Expanding The Space Bubble Beyond The Usual Suspects
#NASA Deputy Administrator @jmorhard WRT STEM Vs STEAM (A = art) "I have scientists. I have engineers. I need Michaelangelos". I Need da Vincis #HumansToMars #MartiansUnite #Artemis pic.twitter.com/7UjdRU8OOB
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) August 31, 2020
In addition to scientists engineers and artists you also need economists. If don’t have a business case there won’t be any money to support the scientists, engineers and artists. It is no accident that the Enlightenment followed the expansion of world trade in the 16th Century or the Renaissance followed the expansion of trade by 13th Century Venice and Genoa in the Mediterranean region.
It’s sad NASA doesn’t do anything to support the business education that will be needed to expand the space economy beyond Earth orbit.
Its also sad that NASA doesn’t know how to handle their own space economics. Just look at SLS and JWST.
Really? NASA needs more artists (besides the fact that Da Vinci and Michelangelo were also engineers).? For what? Perhaps to paint SLS in camouflage to hide it from the new Administration.NASA need to focus on technical excellence so that it can return to being an inspiration to American engineering.
And NASA also needs to find more ways to be relevant to the 330 million Americans who pay for the whole space party thing.
You really think better notional images of missions that never occur is going to make NASA more relevant to taxpayers? If I remember correctly, technological development ranked higher with taxpayers than human spaceflight with taxpayers.
Excuse me but where did I mention “better notional images of missions”? You are in troll territory.
Chesley Bonestell and his peers would have strongly disagreed with your characterization of pictures of “missions that never occur” not being relevant to taxpayer enthusiasm.
As a boy in the 1960s my bedroom walls – and those in my classrooms – were plastered with NASA posters depicting the future. It worked.
To be an inspiration requires being able to communicate what you do to those you want to inspire. NASA has been arguably failing on that point for quite some time.
Folks with a formal education in industrial design, such as offered from a liberal arts college, could contribute greatly to technical excellence. Particularly in the areas of hardware and software ergonomics, for example. The first time we went to the moon there used to be design groups, staffed by designers. Look carefully at an Apollo EVA suit. There is a lot more going on than a result of ‘engineering’. Engineering has its role, but is particularly deficient when it comes to human-machine interfacing. Look at some of the premier aerospace literature from the last century, who took the technical photographs in the test cells? There used to be a time when the arts were more intertwined with technology, and we were the benefactors.
That’s a good point, and I had been thinking a comment about what NASA would recruit artists to do. You made me remember how broad a meaning “art” can have.
It would be nice to have more fine artists, painters, musicians, etc. to do space-related work. And creating or expanding artist in residence programs would be a fine thing to do. But that’s not expensive and not a place where NASA would have to recruit. The similar NSF programs for this sort of thing, e.g. in Antarctica, already have far more people applying than they can support. So I can’t see fine arts as something NASA really needs to push, when it comes to education or recruitment.
But “art”, as you noted, can also mean things like designing living space in, er…, space, ergonomics, and many other things. And it seems clear that NASA and traditional aerospace underuse people with experience in those sorts of things. And the idea of going into something like architecture as a path towards a career with NASA probably doesn’t occur to many students. So that does strike me as something NASA should encourage and support.
Although, I do see another commenter’s point about diluting the STEM trademark. STEM is a deliberate push to encourage students to study technical fields. Support of arts should probably be a separate effort, to keep the current STEM efforts focused on their technical education goals.
And don’t forget some good writers with a background in literature for NASA’s PAO.
Yes, but writers with a background in both literature and the science and engineering they are writing about. I think that would mean knowledge of both arts and STEM fields. And, not to promote my alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley is a fine example of that. Their College of Arts and Sciences have substantial requirements for people to take classes outside their field. Science majors have to take classes in humanities and humanities majors have to take classes in science. Most colleges require that, but Berkeley does (or did… I can only speak for it when I attended, in the class of 1991) require more than are usual at many universities.
Yes and that is exactly what NASA needs to do with its education programs instead of limiting them to only STEM projects. And even there there are huge gaps. Where are the programs in agricultural engineering, nutrition, environmental psychology, landscaping, architecture, civil engineering, econometrics and economic modeling? Space settlements are going to require far more than simply rockets and gateway stations.
Antipathy towards the arts in general is difficult to understand. Steve Jobs understood the role of liberal arts:
Help me understand the connection between STEM and the Arts (other than the “zero-sum” game we’ve created with education funding). Or is that the point?
I am a little concerned about adding “Art” to STEM, in that the original push for increased attention and funding for programs came out of the lack of interest and performance of students in STEM fields, which are vitally important to our increasingly technological future.
I value the arts greatly, but when you can tack and A into STEAM, in an attempt to justify increased Arts funding, you can as easily recognize the importance of sports in the social and physical development of our youth, and now you have STEAMS…and so on. I could make a strong case for lots of school programs I value that have been getting cut of late, but just adding them under the STEM banner dilutes the original goal of creating a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Are the Humanities, Industrial Arts, Economics, Languages, or even Debate not “valuable”? (STEAMSHIELD?) I would say: No, but that’s not what we were talking about when we first wanted to focus on STEM.
I think there is a misconception (not likely to be found around here) that STEM fields lack creativity, when I’ve found my engineering career has led to some of the most profoundly creative and fulfilling work I have done in my life. If creativity is not present in the STEM curriculum, that is not a failing of the field, but just how it is being taught. I would argue DiVinci’s and Michaelangelo’s interest in science and engineering made them better artists. I’m not clear on how their interest in the arts made them better scientists and engineers, but I’m open to hearing ideas.
If you haven’t, I encourage everyone to read Steven J Gould’s The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox.
Oh, I see ! It’s not your fault that we’re headed for a train wreck, with constant changes in direction, priority, “flavour of the day”. It’s our fault ’cause we’re not smart enough ! Sure, part of the fault is ours, ’cause smart as we are, we’re not smart enough (but we’re the best you’re going to get). we’re doing things for the first time discovering our way forward, and sometimes (often it seems) we hit a land mine.
two words … the second one is “not on”, first one rhymes with an aquatic fowl.
have you seen the 3D 360 cinematic VR experience Space Explorers? it is by Felix and Paul Studios out of Canada. They partnered with NASA to tell the story of exploration in a unique immersive way using NASA astronauts and their training with the viewer as part of the experience. it is a moving two part series that presents a down to earth easy to understand Why and How for exploration. They are filming a second series on the ISS with hopes of taking viewers out on a 360 3D VR spacewalk later this year. they could help sell the Artemis program for returning to the Moon and onward to Mars.
I hope it’s indicative of NASA’s commitment to diversity that it wants to recruit left-handed, gay, atheists to do important work.
Are Michelangelos and Da Vincis recognized and promoted within NASA? Perhaps Morhard has them and doesn’t know it? In any case the comment seems a little insulting to the scientists and engineers working at NASA. Some of whom may have an artistic bent…
You seem to miss the point.
Not only are Michelangelos and Davincis not recognized, if you stand out in todays NASA they will cut you off. They do not like standouts. Morhard has not been with NASA that long and I dont think he has ever worked at the working level, so I suspect he does not know how the agency actually works. Most of the management (I hesitate to call them leadership) doesn’t have enough expertise to know what is good or bad, and most are not among the Michelangelos and Davincis.
And meanwhile, while NASA is pondering this issue, kids, teens and young adults around the world are making and flying SpaceX models while combining them with cutting edge computer graphics on their own even forming their own support networks. Here is one example of models and graphics integrated. Youtube is filled of others. And just wait until Starship makes it into orbit!
Where is NASA? Why aren’t they trying to link into this huge amount of enthusiasm? Are they even aware it exists? Forget the Artemis Generation, this is the Spacex Generation!
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
As a matter of historical interest, NASA considered “artists” for the 3rd Space Flight Participant category, after teachers and journalist. One of the challenges was to determine the eligibility requirements. Individuals who had participated in the NASA Arts Program felt it should only be opened to them. Artists who had not participated in the program felt that was unfair. I had an initial conversation with the National Endowment for Arts to discuss how we might conduct the opportunity. We were also going to talk to museum personnel, art associations, and art professors, as a start. The Challenger accident shoved that to the back burner.
Of course, there have been several astronauts and cosmonauts who produced wonderful art after their flights: Alan Bean, Alexi Leonov, and Nicole Stott, to name just a few.
It will be interesting to see if the flight of Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa succeeds with his plan to fly 8 artists with him on a mission to orbit the Moon via SpaceX. The crew are supposed to come back and help translate the space experience as seen through the eyes of artists. Will they demonstrate greater insight than others have done?
With a shameless plug for my book, “See You in Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight,” I tell more about the dreams of artists and many other categories of people who aspire to see Earth from above. Available on Amazon. We’re still quite aways from large numbers of people achieving their dream, but hope springs eternal that the democratization of space will continue to evolve.