Rick,
Just got finished reading the above referenced issue of SN which came round yesterday after having been read by a few others. Your editorial does a great deal to explain your organization's position on "Alpha Town." Unfortunately, after six paragraphs of righteous indignation in which every word is perfect, your line of reasoning wanders off into the very box that constrains our growth.
"The US space program is not, and has never been, designed to open the frontier." True enough! Then why is it that, "NASA must be transformed..." when it should so clearly be eliminated? NASA has never supported US space enterprises, but has repeatedly proven its unwillingness to let others play on its turf.
On the very page where your editorial appears, Representative Tiahart tells us that the NASA Federal Laboratory Review criticized NASA for failing to incorporate commercial and military options in the "Mission to Planet Earth" due to a "not invented or measured here syndrome."
You go on to say that "...the government's role in space must be to help Americans begin their new national mission, the settlement of space." As Thoreau points out, the one thing the government can do in its role, the most helpful thing it is capable of, is getting out of the way. Governments do not settle frontiers. Never have, never will. Thus, it is not surprising that the US government's space program is not and has never been designed to open the frontier.
The reason most people see Alpha having no purpose other than to exist is because existence is its only purpose. Since 1972, NASA has had the same single purpose. It has continued to exist not because it is really good at anything, but because its existence is necessary for the jobs of its directors and their staff. It has a contractor or subcontractor in every Congressional district not because that serves any scientific or technological purpose, but because it enhances the ability of NASA to continue existing.
You then contend that government facilities on frontiers provided the nuclei for settlements by creating demand for goods and services. That is utter rubbish. The American West was explored and settled by coureurs de bois, fur trappers and traders, mountain men, and homesteaders because there existed as a prior condition a substantial market for the products of the frontier. The government did not create the demand for animal furs. The government did not create the demand for timber. The government did not create the demand for agricultural products. Those demands existed long before the US government came into existence, and predate every other extant government on the planet by 10,000 years.
Indeed, before European settlers came, there was already an indigenous population in America which was able to develop the production of fur, timber, and agriculture without any assistance from a government such as yours. Somehow they tamed the land. Somehow they made trees into great log houses. Somehow they raised crops. Somehow they trapped animals for their fur. That the Native Americans were able to do so without the interference of a government should surprise no one.
The American West, like all frontiers, was settled by individuals acting on their own, motivated by self-interest, and supported by technologies they were able to purchase or create on their own. No government project to research and develop new technologies for the American West existed in the Nineteenth Century or before. No one helped the inventors of the Conestoga wagon with government research facilities. No one showed Eli Whitney how to apply standardized parts and assembly line techniques to the manufacture of rifles through some government sponsored small business research grant.
You then claim that "Transportation routes for frontiers were established or improved at government expense..." which is also pure nonsense, unsupported by the facts. Are you referring to the railroads? What did the government do to support railroad development? It provided land grants to the railroads. It granted land which it never owned in the first place. It passed its unearned title to the private sector where it could do some good. How did the US come by the Louisiana Territory? The US purchased it from Napoleon. Ah, and how did Boney get it? He picked it up from his predecessors in France who got it by sending a funny explorer guy with a flag to claim it. Did they ask the natives who owned it? Of course not. Heathens don't understand these lofty concepts. Did they pay for the land? No, of course not. Why should a government pay for what it can claim as its own by the divine right of kings or other such silliness?
So the US took a part of the land for which it had paid Napoleon a trivial sum (just over 2 cents per acre) and granted it to railroads for their exclusive use. And you allege that this magnanimity constitutes establishing or improving a transportation route? Hardly. Had the government simply gotten out of the way and allowed the railroads to either a) claim land in the same way governments do, or b) purchase land from the indigenous inhabitants, the effect would have been the same. The railroads would have had just as much work to do raising capital, buying materials, and developing advanced steam engines, work which the government utterly failed to help.
The Oregon Trail was not established by any government. It was a wide ranging trail established by pioneers and settlers who found many different routes. Individuals like James Bridger and John Bidwell did much of the establishing of this route. The route was abandoned in the 1870s, so it can safely be said that no government ever improved upon it.
The Chisholm Trail was established by one man, Jesse Chisholm, who drove a heavily laden wagon through Indian territory in 1866, cutting deep wheel grooves in the prairie soil. These grooves marked out a trail followed for two decades by traders and cattle drovers. It, too, was abandoned before it could be improved by a government.
I'm intimately aware of the details of American History and the whole range of the Age of Reconnaissance from Marco Polo to Frederick Jackson Turner. You see, as I was pursuing my degree in History at Columbia, I was intrigued by the comparison between the opening of previous frontiers and the opening of the space frontier. I can assure you that in every instance you would care to name from 1200 to 1890, it was the perseverence of individuals rather than the prescience of governments which established transportation routes to frontiers. Name an event or route, and I'll be glad to illuminate its history for you.
As for "...the governments' official demonstration of confidence in their expanded dominion [giving] people who might invest in the wilderness psychological permission to go for it," I have never read a more amusing phrase. Many frontiers were settled long before the official confidence of any government had been demonstrated. You may be familiar with the Oregon Territory, which was the subject of disputed claims between the US and Britain. It was thoroughly explored and settled long before the issue of dominion was established.
It was not the government's confidence which caused settlers to move west of the Appalachians. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence cites as a complaint against King George that he prevented the settlement of the Ohio Valley and other western territories due to foolish commitments made at the end of the French & Indian War. It was the fact that rich lands, great timber and fur resources, and the prospect of trade by a network of rivers which enticed settlers to "go for it," not any permission, psychological or otherwise. Indeed, it was in direct violation of the prohibition by the British government that those settlers went West.
Cortez did not burn his ships and march on Mexico with permission. The Gold Rush was not approved behavior. The settlement of Utah by Mormons seeking to escape American religious persecution was not due to any psychological permission granted by US government confidence.
Science suggests that a hypothesis need only be disproven by a single data point. Unfortunately, history is not looked upon as a science. So rather than contend that I have adequately disproven your hypothesis, I'll ask you to give me just one example of people who might invest in the wilderness being given "psychological permission" by the official demonstration of a government's confidence in its expanded dominion.
Without reviewing history to see if your premises were correct, you boldly charged ahead to formulate policies which are of limited usefulness at best, and are more likely to hinder the opening of the frontier over the long run. I find your policy outline very poor.
You state, "After the completion of the assembly phase, all US government transportation needs for the station - flights to and from Alpha - will be competitively provided by private US firms." Two bad policy items are obvious prima facie. First, you wait until after the completion of the assembly phase. While this delay is necessary if redesign of the station is not to be necessitated (since all spacecraft are designed to the intended launch vehicle), it is terribly bad policy. When will the assembly phase be complete? Is that a fixed date or is that a moving target like all other NASA deadlines? If there is good policy reason for all transportation needs to be served by competitive bidding from the private sector, why wait until one of the most transportation-intensive projects ever conceived is complete before implementing this policy?
Second, you limit the requirement for competitive private transportation to flights to and from Alpha. If private space transportation is the proper policy, it should certainly be applied across the board to all US civil space activities, not limited to station.
You then say, "The government's new role in space will be to use its purchasing and regulatory powers to catalyze the creation of a transportation corridor." Bad policy. First, the government has used its purchasing power unwisely for far too long to suggest that it will suddenly help open the space frontier by reforming its use of money. No, there have been many inquiries into the way military and aerospace procurements are conducted, and there have been essentially no improvements to the practices since WWII despite the recommendations from every commission. Second, regulatory powers don't create anything. They inhibit.
The regulatory agencies which limit access to nuclear materials inhibit the development of nuclear propulsion systems, one of the few implementations of rocket technology which might drastically reduce the cost of access to orbit. The regulatory agencies which license launch services are still designing the regulations which will inhibit private transportation of passengers into space, and so no passenger launch services _can_ be licensed at this time. When you recognize that regulators are not your friends, you will be well on your way toward formulating policy which will open the frontier.
You say that the commercial space shuttle managers should be given title and rights to do with the shuttles as they please. Why? Do they intend to pay for these vehicles? Do they intend to compensate the taxpaying public for the billions of dollars of research that went into them? Or are they to be given these vehicles at no cost? If that is your idea of competition, you have no concept of market economics. Dumping launch vehicles on the open market is certainly a good way to get the cost of access to orbit down in the short run, and as such is a practice I favor. But it can hardly be called competitive.
Even so, with a real cost of over $500 million per flight, it will not be possible for the "commercial" space shuttle to operate competitively. Thus, unless the government massively subsidizes its launch cost, we will soon see real competition. Unless, as you fear, the commercial shuttle is given sole source rights, beginning with station assembly and continuing indefinitely into the future.
Then you call for added funding for NASA's X33. While it is quite unlikely, since added funding would help create competition for the commercial shuttle, it is also bad policy. The government needs to have less of a role in creating and parcelling out technology for space transportation. The private sector, if it were unleashed from the burdensome inhibitions of government regulations is more than capable of developing new transportation technologies. Indeed, the genius of the Delta Clipper project was that the government managers placed as few burdens on the private sector contractor team as possible.
Raising the X33 to the top level in the administration is only likely to cause it to become a political football among the candidates in next year's presidential campaign. While you might find that beneficial since it would raise awareness to a national level, I find it very unfortunate. Once again the taxpayer is led to believe that by putting his hard earned dollars into yet another government funded missile project, this time he'll have a chance to fly in space. That was the story behind Mercury Redstone, Mercury Atlas, Gemini Titan, the Saturn series of vehicles, and the Shuttle. The Shuttle was supposed to fly so often at such a low cost that access to space would be available at $50 per pound. Remember how those figures turned out to be lies, all lies?
Yet somehow, this time it is different. The players are all the same. Same government. Same laws. Same regulations. Same NASA. Same aerospace contractor companies. But you just have to close your eyes and _believe_ you can fly, Wendy. Sorry Peter Pan, that may work in Never Never Land, but it doesn't work in the USA.
You then call for legislation to encourage the recycling of space hardware to provide usable volume in orbit. Of course, if there were a market for large pressurized volumes, one would expect it to be served by the private sector if it were able to operate without anticompetitive practices by governments which tend to give things away. Indeed, the private sector is doing its part, as you mention when you commend Boeing for its work in keeping Mir operational.
But there is no evidence that we need legal and financial incentives to encourage recycling of things like the shuttle external tank. Rather, we need fewer inhibitions to the use of such materials. NASA has already been required by legislation to turn over external tanks to the private sector, some years back. Its idea of doing so was to ask for proposals from the private sector on how these resources would be used, and approve a small number of entities for future external tank sales or leasing.
Wouldn't it have been simpler for NASA to just stop throwing the ET away in a complicated maneuver prior to reaching orbit on every shuttle mission? Wouldn't it have been easier to just take a few ETs into orbit and auction them off? Of course, NASA hasn't done any such thing for the simple reason that the recycled External Tank represents a threat to the space station.
Of course, we could make it a new law that all pressure vessels that can reach orbit be recycled for use as pressurized volume. That seems like the kind of unnecessary law that makes the lives of entrepreneurs much more complicated and costly, but what the hell, we're trying to open a frontier here. If government intervention is stupid, at least it is highly visible. We can point to this new stupid law and show how we've done something important.
Mind you, your call for tax abatements, investment credits, and tax free zones sounds excellent. I'm always in favor of people not paying taxes. Indeed, I recommend that people who produce products and services in space thumb their noses at governments everywhere and make it clear that they owe no taxes to anyone. Let the governments try to steal tax dollars from space dwellers by developing more advanced techniques for reaching space. Meanwhile, the tax resisters will be motivated to move further out into space to avoid taxes. Thus we will see a great race between the thieving governments of the Earth and the technologically productive population of space. Perhaps that kind of space race really will open up the frontier.
In your third bulleted point, you say, "...the goal is not to grow an expanding federal building in space..." which begs the question, why build even a small federal building in space, to begin with? If your goal is not to have a federal boondoggle of a space station, then why support a federal space station? Just because funds have already been extorted from the taxpayers and appropriated for a space station doesn't mean you are justified in attempting to perpetuate a stupid project because you might manage to make a small portion of it fit your objectives. No, stupid projects should be eliminated. Stop trying to be only a little hypocritical, and give up hypocrisy entirely.
Then you top it all by saying, "NASA must reverse its fear and loathing of such [private] projects. Instead of killing other approaches to using space, NASA managers' jobs will be to seed, nurture, and crusade for them." Which is a beautiful thought, really, but so unrealistic as to border on fantasy. It has all the merits of setting the cat to babysit the canary. When NASA managers have a hard time speaking in the future, we'll be unsurprised to see feathers flying from their throats.
No, look, give it up. NASA has repeatedly shown that it is unwilling to tolerate commercial ventures which compete with its existence-justifying projects. NASA has killed research projects that threatened the shuttle, offered free launches to customers of private launch services firms, even killed off a private effort to sell weightless training flights on private aircraft flying parabolic flight profiles. And you want to have legislation implemented that will magically clear away decades of purposeful malice to substitute goodness and light by fiat! The sunniness of your optimism is positively blinding.
You then speak of "Alpha Town," as "...an intellectual framework upon which we build the reality of human space settlement." Unfortunately, it is an intellectual framework based on the false premise that governments are sufficient or even necessary conditions for the opening of frontiers. It is an intellectual construct founded on the principle that since the government is already spending all this money on space station, the least we can do is divert some of its activity to human settlement. It is an intellectual fairy castle based on the idea that NASA is capable of being reformed into the kind of entity which cooperates with the private sector rather than crushing all competitors.
Your intellectual framework lacks rigor. It is not possible, as Ludwig von Mises, for a bureaucracy to do anything but promulgate its own growth. And so, your conclusion that there is "...no reason to have a federal building in space," is quite correct. Even with your "Alpha Town," there is no reason for a space station funded by government agencies. Indeed, it is just another means to the usual end, what you so cogently describe as "...the government either controlling or killing all human space activities other than its own...."
What needs to be done is much different, and much simpler. Government needs to be discouraged from being involved in any way in space activities. NASA must be eliminated. Its employees should be fired, its contracts cancelled, its facilities closed. All facilities and equipment which do not revert to the private sector by prior contract should be sold off.
Will the elimination of NASA spell the end of space activities? Of course not. People need images from orbit to forecast crop production and identify mineral resources. People need satellites for communication. People want to go into space, creating a need for space tourism facilities. People need to explore beyond their current horizons, creating the need for an open frontier. Wherever people have needs, the economic system called capitalism offers fulfillment. Private companies will meet the needs of private interests, better, faster, and at lower cost than any government project.
People don't need NASA. NASA has for too long stood in the way of an open frontier. It should not be rewarded with a continuing role in human settlement of space. As you so clearly point out, NASA is incapable of allowing the private sector to open space, and is unwilling to do anything more than repackage its Cold War programs. It is past time for the dinosaur to become extinct, so that the mammals which have been struggling in its shadow can occupy the ecological niches it has been dominating.