Compromises on the Shuttle and ISS

ABC News has an amusing article on the compromises that astronauts have to make while in space. Here's an excerpt:

"The astronauts don't just toss the garbage overboard. The mandate is clean your plate and drink all the coffee in your drink bag because all the trash created on orbit has to fit in a container the size of a large kitchen garbage can. That is seven astronauts' times three meals times 12 or so days. The trick is to wrap it up as small as you can when you are done eating and then compress it even more and tape it shut."

People seem to be natural accumulators -- collecting things is easier for most than sorting or disposing. Another challenge with long-duration missions, when the (next) return trip is not scheduled to occur for next few months or years, is collecting all the garbage. Chucking it out the airlock is one option, but one might suppose that recycling all the material would be cheaper and more efficient in the long term.

Those considerations would need to be balanced out with the time and resources built into creating, launching, using, and maintaining the recycling systems. Even water is not completely recycled on board ISS. Developing technologies that create self-sustaining habitats are essential to long-term space development. Which is why projects like Biosphere 2 need to keep going, and be replicated by other organizations.

Going to Mars Alone, Or, A Better Approach

Yesterday, on Slashdot, there was an article by Nancy Yatkinson. She describes a proposal by Jim McLane to send someone to Mars solo, arguing that:

"'When we eliminate the need to launch off Mars, we remove the mission’s most daunting obstacle,' said McLane. And because of a small crew size, the spacecraft could be smaller and the need for consumables and supplies would be decreased, making the mission cheaper and less complicated".

He goes on to say that more supplies, people, and equipment would follow, though returning to Earth would not be possible. As some people responded, this idea only really makes sense if one is planning on colonizing Mars. Otherwise, this is a dramatic suicide mission, or at least a lifetime prison sentence with scientific endeavours attached.

This idea would provoke a media firestorm, a Congressional protest, and many questions from the House Committee on Science and Technology. Barring very unusual circumstances, NASA is not likely to do this. I would doubt that private space firms would do this, out of liability and shareholder concerns.

If this idea were to actually go through, I would like to know the following things:

1) What studies were performed to show that extended isolation, lasting for years, would not lead to a decline in morale on the part of the explorer?

2) Is NASA, or the organization responsible, prepared for the media response in the event that the explorer dies en route or on Mars, for whatever cause? Can the organization prepare for the nightmare scenario and still carry on with the mission?

3) Define whether or not colonization is the major driver for not bringing astronauts back to Earth.

4) If colonization is the driver, why send just one? What are the costs (where are the spreadsheets) comparing sending six astronauts to Mars, and bringing them back, versus sending the minimum number to prevent inbreeding?

5) If colonization is not, why the one-way trip? How do costs compare for bringing the explorer back, versus continually sending him new supplies and replacement equipment?

6) If this is just to prove that going to Mars is possible, then hasn't this been done before, only with the Moon? Stop treating space like it's Mt. Everest, and more like undeveloped prairie.

The last thing NASA needs is another public failure. An ongoing controversy about a single human spending his time doing only what one person can do is hardly better.

I propose removing the legal barriers that intimidate private space development. If colonization is the long-term goal of NASA, and humanity's necessary "life insurance policy", then encouraging the migration of people off-world is necessary. A single shot publicity stunt is not good public policy, a bad investment, and irrational if one wants to see long-lasting, self-supporting population growth off-world.

Generation Y (Millennials) at NASA

NASA's Gen Y Speaks Out, Wired

"At the recent NASA Next Generation Exploration Conference at NASA Ames, two young NASA employees, Nick Skytland and Garret Fitzpatrick, gave a powerful presentation called "The Gen Y Perspective"-- a set of charts they had delivered to their center management the week before that made it all the way up to the Administrator's desk. Now they were presenting it at a conference of their peers, with special guest moon walker Buzz Aldrin listening."

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2008/NASA.gen.y.pdf

The PDF is of a slideshow.

Years ago, I posted to a website called Fourthturning.com. The website was based on the book The Fourth Turning, by Neil Howe and William Strauss. The site has a discussion forum, and I was active on it from 1999 through around 2003. The conversation there is one of the best on the internet for historical and current event analysis. The members are really into the thick of the theory, so first-time visitors can be overwhelmed with all the jargon.

Without going into a lot of detail, here's the gist of Gen Y / Millennials, according to the work of Howe and Strauss:

- History influences generations (millions of people)

- Generations influence history (via large social trends)

- One can find similarities in various generations throughout US history

- These similarities repeat over time, usually in the same order.

- Generation Y / Millennials is more like the generation who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II, than the previous generation who came of age largely during the 1910s (World War I) and 1920s (Prohibition).

- This is very macro, attempting to describe tens of millions of people, and their associative behavioral trends. Individual and group exceptions apply, etc.

What the presenters get at is that selling space development and NASA the way it was [not] sold to the Boomers and Gen X is not going to work, and that this bodes ill for NASA and space development in the future. There is heavy focus on NASA specifically, and one can make arguments for the enthused private business attempts at making space development a reality. These businesses are ran largely by Boomers and Xers (due to experiential and financial constraints), so enthusiasm is not restricted to the Millennials.

That may the concern that the presenters are getting at. The Boomers have the Moon Landing as a pivotal, shared historical experience. Gen X saw the space shuttle, and the infamous 1986 explosion on live TV. For the Millennials...space shuttles have always blown up, the space station was either Russian, or a continuously delayed international one.

From personal experience, I was born in 1982. I don't remember the shuttle explosion. The first major disaster was the Exxon Valdez spill. I remember the space station being a big deal right up until 1993, and then Mir fell into the ocean, after suffering through many problems. NASA seems to get less done, at a slower speed, than the City of San Antonio. Were it not for SICSA, I may have not have gotten into Space Architecture in the first place, going instead into hi-tech building design or urban planning.

As Dwayne A. Day writes,

"Unfortunately, the human projects are in worse shape. The shuttle is still grounded, the International Space Station is still years away from completion, and the bold new space exploration “Vision” is mired in the drudgery of budget politics. But wondrous things are happening way out there in the deep cold black of outer space and we do not have anybody to turn the science into poetry."

From personal experience, I was born in 1982. I don't remember the shuttle explosion. The first major disaster was the Exxon Valdez spill. I remember the space station being a big deal right up until 1993, and then Mir fell into the ocean, after suffering through many problems. NASA seems to get less done, at a slower speed, than the City of San Antonio. Were it not for SICSA, I may have not have gotten into Space Architecture in the first place, going instead into hi-tech building design or urban planning.

The Gen Y presenters call for making NASA (and/or its image) more interactive. Engage people with all the tools of social networking. My criticism is that internet-based technologies move fast, and trends faster. By the time someone at NASA has made a move, the crowds have moved on. Maybe letting private astronauts and scientists take their own initiative, if they so desire. But, a TV presence is still necessary, until astronauts can liveblog the launch experience from within the shuttle, and upload the video to YouTube.

Now, wouldn't that be cool?