasshouses should be wary of throwing stones.

Spaceflight in general is hideously expensive. That includes the unmanned sort. It's all a matter of perspective.

From the point of view of a MER advocate or a Cassini proponent manned spaceflight looks to be costing a fortune. You could send out a veritable flotilla of MERs or Cassinis for the same money that keeps the ISS aloft and the Shuttle flying.

On the other hand, from the point of view of an Antarctica explorer or a Mt Everest mountaineer unmanned spaceflight also looks to be costing a fortune. For the money that sent the MERs to Mars or Cassini to Saturn you could have airlifted a squadron of mountaineers from the States to the top of Everest in a gold-plated chopper equipped with every convenience, fed them on caviar and champagne for a week, then flown them back to the States again, and still had change enough to mount an Antarctic expedition or two.

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Stephen