Bridenstine Speaks To Current Troubles And Future Hopes
NASA has a unique ability to bring people together even in times of great difficulty. I hope Bob and Doug’s historic mission on Saturday reminded us that we can accomplish great things when we come together as a nation. pic.twitter.com/6ONkcUDaL4
— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) June 2, 2020
Message from the NASA Administrator – June 1, 2020
“NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 launch this past weekend was a tremendous accomplishment. Seeing Doug and Bob safe and sound aboard the International Space Station, after traveling there on history’s first human commercial spaceflight, fills me with so much pride in what the NASA team can do when given the opportunity. Truly a new era of space exploration has begun! But this also is an example of what we can do when we come together as a nation. This is not the first time America has seen times of unrest and division, and looked to NASA for inspiration and confidence that we are capable of something magnificent. Let me be clear, NASA is a place where unity, respect, and decency are prioritized, and we will continue to promote an agency culture that aligns with these core beliefs. For a brief moment Saturday, the United States of America looked up as we once again launched humans into orbit from our home soil, recalling our nation’s remarkable ability to accomplish astonishing, impressive achievements, and we demonstrated that we could bring people together peacefully for a common goal.”
Yes it does, and the real promise of SpaceX is that space exploration will move beyond being a government activity and, like exploration before the Cold War, become mostly a private activity again independent of partisan politics.
Like the East Indian Company?
Like the Scott, Shackleton, Peary, Cook, Nansen, Stefansson, Amundsen, Byrd, and Ellsworth polar expeditions, all privately financed. The world consists of far more than for-profit corporations and governments.
You need to check your facts, They all had government support – especially Byrd. Seriously. Do a little research.
I have, you need to learn more about pre-WWII exploration. Lots of folks who haven’t studied it make the same mistake in thinking it was government funded. Scott and Shackleton had mostly private funding. The limited government grants those expeditions received only made them legitimate much like a small NSF grant would do today. But it didn’t cover much. The Royal Navy just gave them and any seamen they took along paid leave much like the military does now for sporting events.
Peary was funded by the Peary Polar club and National Geographic. Cook by his own group. Byrd’s expeditions before 1939 were all privately funded. The Navy only gave him and any naval personnel he took along paid leave. Read Byrd’s books on the expeditions, he honored those who supported him. Why do you think he used a Ford Trimotor? The Ford family donated it. Read the articles those explorers wrote while making the rounds to get money for their expeditions. Ellsworth inherited a fortune and used it to fund Amundsen’s transpolar flight and his own flight in the Antarctica. Private funding was the Rule, not the exception before WWII.
Byrd only had full government support on his 1939 expedition and his 1947 and late 1950’s expeditions. The first because the U.S. government wanted to know just what Nazi Germany was doing in the Antarctic. They were worried the Germans might be sitting up a naval stores facility. BTW, the 1939 Byrd expedition was the first Antarctic expedition to be funded by the U.S. government in nearly 100 years, the last being the Wilkes Expedition. The 1947 Expedition was to test equipment for war in polar regions. That is why he took a submarine and destroyer along. And of course Deep Freeze was basic geopolitical competition with the Soviets during the IGY, which was why it was government funded.
How exploration and science research has been funded historically is something I have done a bit of research on over the years so it is a topic I know well.
Or Cortez, and on and on… But with nothing living to rape and pillage. So there is a silver lining…
Or the U.S. government funded Wilkes Expedition who killed indigenous peoples who got in the way of their South Seas survey work… And let’s not forget the indigenous peoples killed by the Lewis and Clarke Expedition. You do know that one of the jobs of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition mission was telling the various First Nation’s People their land had just been bought by the United States from France…
Its a nice dream, but they have no real clue how to get large populations of humans off Earth in a sustainable, long-term manner. They don’t even know how to create the one thing needed, that being a destination. And then there is the question as to exactly what any large group of humans would do there. Certainty not science, because science has and will never motivate and move large populations of human anywhere.
I agree. It is the gorilla space advocates keeping ignoring. Everyone focuses on the easy part of the challenge of space settlement, spacelift, which is just a basic engineering problem as Elon Musk is showing. Few if anyone is working on the far more challenging problems of systematically developing the technology to support the folks that will be living in future space settlements. In most cases we aren’t even sure of the technology questions to ask. For example just what will be the mix of plants needed to be domesticated/adapted to support a space settlement? As I showed in a recent paper it’s a question that some folks have been asking since 1938 but it just keeps getting ignored.
Of course it’s not a mission NASA would be suitable for. NASA is only a space exploration agency, not one focused on the much bigger challenge of space settlement. If it was it would have as many agricultural/mining/ industrial engineers on its payroll as it has aeronautical engineers. The sad thing is that it’s the research on space settlement that will create the spinoffs to counter global climate change by developing more sustainable agriculture as a byproduct. It’s something I have been researching for the last several years and published on.
BTW, the idea of millions migrating into space is impractical. I suspect less than 1 individual in 10,000 would be able to handle the conditions of economic and social isolation that will be part of life in a space settlement. Again, it’s not a problem folks are studying but need to. But then space advocates have always viewed space settlement as a simple engineering problem when it’s really a complex problem in economics, governance, human ecology and social anthropology. The engineering is secondary because what you need engineers to build depends on the answers determined by the economics and human ecology research.
In terms of emigration rates I suspect 2,000 a year would a more reasonable level, at least in terms of the lunar industrialization models I have been working on. The idea of millions is just not feasible. BTW 2,000 a year is the best guess of the average immigration to the New England colonies during the 17th Century when they were be established.
“Agency culture that aligns with those core beliefs..”
HA!
My mom called me after the launch to talk about the paucity of African American in the control centers. I had no words for her.
FYI It is 12% which is under the 13.4% of the population which is black so there is room for improvement at NASA. But the NASA graph doesn’t show it by job position so its impossible to say where they are working from this graph. It is definitly something NASA needs to focus on.
However, looking at the NASA graph the Hispanic population is very under represented at NASA. While Hispanics make up 18.3% of the national population NASA only employs 7% so there is a huge need for NASA to improve in that area. It shows especially the need for NASA to do outreach to the Hispanic community, both in jobs and STEM education.
NASA workforce data
https://www.nasa.gov/office…
There are links on that page to the plans NASA has to address those issues.
U.S. Census data
https://www.census.gov/quic…