4.1.2 Rationale for the Utilization of Space
The American push into space, never fully backed by the public, appears in recent years to have slipped even lower on the list of national priorities (Lowman, 1975). The current unwillingness by the political leadership of the country to support space activities is reflected in the weakened budgetary position of NASA, the prime driving force behind the United States civilian space program. Major reasons for this lack of support include:
- A policy of piecemeal exploration
- An emphasis on limited-duration, "one-shot" projects
- Indirect rather than direct benefits achieved by space missions
- The view of human welfare as a byproduct rather than an explicit goal of space activity
- Too great an emphasis on purely scientific benefits
- "Selling" space to particular interest groups with insufficient regard for immediate public interests
- Too little public input in NASA planning.
The weak interest in NASA programs is, however, correctable. It must be established that major future NASA programs will be explicitly tied to the public welfare and that concrete, short-range benefits for individual members of society can and will be achieved. This may be accomplished either by demonstrating that an immediate threat to the American way of life can be averted through the implementation of a particular space program, or by showing that a mission will have a visible economic payback to the public.
Unquestionably the first method has the best chance of loosening the legislative purse strings. Indeed, the strongest public and legislative interest in space was expressed during the Sputnik crisis in 1958 (Overholt et al., 1975). A recent Woods Hole conference concluded that potential triggers for renewed efforts in space might be crisis-based. Among eighteen possibilities listed by panel participants were such events as impending asteroid collision with Earth, rapid changes in the polar icecaps, discovery of extraterrestrial life, some major accomplishment in space by another nation, or a credible military threat. Unfortunately, none of these possibilities suggest a positive planning process since by their very nature they occur unexpectedly (Sadin, private communication, 1980).
One externally generated crisis once thought to provide impetus for further space activities was the prediction by the "Club of Rome" of an impending shortage of critical terrestrial raw materials (Meadows et al., 1972; Laszlo et al., 1977). Subsequent researchers found significant flaws in the study, detracting from the Immediacy of the threat (Kahn, 1976: Science Applications, Inc., 1978) and eliminating an impending world food crisis as a major space mission driver.
Still, it must be recognized that "need" is a relative term. For instance, a country (such as the United States) fundamentally committed to economic growth and vitality can find its horizons of economic "need" closing in much faster than, say, a global community committed only to survival. This public perception may inspire a recognition of the connection between the profitability of space ventures and the impending decline of a way of life. The issue of "need" thus reduces to the question of how best to utilize both terrestrial and nonterrestrial resources to avert a fundamental threat to the American standard of living.
Consonant with the above motivational framework, major future space missions must be clearly directed toward the utilization of space for the distributive benefit of the American public, and be designed to avert erosion of national living standards. In addition, the existing economic climate of the U.S. must be taken into consideration: Each project must show a near-term, growing productive capability; it must take appropriate measure of national priorities; it cannot rely too heavily on capital investment; and, finally, national leaders and the public must perceive it as directly beneficial to their own interests. The proposed Space Manufacturing Facility is designed to meet each of the criteria established above.
New resources.
The SMF mission utilizes resources not presently available for the clear and direct benefit of the American public. This benefit may include (1) construction of solar power satellite stations to generate energy for Earth, (2) manufacture of useful products on the Moon for terrestrial use predominantly from lunar materials, (3) eventual production of consumer goods in the SMF for Earth, employing the unique qualities of the space environment plus lunar or asteroidal materials, (4) utilization of processes unsuitable, unsafe, or otherwise desirable for application on Earth, and (5) using the SMF as a springboard for further space resource exploration and industrialization.
Near-term growing productive capability.
The Space Manufacturing Facility is intended to take full advantage of past, current, and future research in machine intelligence and robotics. Technological enablers now exist in automation, space transportation, and in the results from lunar research. Present competition in industrial robotics is intense, and rapid beneficial developments might be expected to occur even without NASA funding. Serious exploitation of robotics technology in an SMF scenario, however, will accelerate development and permit a growing productive capability from which immediate, near-term human benefits can be siphoned off. The proposed project is open-ended: Growth in productivity is expected with concurrent multiplication of the range of capabilities available, without infusing large amounts of additional capital.
Capital investment.
The primary investment is for the establishment of two starting facilities, one on the Moon
