How Star Trek Hurt the Space Program

Page Created: 02/09/14. Last Updated: 02/09/14.

HOW STAR TREK HURT THE SPACE PROGRAM

The following article is posted with the kind permission of the author.

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How STAR TREK Has Damaged Our Future in Space

Article by Dale L. Skran Jr.

Copyright 2013

STAR TREK is widely credited with the inspiration of a generation of scientists and

engineers. A recent Popular Science article suggests that Alcubierre of Warp Drive fame

was directly inspired in his work by watching STAR TREK. This is only one of many

examples that might be assembled to make this point.

However, STAR TREK has also seriously set back humanities spaceward journey in a

fashion that is not widely appreciated. It has been clear for some time that the super-

heated atmosphere of the Cold War space program, with NASA being written a blank

check and the best and brightest flocking to build moon rockets, cannot be maintained

and has not been maintained. We need to admit that the Cold War resulted in a super-

acceleration of the first moon landing, moving something that might otherwise have

occurred in 2069 to 1969. Sadly, with the end of the Cold War in 1989, the air went out

of this balloon.

NASA has trudged onward, striving to re-create the spirit of the 60s, but to only modest

effect. Many space supporters and fans, see, for example, SF writer Mark Whittington,

but many others as well, are unable to conceive of a space program in any terms but

those of the 1960s – a large, expensive, publicly funded program, centered for the most

part around a giant rocket and specific destination and timetable. These individuals

often detest so-called “New Space” – companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Bigelow

Aerospace that are bent on building a private road to space. You can find a nice

introduction to “New Space” in a recent New York Magazine article titled “Welcome to

the Real Space Age” (http://nymag.com/news/features/space-travel-2013-5/).

Behind the hopes and fears of many of these space fans lies Gene Roddenberry’s

expansive STAR TREK future. Roddenberry’s vision was based not just on public

funding, but on a positively socialist future. Private enterprise has virtually no role in the

STAR TREK universe. Essentially all the characters live either on Federation starships

or Federation colonies. They are amply supplied with food and other necessities by

replicators, and seem to have no money or retirement concerns. In STAR TREK: THE

VOYAGE HOME Kirk says “We don’t,” when asked if they use money in the future.

They appear to have no private property beyond a few personal effects. Their work

revolves around the goals of the Federation – scientific or military, and any advancement

is via the military-style ranks of Starfleet. There are various references to “credits” being

used to obtain items, but the overall impression left is of a socialist utopia in which the

only businesses are small ones like Quark’s bar in DEEP SPACE 9. Quark himself is

a most unflattering stereotype of a business owner, supposedly based on old Yankee

traders, but to many an anti-Semitic parody of a greedy Jew, endlessly obsessed with

“gold-pressed Latinum” and sporting an enormous proboscis. Original TREK brought us

the trader Mudd (“MUDD’S WOMEN”, “I, MUDD”) and an unscrupulous tribble dealer

(THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES), which unite in presenting capitalists as shady,

decadent, overweight, dishonest, and untrustworthy.

A positive spin can be put on Roddenberry’s vision by describing it as a post-scarcity

economy such as that envisioned by Eric Drexler. Capitalism as we know it has been

destroyed by the widespread deployment of cheap and perfect replication technology.

Since all material goods are free, there is no further need to be concerned about resource

extraction or land ownership. Energy is amply supplied by fusion power plants or

Dilithium crystals, apparently “too cheap to meter.” There are no waste products and

hence no pollution.

This is a wonderful goal for technic civilization. However, we are a long way from any

of these wonders. We still live in a world where material goods are not free, there are no

replicators, and property ownership is the bedrock of our society. Any movement into

space over the next 100 years will bring with it the same economic ideas and forces that

shape our world today, including capitalism and property rights. This will create a very

different vision for our space future.

For starters, no one is going to do any kind of large-scale activity in space unless money

is to be made, one way or another. This need not imply that manufacturing or mining

will be done in space and the products returned to earth. There is a web site out there run

by an individual who appears to have dedicated a good portion of his life to proving that

space mining will never occur. He analyzes at length the cost of flying out to an object

in space, mining the minerals, and returning them to Earth. The energy cost of doing this

with materials lifted from the Earth always turns out to be prohibitive. The problem with

this line of argument is that it is correct, but vacuously so as mining the asteroids for gold

is not what is going to open the high frontier. Most materials mined in space will be used

in space.

A capitalist future in space implies a kind of scruffiness that space fans often recoil

from. Yes, there will be advertising on everything you can see. Yes, large sums of

money will be made from unseemly activities, just as on Earth. Think of gambling,

porn, sports, Japanese game shows, and so on. Moreover, nothing will happen unless

at this very moment it makes economic sense. Fifty years from now after the moon has

been industrialized, it will probably be possible to use that infrastructure to manufacture

solar power satellites and beam power back to Earth, but today, lacking the space

infrastructure, it would be unprofitable, or perhaps less profitable.

Finally, it has to be possible to make money in space and to keep the money you make.

This means that a legal regime exists to allow you to own property and keep the profits

you make. Things like the so-called “Moon Treaty” which envision no private property

and a big chuck of profits being funneled to the so-called “Third World” may act to

prevent any movement into space at all. Also, there needs to be some assurance that

your home and belongings will be secure from piracy. This suggests some kind of

“Space Guard” that enforces at least minimal property rights.

The current focus of most space activity on science leads many to the false impression

that science will be a major driver of the human movement into space. Instead, we have

become better and better at using robots to explore space, and may already be at “tipping

point” beyond which on a global scale we as a species are already spending as much on

scientific space exploration as we can reasonably afford to spend. I wish the Planetary

Society good luck in their efforts to advocate for more such spending, but I think it

foolish to rely on this motivation.

Let’s start by asking what (other than science) do we do now in space that must be done

in space in order to provide value. Weather satellites come quickly to mind. There is

no obvious substitute for them, and as the recent storm Sandy showed, we really need

accurate weather predictions! Alas, there already exists a fairly substantial network of

weather satellites, and a modest launch industry to support it. However, although this

industry is an important part of the “space baseline” supporting commercial space efforts,

there is little prospect for further growth. Earth-sensing satellites can be lumped in with

weather satellites as they function in a similar way and face similar growth prospects,

although they are clearly less essential.

Next we consider Arthur C. Clarke’s “great idea” for exploiting space - the

communications satellite. There are two major components to this market –

geosynchronous orbit and low-Earth orbit satellites such as the Iridium network. There

are only so many geosynchronous orbital slots and most are filled. The low-Earth orbit

networks require many more but smaller satellites – Iridium has 66 satellites. They are

used to provide telephone, television, service, radio, and Internet access, especially to

remote or moving users such as airliners or cruise ships. Satellite TV has proven to

be a strong competitor to land-based systems, but the invention of high-capacity fiber-

optic cables has reduced the need for communications satellites significantly over what

would otherwise be the case. In total, the communications satellite market sustains a

considerable and modestly growing launch industry, but provides no motivation to put

put humans in space.

The third major commercial usage of space is position based services. These services,

typically based on the US GPS network, currently consisting of 31 operational satellites,

have become increasingly important as the basis for mobile-phone based location

services. These services allow the user to know where they are at any moment,

supporting a large number of mobile applications, and allow the US military to strike

anywhere on Earth with great accuracy. It is safe to say that the GPS network was

relatively unanticipated by SF writers and space prophets, but has led to a revolution

in how we live at a modest cost. There have been 61 successful launches related to

GPS since the service was inaugurated in 1978, and there are currently an additional

36 planned starting in 2014. Replacing and updating GPS satellites is a key part of the

baseline of necessary and economically vital launches that support the global space

launch industry. Alas, GPS services neither require humans nor are likely to grow

significantly in numbers, although some non-US services are currently planned.

Thus, in 2013 was have reached a kind of equilibrium where three all-robotic services –

weather predication, communications, and positioning – support a modest global launch

industry. This “space program” will continue even if the NASA budget dropped to zero.

However, there are no commercial activities that require humans in space or that appear

to lead to a significant growth in space launch capacity.

With the completion of the International Space Station and the retirement of the

expensive and trouble-prone US Space Shuttle, a new opportunity arose – lifting supplies

and crews to/from the ISS. COTS – “Commercial Orbital Transportation Services/

Commercial Off The Shelf” – was initiated by President George W. Bush and brought to

operational status under President Obama. Two vendors, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences,

have contracts for significant numbers of supply runs to the ISS. Currently, SpaceX has

made two operational Falcon8/Dragon runs to the ISS, and Orbital has just successfully

tested their new Antares launch vehicle. With one more Antares test, COTS should

be fully operational, ending complete dependence on Russian, Japanese, and ESA

cargo vehicles. It appears that by allowing SpaceX to bootstrap itself forward, COTS

has led to a significant lowering of launch costs. Although the full effects will not be

felt for several more years, the traditional launch providers – Ariane and ULA – are

running scared, with the prospect looming of SpaceX significantly underbidding all

other competitors, including the Chinese. This must be viewed as an extremely positive

development, as each incremental decrease in the cost to low earth orbit will enable more

economic development in space.

A second phase of COTS, now called CCDev (Commercial Crew Development), funds

three competitors in their development of a means to send up to seven astronauts to

the ISS, and return them to Earth. The competitors are SpaceX (Dragon/Falcon9),

Boeing (CST-100/Atlas V), and Sierra Nevada (Dream Chaser/Atlas V). This program

promises significant cost savings over the Russian Soyuz or the Space Shuttle, but at

tens of millions per head, it surely cannot be counted as “cheap.” Still, the presence of

operational private orbital taxis may enable Bigelow Aerospace and others to support

modest private space stations, a major leap forward.

This pretty much exhausts current “space applications.” Various kinds of research are

being done on the ISS, but as yet nothing has been identified that has the potential to

drive the economic development of space. The most likely “next big thing” is space

tourism. A number of companies, notably Virgin Galactic and XCOR, are well advanced

in the construction and testing of single-stage suborbital rockets to support this market.

Both have long-term plans for orbital tourism at prices well below those that can be

achieved via CCDev.

In a more speculative vein, two companies have been formed to pursue asteroid mining,

with the market envisioned as being oxygen and rocket fuel in the LEO system. This is

clearly not a short-term prospect, although one of the companies, Planetary Resources,

appears at least potentially well funded by a large number of strong backers. It can be

stated with confidence that no lunar or asteroid mining enterprise will be successful

without private property rights in space, and the exact legal framework of such mining

remains obscure.

To push the development of an extensive in-space infrastructure, significant additional

economic development must occur, initially in the Earth-Moon system, and eventually

beyond. One of the greatest challenges in bringing this about revolves around convincing

the general public that making money in space is the axis around which the real future

revolves. For this to happen, we need to put the fantasy of STAR TREK’s socialist space

future behind us, and begin the hard work of extending a regulated capitalism into space.

Only then will humanity have an expansive future in space.

One final word – this essay should not be taken as an eternal endorsement of capitalism

as we know it. Just as capitalism replaced mercantilism which in turn replaced feudalism

as economic systems, there may well come an improved economic system, perhaps

birthed into existence by combination of nano-tech replicators and mass utilization of

intelligent robots making jobs as we know them untenable going forward. However, this

future economic system will come when it comes. It is minimally decades in the future,

if not centuries, and it may not come at all. Our expansion into space begins now, and we

can’t afford to wait for such a speculative development.