It Will Take More Than Nerd Cool To Truly Explore The Solar System
#PlutoFlyby looks like the nerd state of the union coverage #NASA
— Miles O'Brien (@milesobrien) July 15, 2015
Keith’s note: The New Horizons flyby of the Pluto system is quite an accomplishment. Say that 10 times. And congratulations are to be offered to everyone who made it happen – regardless of their contribution. Alas, the thanks have to include the 300,000,000 people who paid for it. To be certain, this mission is nerd cool and exciting – and inspirational – even if you do not know all (or any) of the science behind it. But at the end of the day, how many of the 300,000,000 people who paid for this truly understand what was done, why it was done, and why it was more important to spend ~$700,000,000 on this as opposed to [fill in the blank]. To be certain, that is $2.33 each. But what could $700,000,000 do in their own community where unemployment is high or where schools are crowded? Space supporters chuckle at this sort of math because space is cool by definition (so, who cares), but non-nerd taxpayers vastly outnumber nerds (of any flavor) or space supporters.
Tonight Charlie Bolden actually said that this mission (launched almost a decade ago) was a necessary step on the #JourneyToMars established by the Obama administration a few years ago. That, of course, is nonsense. You do not need to go 3 billion miles to Pluto so that you can go 100 million or so miles to Mars and back.
Until NASA decides to come clean and be straight with taxpayers – and comes up with a story that passes the who/what/when/where/why smell test it will have enough funds to do some wow stuff now and then – but nowhere near enough to do the big things that its Public Affairs office would have you think are a done deal.
The cynic in me wants to look at a lot of nerd cool as an elite preference in our political system. And seriously, in that realm – when have I *ever* heard this same question asked about the latest unearned income tax credit, or war, or vanity business park, or Medicaid expansion refusal, or Ex-Im loan, or tax credit to pull Transnational Corp X into the neighborhood for watching them export jobs. Maybe at some point, this is one of those few things that elites want and elites get that we can actually say *might* just benefit the rest. Or at least doesn’t actively hurt them for once.
But let’s not let ourselves off that easily. Let’s take the question seriously. We’ve just collected a bunch of data about a tiny ball of rock and ice that we aren’t even sure we want to assign the first tier of significance to. Will we discover exotic materials there? Maybe, but nothing we’re going to fabricate here. Will we discover life and our place in the universe? No, it’s way too cold and dark there.
If you look at the 2003 Decadal Survey, the motivation was to get a puzzle piece to tell us about the first billion years of our solar system. What was this place like when it was very young? What brought us our Earth? What made the other planets as they are today? What might we link to other solar systems we are now discovering with our telescopes?
At some level, these questions are meaningless to our day-to-day life. An increment of knowledge of our solar system’s evolution doesn’t change me spiritually or technologically. To some degree it just might say some things about this planet if we can wind the clock back far enough.
All we can hope for from this kind of inquiry (if we aren’t already space nerds) is to stumble upon something of great value along the way. Some new insight to our solar system might lead to some amazing new insight about our own world. Or our sun. Or how other solar systems evolve and maybe then, yes, about our place in the cosmos. New Horizons is just another raffle ticket we buy in that particular lottery.
At the very least, Pixar might make a movie of it that grosses more in a few weeks then was raised for this endeavor in five years.
At the end of the day, I can’t do better than the casino. And maybe a little pride that we get to do things above the get fed level, pride that other nations watch and cheer for us rather than curse our drones and our predatory banks. And maybe some calendar art. And maybe a little fun with Twitter. And maybe a little glint in the eye about knowing something we didn’t before, the child’s joy of question and enlightenment.
After all of that, I’m hoping to have paid the $2.33 bill. Maybe the better question / analogy for all of the above is the value of a museum or a publicly-supported philharmonic or some such. We could just as easily sniff that this is for elite edification only and we should only communally support the most meager and basic needs for the masses. No roses for the bread.
But the joy of robotics, which are fairly cheap in the grand scheme, is that it doesn’t take much.
For the human story, yes, it will take a good bit more than some idle fishing.
C’mon Keith…
Sometimes you just have to be quiet and enjoy the moment….
On the other hand, you are right. It will take more than nerd cool. It already has. The steely eyed missile men who work in the MCC. The type A men and women that still exist with the spaceflight community. There are more than nerds around here.
But that’s the image that NASA PAO continues to regurgitate and so thats the image that people have of us. When its actually quite the contrary.
Until PAO can reach the kids who live where I come from, the places of crowded schools and despair, we wont get anywhere trying to get folks to buy in.
It wasnt NASA that inspired me…it was a school trip to the Hayden Planetarium.
After listening to Charlie Bolden’s comments, I decided that yesterday we had the opportunity to see both Pluto and Goofy.
Well played…I see what you did there.
SpaceX is more likely to lower launch costs so we can do more with less, than NASA PR will be able to pass your smell test with positive results.
I think your main criticism is with Bolden’s comments relating Pluto and Mars. I agree. It was a stretch.
But as far as the first part. while that room might have been a “nerd convention”, I am impressed with the coverage and attention this event has gotten from those outside the space geek/nerd community. Folks that I am normally sharing my enthusiasm for something space and educating them, are returning that to me with this event. I’m a little shocked. Cool.
Of course, if they wanted to debate the cost, I would remind them that the money was not thrown into space but was spent here. Although I’m not sure why it cost so much? Were launch costs factored into that $700M? Not knowing too much about it, and based on the accomplishments of this flyby mission, I would have guessed that this mission was more in the $300M ballpark. Yeah, it is pricy.
Incredible. Just like Bolden managed to wedge in Mars into a Pluto event, someone manages to wedge in SpaceX. Recent events have shown that SpaceX is not a miracle worker. They’ve accomplished a lot and they’ve lowered costs some – but not to the level that it would revolutionize what NASA can do. And they likely never will.
As to the $700M, according to a NASA page (not the main mission page), the $700M figure DOES include launch, which likely was more expensive than average given the energetic upper stage. It also includes mission ops, which of course stretched over 10 years, and an RTG which doesn’t come cheap either. Compared to other flaship missions (Galileo, Cassini, Curiosity), $700M seems like a bargain.
Incredible? Whatever. A critical response to criticism is merely more criticism. You do not address Keith’s point:
“Until NASA decides to come clean and be straight with taxpayers – and comes up with a story that passes the who/what/when/where/why smell test it will have enough funds to do some wow stuff now and then – but nowhere near enough to do the big things that its Public Affairs office would have you think are a done deal. “
respond as you wish.
NH seems like a bargain compared to Flagships, because it wasn’t a Flagship. And Discovery missions seem like a bargain compared to NH. NH was a “New Frontiers” mission.
It’s still a lot of money. A link, I’ve looked, to a site that breaks down those costs would be appreciated.
Roughly 85 million Americans actually pay federal taxes and the per TAXPAYER cost of the Horizon project is a little over $8 each. Before someone opens their pie hole and says “that’s not so much money,” consider the fact that NASA cost TAXPAYERS slightly more than $211 each in FY2014 and NASA certainly isn’t the most expensive Federal agency.
” Before someone opens their pie hole”
That is preemptively aggressive and insulting. and Interferes with open and positive discussion.
How long have you been on the internet? Relax and grow some thicker skin.
Polite respectful discourse is much better.
Being on the internet should not be an excuse to be
Preemptively aggressive and insulting.
Plus words like pie hole in no way support his argument.
They just sound cheap.
Nothing wrong with teaching someone to be polite!
So relax Fred 🙂
I have been on the internet l.o.o.o.n.g before the World Wide Web existed, and I have moderated message boards, blogs, and managed websites. And one thing I have learned (altho I have been guilty some times), agressive, mocking, and insulting never ever ever improves a site. Yes I play net nanny, but it is an important thing to do.
My skin is a meter thick and I could, BUT WON’T, dish it out. It is just a poor thing to do.
JohnG911 had a valid point, worthy of discussion, but he pre-attacked anyone who might take issue with his comments. It is a sign of weakness and it stifles intelligent debate.
Flames are for BBQs, not reasoned, fun discussion.
You are correct. That colorful language is moving the discussion into the emotional, mocking direction.
I also find that there is a strain of intolerance toward the language, that tends to be expressed as: ” you said something that offended me … now I am in a superior position”.
I’m sick of that strain of argument. I think it is a canard that doesn’t have any validity on an internet discussion forum.
“I also find that there is a strain of intolerance toward the language, that tends to be expressed as: ” you said something that offended me … now I am in a superior position”
Where do you see that?
A key dynamic in our system of government is whether our elected officials are to be primarily delegates or trustees.
A delegate is informed by his or her constituents at to what their specific will is and essentially is a rubber stamp that votes directly to that expressed will.
On the other hand, a trustee listens carefully to the various views and opinions of the constituents and then is trusted to use his or her own capability and judgement (with periodic electoral employment reviews) to decide what is in the best interests of the represented.
We follow primarily the “trustee model”, which empowers leaders, not followers, and allows us to to take longer and broader views,
Thus we support the Arts, fly to Pluto, enter into controversial treaties that may be necessary even if unpopular, sometimes raise taxes, etc.
Aside from the inherent value of more knowledge. there’s the cultural enrichment element. Space exploration is quite possibly the most high-profile form of science that US government supports, drawing attention and inspiration in a way that most other sciences don’t even if they have more practical utility.
I mean, you could just as easily ask why anyone finances the history, paleontology, and archaeology departments and research. What do dinosaur bones offer us in terms of practical use? They don’t – it’s cultural enrichment.
http://qz.com/420267/how-a-…