Both CATS and DOGS are needed...

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Originally by Paul Fernhout on Sunday April 27 2003
Jeff Bezos' Shot At Space: Both CATS and DOGS are needed...
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=62113&cid=5821178

While it is excellent to see multiple billionaires pursuing cheap
access to space (CATS), this seems like a problem that will be much
easier to solve as new materials and processes come along (diamondoid
jet nozzles, fusion, etc.) in the near future. Several of these
entrepreneurs are of course already using newer materials and
processes (composites, active dynamics, small ground crews augmented
by fancy computers and software) relative to what NASA is stuck with
in maintaining an aging Shuttle.

While I would never say such innovative effort is wasted, it would
seem that launch technologies, while sexy, might really deserve
somewhat lower priorities than the issue of what to do when we are in
space. The fact is, we can launch people now, and relatively off-the-
shelf technology (e.g. Ariane or Saturn V equivalent rockets) if
manufactured in large quantities are probably Cheap-enough Access To
Space for the next ten to twenty years (until nano-tech makes far
better launch systems possible) especially if we are willing to accept
5% human casualties for launch (which is probably a far lower casualty
rate than most human settlement travel activities historically).

There is also an issue of focus -- people focus on reusable vehicles,
but the reality is that it is so costly to get things into space that
there is not much point in returning either people or equipment after
they have been launched. At best, Apollo era reentry capsules for
people who want to come back to earth are good enough. For example,
the space shuttle costs so much to launch relative to its production
cost it should really be left in orbit as usable equipment (since
anything in orbit is worth its weight in gold), and people returned in
a small capsule if at all. Even if launch costs are greatly reduced, I
think that a general outward trend of humanity will still reflect some
of this economics (short of a space elevator). For example, in the
USA, most people who went "West" during the 1800s probably never came
back East.

So where is a key area of research that should be a priority among
NASA and Billionaires, but is not heavily pursued? The issue is what
to do in space once you have gotten there. Because if there is a
reason to be in space, then people and collectives will work to get
there. And the reality is, that right now, if we could get there,
there is nothing to do there short of look around and come back. And
if that were the case, Space would not deserve much more investment
than say tourism to Mt. Everest. The reality is that we don't know how
to support human life in space -- in large part because we have only
spent a pittance on thinking about that issue systematically compared
to the issues of CATS and Planetary Exploration. Frankly, while we
support human life on earth, we have very little meta-knowledge
formally about how to do even that. And, most of figuring out how to
support human life in space at a nuts and bolts level requires non-
sexy activities like sitting around and staring out the window,
talking, sending emails, building databases, building software tools,
building some small physical protypes on tabletops and outdoors, and
just plain thinking (the hard stuff). This is all the preparation
needed for the spiritual voyage into the (physical) heavens. Biosphere
II was an excellent start in some ways, although the science mission
was a bit dodgy at first and it seems Columbia (the recipient) seems
about to abandon that effort for cost reasons --- and in any case,
Biosphere II focuses on the wrong question -- we know biospheres can
work and replicate (although scale is an issue) -- what we don't know
is how to replicate the mechanical infrastructure (e.g. glass pane
making machinery) behind them. A lot more money has gone into studying
ecosystem food webs than industrial ecologies of pipe webs and
assembly line webs (and frankly, a lot of people don't want their
"proprietary" manufacturing processes studied or gossipped about by
academics.)

Almost everything proposed as a reason to launch into space doesn't
make sense, as much as people have touted various suggestions. The
closest might be He3 mining for aneutronic fusion if we otherwise had
that technology, but even that issues (energy) is probably more easily
solved through conservation, energy efficiency (e.g. R60+ home
insulation), and photovoltaic and wind etc. alternate energy modes
(which are rapidly proving cost effective for many applications, and
will be only more so with new processes and materials over the next
twenty years). Asteroid mining turns out to not be that useful, since
recycling is a much better idea. Zero gravity turns out to not be so
valuable after all for manufacturing, since most of the processes can
be done on earth, or alternative materials used. And so on for various
other issues.

Exploration is noble and important as a long-term spiritual quest, but
it is a dubious priority in the short term considering how much ground
based telescopes can do quickly on earth, how valuable cheap robot
probes are, and how we are already slaughtering the other terrestrial
intelligences (Muslims, Aborigines, elephants) and extraterrestrial
intelligences (whales, octopods, etc.) we know of without much concern
or attempt to communicate and pursue any sort of cosmic brotherhood.

The only really sensible thing to do in space is to live there under
various social and technical systems. People like Freeman Dyson,
Gerard K. O'Neill, and Marshall T. Savage and many others have
discussed these issues. We aren't able to pursue this because we don't
know much about how to support human life on earth. We have little
understanding of the Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science
Buckminster Fuller proposed back in the 1930s or so. Economics is a
multi-trillion dollar joke, with economists having about zero
knowledge on how technical economies really work or develop
(otherwise, why have no developing nations left that category in one
hundred years?) We need to better understand how life is supported on
earth both biologically and technically so that we can replicate it
out there, and so we can then use asteroid resources, sunlight, and
empty space to support quadrillions of conscious souls pursuing
diverse ends in some sorts of diverse collaborations (such as J.D.
Bernal proposed in the 1920s.).
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Bernal/world/

As a bonus, once some people live in space, mine asteroids for their
own purposes, capture solar energy for their own purposes, use self-
replicating manufacturing systems for their own purposes, then CATS
really becomes CATE (Cheap Access To Earth) and for spacers who might
be 1000X more wealthy than groundhogs in terms of materials and energy
and innovation and cooperation, CATE would be easy, and CATS then
piggybacks as a slight imbalance in CATE tourism (although why most
spacers would want to go anywhere near a gravity well would probably
be a deep psychological question with profound moral overtones like
"spacer's burden" and all that rot).

So, while it is great to see all these billionaires pursuing CATS, it
would be great to see more people pursuing DOGS (Design Of Great
Settlements). Since NASA is stuck running an obsolete space ferry it
has little attention left over for DOGS. Since Billionaires are doing
the sexy CATS stuff, that leaves the rest of us to go to the DOGS.

And disclaimer: DOGS is essentially what I am working on with the
Pointrel Foundation and related activities, but unlike Jeff Bezos (a
sort-of classmate from Princeton -- Hi Jeff!) what I am working on
with just my own spare time (not being a billionaire, and frankly,
realizing even a billion bucks is not even a bone to throw to the
DOGS) is how that issue of what to do if we got into space could be
pursued the same way Debian GNU/Linux is pursued. And, I find, when
you pursue such a space settlement design science in the right spirit,
the work is also immediately applicable on Earth as sustainable
technology (such as our garden simulator -- intended to help people
grow food wherever in the cosmos they live). My wife and I published a
paper on how an open source / free software collaboration style
approaches could be used to make DOGS happen in the 2001 Space Studies
Institute symposium on Space Manufacturing and Space Settlement. I
really should put that up on the website sometime... Till then, the
OSCOMAK site http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/ is a much earlier
vision along these lines...

And frankly, the biggest thing holding me back is not directly money
or time but is simply trying to deal creatively and appropriately with
the issue that if I really make something like OSCOMAK and open it up
on the web as a collective effort (ala say Wikipedia or Everything2),
some security agencies might try to shut it down as a "terrorist" site
because someone else will add a design for a box cutter (or whatever)
and someone else will then complain that is a tool of terrorism and
the site could be providing aid and comfort to terrorists. So our
collective fear is keeping us all from a promising future. I hope that
issue is resolveable, by using peer-to-peer tools to distribute the
liability (i.e. people host their own designs or put them into a
usenet/freenet like network), but even with that idea it will probably
only be moved forward by taking significant personal risks as a free
software and free content author and hoping that courts will
eventually show some sanity like they did in the recent Grokster peer-
to-peer ruling (which is still appealable though). I have no interest
in aiding terrorists or lawbreakers -- it is just that you can't
empower all the people without some of them doing bad things. But that
empowerment is supposed to be what freedom and democracy and diversity
is about.

So, here is to the day when space settlements are "free like a
puppy". :-) CATS will then get you to where the DOGS are.