The Subtlety of What's Next in Space

This is my entry for the Coalition for Space Exploration's "What’s Next?" Contest, please enjoy.

Photo by rAmmoRRison



We will not have cities on other planets in one hundred years, but subtle progress towards space habitation. This includes increased reliance on the undergraduate community, motivating them to continue space related careers. Isolating space programs economically, by the use of space resources to fund these high flying endeavours, will protect them from the recession and political movement. The diffusion of space centers and research throughout the nation will decrease the political tension in the space field. Increased focus on life cycle engineering during space system design is forced upon us because of the space junk problem. There is also the troubling public opinion towards science in general; it is no longer respected but is often regarded as “opinion”. All of the above items are next if becoming a space-faring species is in the cards for humanity.

One of the first lessons I learned in my ongoing undergraduate career is that attending a university is hard and learning Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) is harder. The joy of a STEM career is not enough to motivate students to complete their STEM majors, especially when other majors, like finance, seem more profitable. Space agencies will have to find ways to encourage undergraduate participation in the progress towards a space-faring society. This should be enough to keep STEM retention high.

Photo by blueforce4116

Global markets are currently volatile, so volatile that I fear we can no longer depend on them to fund space ventures using Earth’s resources. Private companies and governments must look at using space resources to fund high flying dreams. This will allow space development to continue no matter what happens on Earth. Furthermore, it will bring people into space ventures as money making opportunities open up in the high frontier.

Currently, with government being the major consumer of space services, space companies are exposed to political movements. At times like these, NASA is on the chopping block. However, independently funded space ventures are free from the tides of public opinion, even if they are ran by the government. No one will cut programs with short-term profit and technological benefits with no tax burden on the public. We also have the side benefit of speedier space development when funded with space resources.

Space projects are increasingly seen as only pork-barrel projects; not as projects of benefit to the greater public. However, this will change as humanity’s adventure into space increases in speed. Instead of adding onto the current space complexes, we will see spaceports rise all around the nation as demand for space services (especially telecommunications) increases. If people are able to see the impact of space in their local economies, they will have less reasoning behind the already baseless claim of the porky nature of space exploration.

However the space community does have self-made problems. The “[s]pace junk problem reache[d a] tipping point'” recently, “with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures"1. If humanity wants to be space-faring, all future designs must focus on the whole life cycle of the device and include a way to safely de-orbit the object. I also fear that our attitudes are far riskier to development of the high frontier than a sphere of deadly space junk.

Science is no longer regarded as fact and I am troubled by this trend. This general attitude impacts the space field because of its high tech nature and need for heavy R&D. For example, if people are denying global warming, it becomes harder to convince them to launch more weather satellites or look into radiation. What we need is an increase in STEM education to allow people to connect with the scientific community better.

1: O'Neill, Ian. "Space Junk Problem Reaches 'Tipping Point'." Discovery News. Sep 2, 2011. Web. 26 Sep. 2011. .

The Spirit of the ISS: International Cooperation in Space

The following is an essay I wrote in the class University Writing . I'm posting it here to get more feedback. Another essay I wrote in the same class will follow tomorrow:

On a clear night, look up at the night sky. You will see countless numbers of stars and celestial objects. But, if one waits long enough, they will see a new, bright star suddenly streak across the pre-dawn sky. That object, shining brightly in the sky is the International Space Station (ISS), a cooperative venture between the American, Japanese, European, Canadian, Russian and many other space programs. It has been visited and used by 15 different countries including South Africa and Brazil. Costing over 157 billion dollars, it is the most expensive object constructed, ever. It weights over 750,000 pounds, making it bigger then any other space station ever made. This amazing structure was built through the use of combined resources; if the participating counties decided to continue their pre-ISS plans for their own space stations, the results would have been less impressive. We would have had several, very un-notable stations in orbit if the ISS was never developed. Unfortunately, the global financial crisis has threatened the existence of the ISS. Prompting plans of deorbiting the station in 2016, well short of its intended lifespan. The United States has extended funding, but its a highly political move. Still the ISS must be deorbited at some point because of safety, but the plans for space stations after it are troubling, most will be run independently.

This temporary nature of the ISS and the cooperation around the ISS is reminiscent of the temporary nature of compassion towards other countries as described in Bruce Robbins' The Sweatshop Sublime. This so called sublime is defined as "comparison with which everything else is small...a feeling of the inadequacy of [the] imagination for presenting the ideas of a whole, wherein the imagination reaches its maximum, and, instriving to surpass it, sinks back into itself" (Robbins 85). The sublime created by each country makes them seem small because they are being compared to an international effort to further human presence in space, one so massive, that no one country seems to be able to afford it. The ISS stands defient of the course of human history, superpowers are suppose to have arms aimed at each other, not helping build telescopes pointed at space for each other. To change the momentum of history is a massive task. However, Robbins points that the feels from the hight of someone sublime moment "fail[s] to express [its self] in any potentially risky, disobedient action" (Robbins 85). We are working with nations who we have designed weapons and plans to attack each other. It would seem that it is very risky to "surrender" like this. It is very disobedient to go against the people who make money off the pointing of weapons at allies and whole cultures who pride themselves on having a standing army with missiles at the ready. But, in reality, the risk is placed solely in the status quo. Even today, Cold War style nuclear armageddon is still a possibility. That is what the ISS defies, the endless cycles of war that humanity has been in since the first time a rock was thrown in anger.

This is further supported by Nessbaum's work , Compassion & Terror. Her "concern is with our difficult keeping our minds fixed on the sufferings of people who live on the other side of the world" (Nussbaum 12). In the literature surrounding manned space flight, the idea of humans in harmony is fundamental. This ideology was realised when weapons in space have been banned. However, it could be that the idea of peace in space is merely philosophy inspired by the newness of this realm. It could be that once reality hits the space-faring nations, we will "take [our] repose or [our] diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no such [peaceful time period] had happened" (Nussbaum 12). Assuming war is the primary diversion of nations from the peaceful use of space, the dream that weapons would be left on the ground is lost. The fundamental ideas surrounding the ISS are lost.

It also seems we are also using the belief systems present during tense times like World War Two or The Cold War. Politicians mentioned that funding the ISS placed America as the leader in space. It would seem funding the ISS is a compassionate act, other nations can utilize space who otherwise couldn't, but this language is subordinating the partners involved to a humorous level. The United States only has access to about 25% of crew time and space in the ISS, Russia has 50%. If anyone, Russia is the leader in space, yet we have named ourselves the leader for national ego.

Thus, I must agree with Robbins, "[e]verything is political" (Robbins 89). Even a compassionate act like funding the ISS or forming an antisweatshop movement is tuned into something that benefits the local priorities. Even when trying to end human suffering, we are political. We worry about "American workers...losing their jobs" and our "fear of foreign infection in the AIDS or Ebola style" (Robbins 90). This political language only "confirm[s] the strong hint of American nationalism" that is appear in the anti-sweatshop movements and the funding of the ISS. This is developed when Nessbaum claims "...compassion for our fellow Americans can all too easily slip over into a desire to make America come out on top and to subordinate other nations" (Nussbaum 12). We care about America's objective more then humanities objective. It seems we would rather be number one the be a good partner. In this light, I must conclude that the spirit of the ISS isn't dead, it was never born.

On the other hand, it is possible that we have found the solution to the ISS' biggest problem. It isn't a life support system or the cost of resupplying it, it is "the problem of watery motivation, though we might call it the problem of death within life" (Nussbaum 20). If the ISS was only presented as an international project, if flags and other insignia were banned on the ISS, not a soul would care about the ISS. The motivation for giving the ISS national money would be watery and, especially now, hard to justify. As Nessbaum proclaims, "there are two things above all the make people love and care for something, thought that it is all theirs, and the thought that it is the only one they have" (Nussbaum 20).The fact that our flag is on the ISS peaks our interest, the fact the we own 25% of the station and the crew's time motivates us to fund it. The fact that working with others enhances our parts of the station drives us to deal with the other nations who we might not have otherwise cared about. Thus, the political environment around the ISS, no matter how focused it is on the local, keeps the station alive.

However, Robbins would disagree with me and Nussbaum. He claims that "[m]any have suggested before...that global commitments can emerge more or less organically and continuously [only] from local, personal, familial commitments. [However,] agreeing [that the] continuity switches over into opposition...is much more challenging" (Robbins 91). However, disease and the ISS show that local commitments can come from global commitments. The ISS forces us to risk astronauts lives since every rocket launch could end badly. We increase the risk since our understanding of cosmic radiation is weak. This paper's claim could be false on missions where astronauts are bring their own nation's parts to the ISS, but it is often seen the one nation's astronauts will fly a craft carrying the cargo of a foreign nation. It is here that "compassion for our fellow Americans ...slip[s] over into a desire to" make other nations better (Nussbaum 12). Our astronauts could die helping others, but, despite having a strong attachment to and local investment in our men and women, we still risk them for a nation we nuked and a nation we called evil. Furthermore, a global commitment to health is causing us to allocate local resources to protein crystal (crystals of the disease that would be too weak to grow on earth, but in space, its easy) research on the ISS, research that won't benefit one nation, but the whole world. If the US wanted to come out on top, it would build and use its own space station so the patents and profit remain fulling in our control.

The moon landings were done in humanities name. They serve as a inspiration to humans every were even today. I remember watching a interview with a kid in Africa who was going to a newly built school. He said he was stunned that we (indicating that it was a accomplishment of humanity, not the US) went to the moon. A plaque on the side of the Apollo lander reads "We Came in Peace for All Mankind". Yet, there is an American flag firmly planted in the lunar soil, not the United Nations flag as planned. We went for humanity and ourselves. We went in peace but still had a warlike motion of planting a flag; this is not a paradox because to serve humanity, we had to serve ourselves. It will be the same for the ISS, its "motive must always remain complex and dialectical, a difficult conversation within ourselves as we ask how much of humanity requires of us, and how much we are entitled to give to our own" (Robbins 91).

Works Cited

Nussbaum, Martha C. “Compassion and Terror.” Daedalus. 132 (Winter 2003): 10-26.

Robbins, Bruce. “The Sweatshop Sublime.” PMLA. 117 (2002): 84-97.

President Obama’s proposed budget and NASA

While dropping entrecards I came across the blog First Door on the Left where I found a scribd document detailing the proposed budget for 2010. It was really interesting reading through the financial plan for this nation, but then I came across the section on NASA; $18.7 billion dollars plus $1 billion from the American Recovery and Investment Act. The budget also gives a commitment to manned spaceflight and a return to the moon. The development of a replacement for the suttle and the International Space Station (ISS) are also funded. NASA's section in the report on the budget begin on page 109 of the scribd document below. It is really amazing that public support (assuming the action of politicians indicates what the public wants which could be a bad assumtion) is still in favor of space exploration.

I'm curious through, do you think that this is a apporpriate use of tax dollars.
A New Era of Responsibility: The President's 2010 Budget Proposal

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Periodicals & Report budget Barack Obama

Sunday Journal Club #1: Cultural Factors and the International Space Station

Every Sunday, this blog will offer analysis, interpretation, and application of a paper on space habitation and other related topics. These are my opinions on a weekly scientific paper. They are subject to my perspectives and believes. I am open to debate, so if any reader believes I have misinterpreted something in a paper, please point it out. I'm only a student and learning how to read these papers and interpret them. All quotes are from the paper unless otherwise noted. All papers I review are available for free online.

This Sunday, we will be covering Cultural Factors and the International Space Station, published June 2009 in the Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine and written by Jennifer B. Ritsher. This paper covers one the most important aspects of space exploration, the crew. The physical, mental, and social well being of the crew is important to a mission's success. If any of these aspects are out of tune, the mission may be in trouble. We can ensure the health of the crew through good engineering, but the mental and social health of the people around a piece of engineering is harder to ensure.

Not only does the crew of the spaceship need to be considered, the ground crew and mission control need to have a good relationship with the astronauts. If a member of a team has a falling out with any other member, the mission may be in jeopardy. The possibility of a conflict gets higher when the factor of different nationalities and languages is introduced. More conflict is introduced if these country were at the verge of global nuclear war, nearly wiping out humanity in their conflict. This is what we have on the International Space Station, Americans and Russians working together. It is truly a statement of how far humanity has come from the darkest hour that was the Cuban Missile Crisis, the hight of the cold war. It is easy to see how tensions can arise with these two rivals working in close proximity. “Personal, interpersonal, and behavioral anomalies have resulted” from long term missions. With a long time between each crew rotation, there is a lot of time for a condition to develop and even the most subtle cultural differences to be aggravated.

One example of a cultural difference is the management style of the Russian mission control vs. the American mission control. The authors of the paper “and others found that during the Shuttle-Mir Program, there were systematic Russian-American differences in the style of relationships between crewmembers and mission control staff, with Russian crewmembers preferring more crew self-reliance and seeing their interpersonal environment on board the station as more supportive”. The Russians tend to be collective and work as a team, limiting contact with base.

We also see a straining point in the management style. “collectivism [, a cultural trait in Russia,] is associated with the degree to which pilots prefer a hierarchical command structure, clear rules and procedures, and reliance on automation”. The authors mention that “extremes on these dimensions, such as uncritical reliance on procedures, can reduce safety”. So, a Russian crew member might not question American procedures that were built on the assumption that they would be challenged if their was a problem, whereas Russian procedures are built in an environment where feedback from the field is rare and may go through more stringent analysis and testing before deployment.

We could see a split between American and Russian management. “Training for space station crews tends to be more didactic in Russia and more hands-on in the United States”. I feel that the facts in the paper are indicating that the Russians take a more theoretical management approach, Americans take a practical management angle - incorporating the input from the field. This can be a huge straining point should theory contradict experience.

“Emotional expressivity norms vary greatly across cultures, and on average Russians are relatively more expressive than Americans and people from other Western countries.” So, Americans may be stressed by dealing with their Russian college's emotions which are not displayed amount American crews. Whereas Russians will be confused by and prone to misinterpret Americans who do not display emotions. They will believe everything is well with an American who is hiding any negative feelings. Russians would expect negative emotions if they crossed any lines, but Americans will not show those negative emotions, eliminating a social cue that the Russian astronaut expects to see.

Then, the very design of a spacecraft may aggravate cultural differences. “Even in small towns and villages, it is normative throughout Russia and the former U.S.S.R. to live in apartments or houses that would be considered small or crowded by American standards. The finding of an average of about one person per room in Russia is in contrast to the national American norm of less than 0.5 persons per room[.] Even in Manhattan, where living spaces are small, about 90% of households are spacious enough to have fewer than one person per room[.] The same is true for Houston, where many space program personnel live[.] This suggests that, on average, Russian crewmembers might be expected to adapt more readily to living in close proximity to others in the relatively small volume of a space station”. American spaceships might be designed with the American standards of personal space in mind, whereas Russians will have been designed with less space for crew. So, an American, operating on a Russian spacecraft, will be stressed by the lack of personal space, Russian management will be frustrated by the increased launch costs associated with launching large American spacecraft (Larger because Americans need more room per crew member) when Russians and Americans are co-funding a project.

Even defining mental disorders that develop from the stress of dealing with cultural tensions is impaired by cultural differences. Each culture has it's own definitions of what is abnormal, affecting the judgments of doctors in each culture.

The paper displays a graph with data from a study on depression in astronauts on different missions. I found it interesting that, despite having a low sample size, the cited study found significant results, results that had less than 5% chance of happening if there was not depression rates in the crew while testing some mental abnormalities.

In the end, this will be a significant problem for the future of space habitation. One nation will have trouble achieving this goal alone. In order to aid in achieving human colonies on other plants, nations will most likely have to work together. This means we need to overcome our cultural differences. As the paper and common knowledge indicates, understanding of each other will greatly reduce the stress caused by interacting with other nations.

Well, that my view on this paper, when you read the paper, please give your opinion.