Pathways to Exploration Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration (2014) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Why Do We Go There?
2 Why Do We Go There?
Pages 44-82
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 44... ...
In addition to a call for white papers that asked respondents to provide their ideas and thoughts on ensuring a sustainable human spaceflight program, a 1-day Twitter campaign sought the public's "best ideas" along the same lines. The intention was not to develop a statistically robust sampling frame but to cast a wider net to solicit ideas, thoughts, and perspectives from individuals and groups who were engaged enough with the topic to take the time to respond.
|
From page 45... ...
Ideas that made a strong appearance in the white papers included substantially increasing support and recognition of commercial spaceflight efforts, exploiting space for economic benefits, increasing international partnerships, and increasing focus on technology development. Participants in the Twitter campaign were asked to answer the following question: What are your best ideas for creating a NASA human spaceflight program that is sustainable over the next several decades?
|
From page 46... ...
However, in the context of the more pragmatic rationales, the questions do not lead to motivation specifically for human programs as opposed to motivations for spaceflight and space exploration more generally, including both robotic and human ventures. Furthermore, although the questions are important and will continue to be important, they do not rise to the level that the committee considered was intended by the term enduring question.
|
From page 47... ...
human spaceflight program, such as these: • Does humanity have a long-term sustainable future beyond Earth? • What are the limits of human adaptability to environments other than Earth?
|
From page 48... ...
Human Spaceflight Program, Executive Summary, NASA, Washington, DC, 1990.) America's recent history has demonstrated that our space program stimulates a wide range of technological innovations that find abundant applications in the consumer marketplace.
|
From page 49... ...
Clearly, those industries would not exist without the original NASA and Department of Defense (DOD) satellite and rocket development work, but they benefited only modestly, if at all, from human spaceflight programs.
|
From page 50... ...
III, 408-414. 16 A summary of the challenges in using the methodology of the Midwest Research Institute study that includes a critique of other studies of the economic benefits of NASA spaceflight programs can be found in H
|
From page 51... ...
No systematic attempt has been made by NASA or other analysts to compare the economic benefits of NASA human spaceflight programs with those of other federal R&D programs.
|
From page 52... ...
There are many individual examples of technological spinoffs of space activities, especially those involving robotic spaceflight.31 Nonetheless, although the economic and technological benefits of human spaceflight are anecdotally impressive, they are extremely difficult to measure, and the uncertainty in them makes it impossible to compare them with the benefits of other federal investment in R&D that might have achieved the same or better economic results. Moreover, there is little basis on which to predict whether future NASA human spaceflight programs will have anything like the influence on U.S.
|
From page 53... ...
It is currently impossible to assess whether commercial capabilities will develop to the point where they can create substantial cost savings (on the order of tens of billions of dollars) for NASA human space exploration efforts beyond LEO.
|
From page 54... ...
33 Excellent accounts of the Eisenhower administration's space policy are provided in D.A.
|
From page 55... ...
Bush administration, the 2004 Vision for Space Exploration contained several references to the importance of human spaceflight for broader national security and policy goals, including accelerating the development of critical technologies that underpin and advance the U.S. economy and help to ensure national security, serving as "a particularly potent symbol of American democracy," and contributing to change and growth in the United States.41 The 2006 National Space Policy did not connect human spaceflight to broader national 37 General William L
|
From page 56... ...
The intellectual capital, technical skills, and industrial infrastructure required to design, develop, launch, and operate human-rated spacecraft clearly overlap those involved with robotic spacecraft, including national security payloads, although the size of the NASA human spaceflight program now is so small that it exerts only a modest influence on the portions of the U.S. industrial base that are relevant to national defense.
|
From page 57... ...
The desire to be "the best" and to maintain this identity as a country that undertakes bold ventures serves for some as a rationale for continued space exploration efforts. As will be discussed further in Chapter 3, space exploration is not a primary concern for most Americans but remains a source of pride.
|
From page 58... ...
Millar, U.S.-Russia cooperation in human spaceflight: Assessing the impacts, Space Policy :171-178, 2001. 3 55 International Space Exploration Coordination Group, Global Exploration Strategy: The Framework for Cooperation, 2007, http://www.
|
From page 59... ...
The President's Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy in 2004 noted that long-term competitiveness requires a skilled workforce and that the ability of American children to compete in the 21st century was in decline compared with those in other countries. 64 One of its conclusions was that space exploration "can be a catalyst for a much-needed renaissance in math and science education in the United States.
|
From page 60... ...
NASA education programs have often been geared as much to that broader goal as to the more specific one of increasing output of scientists and engineers, and one cannot pursue the latter without at the same time considering the former.66 Not only students but also a broader public has been inspired and affected by human space exploration. Time Magazine's "Photo of the 20th Century," Earthrise as seen from the Moon captured by Apollo 8 astronaut illiam W Anders (Figure 2.2)
|
From page 61... ...
The study viewed NASA's expenditures on outreach and education programs as worthwhile for education but assumed that the expenditures on spaceflight programs were justified by other rationales. To state those conclusions more strongly: Although the effect on students can be used as a rationale for some spending on EPO efforts within the human spaceflight program, few in the education realm would view this effect itself as a rationale for funding the human spaceflight program.
|
From page 62... ...
An essential motive for reviving human exploration is the recognition that the alert examination of nature has been the route to many of the most dramatic discoveries in science and that further such discoveries are likely when humans can investigate the surfaces of the Moon and Mars directly. In this context, major spacefaring nations are currently engaging in robotic space missions that target the environment "where humans can go," namely, the Moon, the martian system, and near-Earth objects.
|
From page 63... ...
As noted in a recent review, "Human space exploration can eventually help answer some of the main questions of our existence, namely how our solar system formed, whether life exists beyond Earth and what our future may be." 85 78 See the MEPAG website, http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/.
|
From page 64... ...
89 H Thomas, "Complex Plasma Applications for Wound Healing," presentation at the 2nd Annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference, Denver, Colo., July 13, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
|
From page 65... ...
97 L Stodieck, AMGEN countermeasures for bone and muscle loss in space and on Earth in Proceedings of the 2nd Annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference, Denver, Colo., July 2013, American Astronautical Society, Washington, D.C., http:// www.astronautical.org/sites/default/files/issrdc/2013/issrdc_2013-07-17-0800_stodieck.pdf.
|
From page 66... ...
100 Ibid. 101 See NRC, Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022, 2011, and Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration, 2011, both published by The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
|
From page 67... ...
The most recent Augustine report from 2009, Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation, concluded that "there was a strong consensus within the Committee that human exploration also should advance us as a civilization towards our ultimate goal: charting a path for human expansion into the solar system. It is too early to know how and when humans will first learn to live on another planet, but we should be guided by that long-term goal."107 Indeed, in the present committee's recently collected Twitter-based commentary, survival of the human species by way of an off-Earth settlement was repeatedly mentioned as a strong rationale for continuing to advance the frontier of human spaceflight beyond LEO.
|
From page 68... ...
111 In 1958, President Eisenhower wrote a preface to a White House pamphlet titled "Introduction to Outer Space,"112 in which he stated that "we and other nations have a great responsibility to promote the peaceful use of space and to utilize the new knowledge obtainable from space science and technology for the benefit of all mankind." Although that statement applied to space programs in general, not specifically to human spaceflight, the pamphlet is said to have directly influenced Star Trek,113 which, beginning in the 1960s, became a franchise of such longevity that it is now solidly embedded in popular American culture. Many space scientists, space enthusiasts, and the general public often cite aspects of the Star Trek franchise as their aspirational vision of the kind of future that should be pursued through human spaceflight.114 Since its inception, human spaceflight has been a planetwide experience, thanks in part to satellites.
|
From page 69... ...
Robotic exploration plays a role, but only human spaceflight tackles the enduring questions of how far we can go and what we can discover and do when we get there in that the "we" in these questions specifically means humans rather than their robotic agents. Human spaceflight is an expensive and risky undertaking, and in the judgment of many on this committee only high aspirations such as this can justify taking such risks.
|
From page 70... ...
scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program.' .
|
From page 71... ...
This need for understanding tradeoffs also applies to program outcomes because the value-proposition framework recommends that managers recognize the priorities assigned by public opinion or by the opinion of key stakeholder groups to different aspects of program outcomes. Here, too, establishing a basis for making tradeoffs is complex and may be even more difficult with a program like NASA human spaceflight, for which mass public opinion reveals broad but lukewarm support (see Chapter 3)
|
From page 72... ...
Catanzaro, "Using Stakeholder Value Analysis to Build Exploration Sustainability," paper presented at the AIAA 1st Space Exploration Conference, January 30-February 1, Orlando, Fla., AIAA-2553, 2005, p.
|
From page 73... ...
Human Spaceflight Plans Committee developed a list of stakeholder groups on the basis of previous research, a review of relevant policy documents, and public opinion polls. Stakeholders for NASA human spaceflight programs included "the U.S.
|
From page 74... ...
The value flows and stakeholder priority-setting from that analysis were 129 Ibid. 130 Additional benefits related to innovation, inspiration, and new means of addressing global challenges are described in a publication of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group, Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration, 2013, http://www.globalspaceexploration.
|
From page 75... ...
national security and prestige to NASA human spaceflight programs is especially difficult. Other rationales discussed above -- such as supporting the establishment of human habitation on other planets, the enhanced exploration capabilities associated with space missions that involve astronauts as well as robotic equipment, and the link between space exploration and human destiny -- represent motivations for human spaceflight that arguably are unique to NASA.
|
From page 76... ...
NASA human spaceflight stakeholder groups that might benefit from human space exploration have been defined in the statement of task for this committee, which calls for a description of value that takes into account "the needs of government, industry, the economy, and the public good -- and in the context of the priorities and programs of current and potential international partners in the spaceflight program." In terms of the rationales discussed above, one can divide government and public-good rationales into distinct interests of different stakeholder groups, namely, national security, international relations, science, and education and inspiration as well as the general public interest. The committee notes that a fully responsive answer to this request would require a valueproposition analysis that goes well beyond any known methodology and applies the concept of value propositions to the human spaceflight enterprise as a whole rather than to individual program designs as described above.
|
From page 77... ...
141 A strong indicator of national pride as reflected in the public's connection to NASA's human spaceflight program surfaced after ter 138 The discussion in this section of losses in the absence of human spaceflight and the resulting implications for stakeholders has broad similarity to regret theory, which rests on the assumption that under conditions of uncertainty people facing a choice may anticipate regret of their decision. In such cases, a desire to avoid regret may be taken into account in the decision-making process.
|
From page 78... ...
and automobiles (Kia) , as well as for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.147,148,149 Those glimpses of persistent connection with and awareness of NASA's human spaceflight program raise a difficult question: What is the actual value of NASA human spaceflight in the national self-image?
|
From page 79... ...
As discussed earlier, NASA's LEO human spaceflight program has recently put into place new mechanisms for acquiring space transportation from commercial suppliers with fixed-price contracts. Small and medium-size suppliers and service providers are emerging to support the new transportation systems and prepare for anticipated growth in related economic activities in LEO over the next several decades.
|
From page 80... ...
. Regardless, the Global Exploration Roadmap developed by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG)
|
From page 81... ...
2.7 CONCLUSIONS ON THE BENEFITS OF HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT The current practical benefits of human spaceflight, although they have meaning for specific stakeholder groups, do not rise to the level of compelling justification for human spaceflight. Aspirational and inspirational rationales and value propositions, however, are most closely aligned with the enduring questions and when "added" to the practical benefits do, in the committee's judgment, argue for continuation of NASA human spaceflight programs, provided that the pathways approach and decision rules described in Chapter 1 are applied.
|
From page 82... ...
mean that a definitive assessment of the "NASA human spaceflight value proposition" is beyond the capability of the present committee and, in the committee's judgment, that of most other objective observers. These programs include an array of activities whose outcomes are difficult to monitor, that are affected by multiple other federal programs, and whose monitoring requires detailed data on outcomes that may span decades.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.