The Art Neuro Weblog

Space Policy
What got us talking initially was space policy since the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster. While people debated such notions as 'should we have manned flights in space at all?', I felt the opposite feeling. i.e. "Why aren't we out there more?" The reasons for going to space are myriad. The Earth is a fragile ecosphere where we are eating through her generosity at increasing rates. While being a little over-invested in the notion of a collective humanity, I strongly believe the future of humanity cannot escape being in space. This is not a science fiction aspiration any more than the impending crunch of the Malthus' logic.
For those who believe that Schumpeter's notion of the destructive creation of values that leapfrog us ahead; all of those breakthroughs that have staved off the end point have consumed more energy, and thus impacted more heavily on the ecosphere. This means in the on going long term (and this may only be 50-100 years) humanity must look to get off the planet if it wants to survive. And so Space, as a source for resource and a place to spread into, becomes an issue.

A quick swipe at NASA
It seemed to us that for years we had trusted NASA to be watching out for the interests of humanity in space. Well how naive was that assumption? For all we can tell now, the space shuttle program, was essentially a crock and always was.
NASA, as we are finding out, is the fireworks entertainment branch of the US Military Industrial Complex we have come to loathe so much. Without and aim, but a need to secure budgets, NASA has become a massive bureaucracy working on god knows what to what end, and constantly shipping into the sky an aged fleet of Space Shuttle conceived with the desire to cut costs so that they could spend more. It seems to us that while NASA has been innovative in small technical ways, why are we still flying Space Shuttles into lower orbit for no significant purpose?

Jumping right ahead, what is possible given our technology? The Mars Society for one believes it can achieve manned exploration of Mars using current technology. Not only that it is trying to mobilise popular support. This looks a lot more positive.

Anyway, this is an attempt to condense months of discussions, so hopefully we'll get to elaborate on this further down the track. As David Brew says, on this issue we're looking 50-100 years ahead, but we want answers soon.

- Art Neuro