The point of this blog isn’t to talk about the debate in Congress, the point is that regardless of the decisions that are made by the politicians of this country, we will not propel space exploration forward unless we believe that we will end up victorious.  Mohandas Gandhi once said that “a small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history”.  Well I am here to tell you that this paradigm can have both positive and negative impacts.   We are at a cross road in NASA’s history, and where NASA goes from here will not be decided by Congress, but by the dedicated men and women that work at NASA.  If we believe that the end of America’s leadership in space is over, then no amount of money will help us keep that leadership.

Leadership begins with oneself….

Responsibility begins here….

We can not always choose our environment, but we can always choose to do our best.  If NASA is to remain a leader in space and be a source of inspiration to the world, we must stop looking up for leadership and we must start leading up.  We ALL have the capacity to influence our environment for the better, and if we are to remain a leader in space we must take every opportunity to make things better.

That means, that we must end the CYA paradigm that plagues NASA, and replace it with paradigm of personal responsibility.

Imagine how great NASA would be if everyone at NASA took personal responsibility for the quality and safety of the work they did, instead of separate groups being tasked to police the work of others.

Imagine how great NASA would be if when a group’s utility was no longer needed, the leader’s first inclination was not to invent reasons to keep the group alive, but to help those in the group transition to other opportunities that would safely allow the group to be eliminated.

Imagine how great NASA would be if instead of trying to save a dime to do more mission, NASA invested in those who execute the mission so that they can handle more mission.

Imagine how great NASA would be if instead of us pointing the finger at others, we pointed the fingers at ourselves and took the time to see the good in others.

Do the negative things I implied above happen?  Yes.  Do I think they are bad?  No!  I think they are human.  Failure is not only an option, failure is imminent, because we are human.  The question is how do we succeed in an imperfect world where failure is a fact of life?  We do it by remembering that leadership begins with oneself, and that responsibility begins here.  We do it by accepting that NASA’s fate is in our hands, not in the hands of those above us or in the hands of those far away.

We can all help NASA be better, and each of us knows best how we can help.  I encourage everyone to search deep in oneself to find your personal way of helping NASA be better, and I have faith that we will all have the courage to do so when the opportunities present themselves.  The path forward will not be easy, but I have no doubt that we will not only remain leaders in space, we will inspire the world with as much vigor as days gone by.

Upon the return of each crew (both ISS and Shuttle), the training teams traditionally decorate the hallway of the crewmembers’ building with pictures, quotes, and other decorations, to welcome each crew back home.

Since a good majority of the Expedition 22 crew were avid Tweeters, the training team thought it would be a neat idea to gather well wishes & welcome home greetings from the crew’s followers to include on the wall.

So, here’s your chance to send a quick personalized message to @Astro_TJ, @Astro_Soichi, & Oleg Kotov. Please @reply me (@msengupta) with your thoughts. If you do not have a Twitter account, you may also leave comments on this blog…BUT, please keep them short – only the first line of your comment will be used on the wall. Deadline is Friday, 6/11, 12p CDT.

Those dreams that I often don’t let myself contemplate, for fear that it will take my attention away from the practical steps that I am focused on now that may enable me to achieve those dreams in the future.

When I am contemplative, I sit back and consider the current plans of those who struggle along side me in Man’s efforts to escape Earth and what is on her.

SpaceX, Orbital, Blue Origin, Boeing, XCOR. Astronautical Engineering courses. Sweeping arcs showing Launch Vehicle Kilograms to circular orbits or escape velocity. Job postings for dynamic Loads engineer, Avionics Test Engineer, Solar Array Engineer. Rarefied Gas Dynamics, Shock Waves and dynamic pressure, nozzle expansion ratios, Melting points, rotation rates, electric discharge arc voltages, power budgets, star trackers, Nickle hydrogen batteries, redundant wiring harnesses…

This is the swarm of brushes, paints on the palate, media types, artistic methods, and implements by which Man creates the works of art that are space exploration.

These are the building blocks of the dreams of spaceflight.

In Space, Man can reinvent society. Find solitude in a nature never beheld by man, and discover alien lifeforms and landscapes. He can plunge to great depths, explode to ultimate heights, insulate himself from the deepest colds and deflect the searing heat of stars far brighter than the sun. He can blast the new knowledge that he gathers through antenna dishes across light years of space or find complete isolation from any and all who could want to communicate. He can travel at incredible speeds or swing in spiraling arcs betwixt alien moons and super-massive planets.

Finally, Man can find himself and what it is to be man when the circumstances that crowd his home of Earth have fallen away leaving him singularly alone with his consciousness and ambition.

Mankind can roll the dice again on himself, his society, and world in a billion billion different places with as many new sets of rules and society-shaping constraints.

Water Jet Operator, Turbomachinery Engineer, Planetary Scientist, Ground Control operator, Mission director, Astronaut. We are legion.

I am John Wilson Benac. I am in the midst of a structured masters degree program from the University of Southern California to learn a coherent and synergistic set of skills to enable me to shape the machines to carry man’s dreams outward. I work 8 hours a day ensuring that the life support systems hardware that launches and returns from the International Space Station supports the mission requirements. I choose, along with thousands of others, the pursuit of space exploration as my careear’s work. And God willing, I shall move mankind outward into the void in which God placed us, to find the shores of distant lands which he created for his truly ambitions and blessed children to attain.

What paintings will be created with the pallet mankind so painstakingly prepares? The Space Shuttle, Space Station, Delta, Atlas, Proton, Soyuz, GPS, Arienne machines were once concepts alongside hundreds of other ideas which never were realized. As in the 1950s, countless tabletop designs ask for our limited resources to turn them into actual dream machines.

From Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s 1903 “The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices” to Jules Verne’s 1865 “From the Earth to the Moon” and Hermann Oberth’s 1923 “The Rocket into Planetary Space,” all the way through the countless college students, practicing engineers, and enchanted layman, we dream and imagine together what man may do in the limitless star filled expanse that is outer space.

Perhaps I should indulge in the pleasure and wonder by conceiving of a few paintings of my own rather than focus on the palate from which the paintings are created.

JSC is an interesting amalgamation of new and old, a distinct dichotomy of past and present; where many buildings stand, having weathered decades of political, societal, even meteorological storms. Time and technology’s marks have been left on their interiors, which have endured series of renovations and upgrades.

Last week, strolling through the relatively empty parking lot of Mission Control, I thought a lot about the role and duty we have as space enthusiasts to reach out and engage the general public, who’re unaware of the vast benefits and implications of the human spaceflight program.

Over the next few days, I had a bit of an enlightening moment.

On February 1st of this year, the President announced his new plan for NASA. Add whatever superlative you’d like to describe the plan, but one thing one cannot deny is that it is, in fact, quite dissimilar from what we are used to. I mean, he’s talking about landing on an asteroid…Armageddon-style (clearly not how we’d do it, but I say that simply to emphasize a point: that’s what the public will think of as soon as this plan is officially adopted).

The transition is soon to be upon us, and as I pondered this, I came to the following realization: what better way to approach and work through a transition than actively work to communicate NASA and human spaceflight’s value to those around us, in whatever small way we can?

Think about this before the thought is discounted.

Think about the societal impact that human spaceflight has made over the years. In its peak of popularity amongst the general public, those very same people – the taxpayers – knew exactly what NASA was doing. After all, we had a singular goal: beat the Russians to the moon. Easy to stand behind a single goal, right?

Understandably, as technology has developed, so, too, have the agency’s goals…to the point where the average Joe Schmo no longer has a clear idea of what NASA is trying to accomplish, or even what the agency is working on across its ten centers.

So, what does this mean? The unique thing, in my eyes, about the spaceflight community is the number of advocates it has, in and out of the ranks of the agency and its contracting community. There are space enthusiasts of varying levels not just across the US, but across the world. Space exploration has a magical influence on those who crave adventure that overpowers every sense and engulfs the mind. It’s that inexplicable feeling of overwhelming excitement and fascination that I’ve yet been able to articulate into words, and not for a lack of trying, I might add.

In my last post, I challenged the NASA employees and the NASA Tweetup participants. I mentioned that we have a collective responsibility to engage those around us and communicate the excitement we felt at the time of our space “firsts.” And after thinking about this over the last few days, I realized that it’s not just those affiliated with NASA who have this obligation. It’s a responsibility we must all share as space enthusiasts, regardless of whether we’ve set foot inside any one of NASA’s centers.

Just think about the implications of turning to your friend, who doesn’t even know that Atlantis and her crew were hard at work these last couple of weeks, who may not even know that we had twelve people living and breathing off the planet, who may not even know that we have had continuous human presence in space for so many years, and telling him/her about ALL of those things and more. What if we worked collectively and actively over the next several months to excite those around us with those facts and our own personal stories? What if, through this transition, more and more people learned about all the interesting and exciting things that NASA has done in the past, continues to do, and most importantly, all of the great number of achievements left before us? After all…hello, 21st century, adventure is calling, and we really need to answer. Asteroids? Sure! Mars? You betcha! The possibilities are truly limitless. And I should insert a note here to deter naysayers from commenting on the current future of our space program: I purposely bolded century, as we have a long ways to go until the end…the century does not end after the next election cycle, nor after 2020 when we were supposed to have a US human presence on the moon, and definitely not after 2030 when humans were to live on Mars.

My naïve, little mind tells me that this could perhaps be the silver lining to the grey cloud of transition. I don’t see the lack of our national capability to send people into LEO as a negative thing anymore. Sure, it stinks a little bit…but as we work to build the next generation of vehicles, there’s no reason we can’t help to inspire the next generation of explorers.

Work large, work small…it doesn’t matter how many people you reach out to, but think about the implication of just this small action.

Stories are powerful…and personal stories, they convey the emotions and subtleties that a simple third-hand recounting just cannot. Think back to the first time you saw Mission Control, or the first time you met an astronaut, the first time you saw the Space Shuttle roar to the sky, or even the first time an astronaut wrote to you on Twitter. Think about the excitement that you felt and the awe that it inspired. Think about getting to share that feeling, about getting to share in that passion with someone else. There’s no reason we can’t all, in our own way, tell people about the amazing experiences we’ve had, whether it’s working at NASA or just visiting.

I’ve realized over the course of the last two weeks the true impact of communicating our story to those around me. Engaging, even after the event, with the NASA Tweetup participants has demonstrated to me, in a profoundly significant way, the true greatness of the opportunity I have. Not until yesterday did I realize the unique vantage point I’m privy to…the ability (and now the willingness) to tell all of the people I get to meet through these opportunities about the amazing things NASA does.

So, I extend my challenge – not to just you, but myself, as well. You all share that unique perspective, in one form or another, as space enthusiasts.

How will you capitalize on it?

These folks dropped everything they were doing for 2+ days, to fly, drive, walk, run (OK, maybe I exaggerated on the latter two), to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), where they were given the chance of a lifetime to interact with NASA professionals and see the sites where the US human spaceflight program roared to life. Their stay culminated in the witnessing of a now almost historical event: a space shuttle launch.

Now, in hindsight, I admit that walking into the STS-132 Tweetup tent for the first time overwhelmed me a bit…after all, I’d just walked into an area with 150+ almost new faces, something I probably hadn’t done since college. Over the next day and a half, I had a chance to interact with many of the participants, as we shared an experience I’m sure many of us will never forget. I think what struck me most throughout that time, and even today, is how passionate and excited they all were to not only get to see all of these awe-inspiring sites (undoubtedly ones many of us grew up reading about), but how generally interested they were in spaceflight.

Living and working in the bowels of our nation’s human spaceflight program affords us many opportunities and benefits. It is, however, incredibly easy (moreso than I ever could’ve imagined) to become jaded and unknowingly unappreciative of the incredible nature of it all. We, as NASA employees, have the perfect vantage point and opportunity to share both our own and our agency’s passion, drive, and accomplishments towards human spaceflight; and I’d be willing to argue that in some respect, it is our duty to act as ambassadors, facilitating conversations and interacting with those around us, to communicate (within reason, of course) our own personal raison d’etre for contributing to the human spaceflight program.

In the days since the tweetup, I’ve chatted with several of the participants I met in Florida. The most amazing thing to note about all of these interactions? They are still SO excited about what they got to be a part of last week. Their fervent passion has “recharged” me in a way, reminding me that what I am fortunate enough to do on a day-to-day basis is actually pretty amazing – and for that, I’m incredibly, incredibly grateful to all of them.

Now the question: just as NASA’s employees have an opportunity to be ambassadors for NASA, do the participants of all of NASA’s incredibly successful “Tweetups” have a similar chance and responsibility now? If so, what is the best way to leverage their (your) current excitement, and reach out to their (your) friends, families, and communities to engage them while sharing their (your) passion for space exploration?

This is our challenge, regardless of the level of affiliation we have with the US human spaceflight program. As space enthusiasts, we have a collective responsibility to share the amazing accomplishments and communicate the excitement we all felt when we first saw a shuttle launch, or walked into Mission Control, or talked to an astronaut.

And so, my challenge to not only the NASA employees reading this, but also the #NASATweetup participants, is how do we share our excitement and wonder with those around us? What’s the best way to share our experiences and have others share in our passion? How can we all partner together to connect with those around us?

When I was growing up, asking a classroom full of kids that question almost always included the answer “I want to be an astronaut!”  Space was cool. Space was something new, innovative and entrepreneurial. Inspiration was clearly NASA’s main value proposition.

Compare that with today.

What inspires tomorrow’s explorers, engineers and business leaders? From my personal experience, it has less and less to do with NASA, and more and more to do with other, well let’s just say “cooler” things.

Tomorrow’s leaders want to work for the “cool” company. They want to work for the next Google. The one that is open to new ideas. And so I wonder, how do we make NASA cool again? How do we use our space program as a catalyst to pass along that innovative, entrepreneurial, American spirit that got us to the moon in less than 10 years and launched a generation of innovators? Or better yet, how do we communicate all the cool things NASA is actually doing? Because, whether you know it or not, NASA does some amazing things!

I think it’s simple. Let them participate.

Think about it. Isn’t going to space so much cooler when you get to actually go?  Isn’t that lunar rover so much better when you actually get to build it and then drive it?  Isn’t that classroom outreach visit by the astronaut so much more relevant when they answer your question and then ask you one?

People want to be personally engaged. People want to see how they fit into the big picture. People, of all ages, want to be inspired. So that’s our challenge. We call it“participatory exploration” – creating a government agency that engages the American public in its mission and inspires the next generation of explorers, no matter what they want to be when they grow up.

How do people participate in what you do?

If you are in an organization, with a great product, that is having a tough time convincing your customers of your value proposition, you are not alone. I challenge you to think about how you can create a platform for participation in your organization. Don’t settle for mediocrity by just exposing people to or educating them about your product, collaborate with them to make it better.

If you want to attract the best and the brightest, open up your doors to new ideas and use participatory initiatives to attract the best and brightest earlier by allowing them to participate in your company.

At NASA, we know that business models are not eternal and we’re challenging the way we’ve always done things by working to make participatory exploration a core part of our business model. Whether NASA is designing the next exploration missions, using social networks to allow students to interact directly with astronauts living in space or creating a cutting edge Cloud Computing Platform to give the public unprecedented access to scientific data, NASA is engaging the American public in its mission.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a few of the successful initiatives that are leading the way at NASA:

• NASA’s highly successful Centennial Challenges prize program has engaged inventors from around the country to successfully build prototypes of technology and innovation for use in space.
• We’re using social engagement tools to collect hundreds of ideas for improving the agency’s openness and transparency, more suggestions than any other government agency.
• Through a new policy initiative, NASA is working to make open source software development more collaborative for the benefit of the agency and the public. NASA has created “Nebula,” the U.S. government’s only cloud computing platform, which offers an easier way for NASA scientists and researchers to share large, complex data sets with external partners and the public.
• NASA is giving the public live access to its missions through NASA TV and its many social media sites.
• NASA’s education outreach program includes initiatives where students have opportunities to control space instruments remotely.
• NASA is establishing a new Participatory Exploration Office, which will be charged with infusing more public participation into NASA’s mission in order to directly engage citizens in exploration.

This article is cross-posted from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business “McCombs Today” Blog and was originally published on May 14th, 2010.

I seem to always go back to this when I talk about my space adventures, but seventeen years ago, sitting in the viewing area of the Shuttle Flight Control Room (FCR), I still remember being in awe of the remarkable technological beauty that lay before me. To me, this was the epicenter of space…of everything I’d read and dreamed about for what, at the time, seemed so long. So, when I finally walked through the gates of Johnson Space Center as an employee, I was giddy with excitement.

In January, I arrived early, early one morning and made my way across a relatively empty parking lot, footsteps echoing on the pavement, towards Mission Control – the very ground human spaceflight pioneers and legends treaded years ago. That morning, I sat in the International Space Station (ISS) FCR for the first time, supporting my crew onboard the ISS during robotics operations. I watched as they used the concepts and techniques we’d trained months before, and I left later that morning, feeling as if things had come full circle, in a way. From eight to twenty-five, I had finally achieved my goal, the dream I’d had and declared as soon as I’d left the Shuttle FCR viewing room that fateful day years ago.

Thursday afternoon, I stared in utter silence and disbelief as the Orbiter Atlantis was unveiled to the world on Pad 39A, in preparation for her final voyage the following day. She majestically gleamed against the orange backdrop of her External Tank, flanked by the Solid Rocket Boosters that would propel her and her crew into the sky and literally out of this world. I returned later that night, to see her sparkling against the night sky; and though bright lights were shining to accentuate her innate beauty, I had no doubt in my mind that she didn’t need them at all.

And Friday…I have yet to be able to articulate my Friday in words. I still feel nothing could truly do such an awe-inspiring, magnificent, and beautiful sight justice. I still remember the feel of my heart beating with wild abandon, as I watched my crew walk out of their quarantine quarters and into the Astro Van, the recognizable, silver vehicle used to bring crew to the launch pad and their awaiting spacecraft, knowing just a few short hours later, they would be making an amazing, incredible trip.

The next four hours disappeared before I could even realize it, and there I was staring at the countdown clock, with the rest of the world, looking on as we came out of the t minus nine minute hold. And then, what seemed to be instantaneously, white smoke billowed around Atlantis, and every sensory organ was overloaded with intense feedback from her ascent into the heavens. I could not begin to accurately describe the magnitude of the rumbling heard and felt from our vantage point just three miles away, nor could I fully express the emotions that overtook me during those eight minutes until main engine cut off, when Atlantis finally embarked on her remaining orbits of our beautiful planet. With hands clasped over my mouth, a few tears in my eyes, I followed a trail of fire, propellant, and smoke, until Atlantis, a mere speck of light in the clear, cloudless, blue sky, disappeared.

I later realized that I was dumbfounded observing the entire sequence of events. Only hours after the fact did tears really well up in my eyes (and even now, as I recount), as it dawned on me that I’d witnessed a feat that truly characterizes the ingenuity, perseverance, innovation, and dedication of mankind. So, you see the dilemma – how can words even begin to do justice to a marvel of human creation? How can words even accurately begin to illustrate the result of the hard work and passion that is evidenced in every aspect of our human spaceflight industry? How can I even articulate an experience that has left me reeling so intensely and inspired me to continue to pursue one of my two passions in life (the other being music), in whatever capacity I am able?

This past week has been oddly bittersweet. Not only have I officially completed my training with the crew, but with a heavy heart, I’ve realized, despite my reluctance to do so, that what I’ve known during my life time with regard to the human spaceflight program is about to undergo a drastic change. The vehicle I grew up knowing, the one that’s just a few years older than me, is approaching its end, sitting on a deathbed that was laid a little over six years ago. And yet, after marveling at one of the greatest feats of human creativity and intelligence, I can’t help but feel comfort and hope that though our national human spaceflight capabilities will be on-hold, so to speak, temporarily…we will rise from this, more passionate, more resilient, more confident, more experienced, and more determined than ever before. Whatever plan gets finalized, however the budgets eventually roll out…we must not forget the innate yearning that we, as a species, have to explore. We now have the opportunity to draw from all of our many impressive years of experience and inspire others to not only marvel at our ingenuity and initiative, but contribute and invest in it. We now stand at a crossroads, at which we have the opportunity to honor those who have given their lives to help mankind escape the gravitational bonds that have tethered us to this lustrous planet for centuries, and explore the recesses of the unknown, bit by bit, in order to understand, appreciate, and provide for our species. Regardless of the next step, let us not forget that we are all passionate about the same thing; let us not ignore our inner child, who declared his/her desire to become an astronaut at age eight; and all the while, let us honor the legacies of the past, by embracing the possibilities and potential of the future. We owe those who’ve sacrificed their lives for the advancement of mankind at least that bit.

Not only do we have external and internal threats to our continued existence, we have a final time limit of about one billion years.  The Sun is in its “middle age,” but it will eventually expand – in about five billion years – into what is called a red giant star.  At this point, it will have stopped fusing hydrogen in its core and will only be burning in the outer shells.

These regions where fusion is still taking place will expand out from the core and, eventually, engulf the Earth itself.  Long before its physical destruction, though, the planet will be rendered uninhabitable by the increased radiation as the Sun continues to age.  Even before the transition to a red giant, the Sun’s output will be so strong in a billion years that the oceans will boil off and the hydrogen lost to space.

Red Giant Sun
Video of the Sun expanding in its red giant phase

There are no “ifs, ands, or buts” about it.  We will not be able to call Earth our home forever.  By that time, we must have learned how to live on other worlds and, eventually, even how to cross the vast distances between the stars.  Though we may be able to live on Mars or terraformed moons of the outer planets for a time, the Sun’s expansion is likely to eject Mars and the outer planets into deep space.

Even if we figure out a way to stay in the solar system on entirely artificial habitats, the Sun will eventually die.  The outer layers will be cast off into a nebula of gas and dust.  Fusion will cease completely.  All that will remain is an extremely dense white dwarf, cooling away until it no longer even emits heat.

Yes, a billion years is a very long time from now.  The fact that we can even conceptualize such a problem, though, is a credit to our species.  We will have to solve it, eventually.  With today’s space programs, we are taking the first steps.  Russian rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said that Earth is the cradle of humanity, but that we cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Artist’s concept of a lunar base (NASA)

So, what role should the government have in all this?  Why should we even have a NASA?

First, I look to the Constitution itself.  At the very beginning, the Preamble says that our government was created, in part, to “provide for the common defence” and to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Given the potential near-term threats from space hazards to life, liberty, and property and the long-term necessity of space travel for our continued survival, I’d say we’re pretty well covered there.  A just government exists to protect the rights of its citizens through reasonable measures and in accordance with the rule of law.  Thus, a just government has an inherent interest in protecting its citizens against space-based threats and developing the means to do so.

The Constitution grants Congress the power to pay for such a capability and the President the authority to direct both the armed forces and any other agency established by Congress to execute that capability.  Some also argue that the Constitution grants Congress the ability to promote science and “the useful Arts,” but I think that is an overly generous interpretation of the clause granting Congress power to establish patents and copyrights.

If we agree that the US government has a just role in protecting its citizens and American property (including assets in space) from threats beyond our atmosphere, you still might ask why we don’t just let the military handle it all.  Until the Space Act of 1958, that’s precisely what the case was.

President Eisenhower and Congress agreed that the United States should have separate, but parallel, military and civilian space programs, unlike the centralized military system in the Soviet Union.  NASA was created to coordinate all non-military activity in space, as the commercial and civilian benefits of space applications were recognized early on.  This had the added benefit of initiating multiple development paths for American rocketry in its race with the Soviet Union for space supremacy.

Sputnik
Sputnik – The first artificial satellite and the beginning of the Space Race

However, we won the Space Race.  We beat the Soviets to the Moon.  Since then, our government has largely taken the position that what NASA does best is inspire the nation through its pursuit of science in space.  We’ve spent the past forty years trying to either figure out “what’s next?” or get back to where Apollo left off.

While basic science research is more important than ever, especially with the closing of private research institutions like the venerable Bell Labs, and is a vital component of ensuring NASA has the knowledge it needs, I don’t think that is necessarily the best attitude to have about NASA as an agency.  I think NASA has an obligation to be directly relevant to the country’s vital interests, beyond nebulous claims of our importance to prestige and technology research.

The Space Act itself says that “the general welfare and security” of our country require that NASA seek and encourage the “fullest” commercial use of space.  It also requires NASA have a watch program for Near-Earth Objects to “provide warning and mitigation of the potential hazard,” I might add.

Space exploration for its own sake is enough to get me out of bed in the morning, go for my run, shower, and head down to Clear Lake.  However, it has become clear to me that isn’t enough to justify the cost to the American taxpayer, as much as many of my colleagues wish the politicians would just give us the money and leave us alone.

In the process of carrying out its Congressionally-designated mission to protect the Earth from space-based threats and increase our understanding of the planet and space phenomena, NASA can and must undertake initiatives that help solve America’s strategic problems.  By thoughtful selection of NASA’s programs, we can all get the best of both worlds.

For example, rare-earth metals are resources both vital to modern technology and largely supplied by foreign countries, like China.  There is serious concern that China may restrict the supply of these materials to feed their own domestic needs.  Preliminary surveys of some Near-Earth Objects suggest that they might have more usable metals, including rare-earth elements, than has ever been mined in the history of civilization.

NASA technology developed to study, track, and deflect threatening asteroids could possibly be commercialized to provide the United States with vital commodities that we lack in abundance within our borders, if it can be done economically and safely.

Artist’s concept of an asteroid mining operation (NASA)

Perhaps that’s a bit too much of a stretch, though.  After all, it might turn out to be cheaper to cut some kind of deal with a country that has the resources we need, but lacks the capability to extract them on their own.

Let’s consider energy independence, then.  Solar power is often criticized because it doesn’t work when the weather is bad or at night.  The Sun is always shining in space, though.  The fundamental technology already exists where we could collect solar power in space and beam it to the ground on a frequency largely transparent to the atmosphere.

It just hasn’t been demonstrated on a large enough scale to be useful – yet.  The National Space Security Office has done studies showing how space-based solar power could allow the military to provide clean, safe, on-demand power to forward-deployed bases.  In some places, the cost per kilowatt-hour for the military today is 20 times what we pay stateside.  Space-based solar would also eliminate costly and dangerous powerplant fuel convoys.

The European Space Agency sponsored a study that showed a powersat system could pay back its energy costs of being established within its first year of operation.  However, the problem is that the cost of launch to orbit is still very high, so much so that the commercial space industry tends to be very conservative.  It would be hard to get a powersat initiative going without a large first customer.

Advances in technology are reducing the size and increasing the efficiency of solar panels, though.  New designs currently in development could provide as much power as all eight arrays on the International Space Station on a single array a fraction the size.  Such high-density production will also be useful for electric propulsion systems that are orders of magnitude more efficient than chemical propulsion in space.

Artist’s concept of a powersat (NASA)

Author Ben Bova laid out a possible roadmap to a powersat future, though, in 2008.  The United States built its giant hydroelectric dams through public-private partnerships where private investors were backed by low-interest, long-term loans guaranteed by the government.

A similar program where NASA demonstrates the technology for in-space applications and turns over mass production to private industry for such customers as the military could be just the thing to spur the creation of this new industry – an inherently high-tech field with direct security and economic benefits to the country.

If you’re still skeptical about solar, though, there is always nuclear power to consider.  To minimize crew exposure to cosmic radiation and dramatically reduce transit times (perhaps to intercept an asteroid or comet), nuclear-based propulsion in space may be required.  This will require the development of safe, simple, but highly-productive nuclear reactors suitable for launching into orbit and propelling spacecraft.  Such advanced nuclear power would certainly be useful for terrestrial applications, as well.

In partnership with the Department of Energy and private industry, NASA could play a key role in developing lightweight, but safe, nuclear reactors that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for energy production.

NASA has published its successfully commercialized technology since 1976.  However, Tang and Velcro remain – incorrectly, I might add – the “spinoffs” captured in the public psyche.  I think this is because we have not been successful as a community at designing our leading programs and missions to simultaneously contribute to solving America’s most pressing issues.  Once we do that, I don’t think there will be any question of NASA’s relevance.

Just as President Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark out into the frontiers of America to see what opportunities awaited us, NASA is the Congressionally-empowered civil agent of the government to explore our opportunities in “the High Frontier”, gather the knowledge and develop the technology we need to protect ourselves and our investments, and foster America’s best utilization of space resources.

Artist’s concept of an aerobraking Orbital Transfer Vehicle (NASA)

Cross-posted at A World With No Boundaries

The fundamental reason I think we should explore space at all is pretty straightforward, actually.  We are almost certain that we know what killed the dinosaurs.  Sixty-five million years ago, an object 10-15 kilometers in size impacted the Earth near the present-day town of Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula.  For a sense of perspective, this asteroid or comet was almost as big around as the Inner Loop/610.

The Chicxulub collision was more powerful than one billion Hiroshima bombs and left a crater more than 100 miles in diameter, now mostly covered by the Gulf of Mexico.

Artist’s rendition of the Chicxulub impact (NASA)

While there are a variety of collolary theories regarding other environmental stresses that led up to or followed the impact, the scientific consensus to-date is that this was what triggered the mass extinction that ended the reign of the dinosaurs.  Sedimentation layers around the world that correspond to the time of the impact have much higher concentrations than normal of iridium, an element that is rare in the Earth’s crust and relatively abundant in asteroids and comets.

The impact itself would have generated dust clouds and sulfuric aerosols that blocked the Sun’s light and devastated plant life.  This triggered a catastrophic collapse in the food chain.  We have also found evidence for the tsunamis generated when the asteroid hit the water, such as marine sand in places where there were no seas, at the time.  The heat pulse from the impact and the re-entry of debris cast out into space would have also ignited firestorms across the planet, dumping pollutants into the atmosphere.

Even if there were multiple impacts that triggered other calamities, as some scientists suggest, the Cretatious-Tertiary extinction event stands as a lesson for us in the fundamental value of having both knowledge and understanding of the workings of our solar system.  As one science fiction author once astutely put it, the dinosaurs died because they didn’t have a space program.

A study of Earth’s geological record will show the evidence of past impacts, some perhaps even larger than that which killed the dinosaurs.  An asteroid or comet impact is believed by some scientists to have played a role in the immense Permian-Triassic extinction event 250 million years ago, though we are much less certain about its causes.

However, we do know that 96% of all marine species and 70% of land-based vertebrates were wiped out.  The Permian extinction is also the only known mass extinction of insect species.

In more recent times, we have actually observed dramatic collisions between asteroids and comets and other planets in our solar system.  Perhaps the most notable example is from July 1994, when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was seen striking Jupiter after having been broken up by the planet’s immense gravitational influence.

The actual impacts occurred on a side of Jupiter pointed away from Earth at the time.  The Galileo probe, though, was already en route to Jupiter for its planetary science mission and observed the collision as it happened.  The first impact created a fireball of nearly 43,000 degrees Fahrenheit and with a plume nearly 2000 miles high.  The Hubble Space Telescope even saw the fireball plume rise over the edge of Jupiter’s visible disc.

Hubble Space Telescope imagery of the fireball (NASA)

Twenty-one impacts were observed over six days.  The largest created a dark spot in Jupiter’s clouds approximately the diameter of the Earth and released energy equivalent to 600 times all of the nuclear weapons on the planet – combined.

Closer to home, the Tunguska event of 1908 is believed to be an airburst of an asteroid or comet fragment a few miles above the surface of the Earth.  The blast was likely equivalent to the most powerful thermonuclear weapons ever built – between 10 and 30 megatons of TNT – and destroyed over 800 square miles of Siberian forest.  Such an impact could easily devastate a metropolitan area.

Asteroids and comets, of which over 1000 are classified as “Potentially Hazardous Objects,” are not our only worry, though.  The Ordovician extinction, approximately 440 million years ago, is theorized by some scientists to have been caused by a gamma ray burst from a relatively nearby supernova.

In such an event, one study showed that a 10-second gamma ray beam could destroy half of the Earth’s ozone and expose life on the surface to intense prompt UV radiation.  Following the event, the Earth would be vulnerable to increased absorption of solar radiation, as well.  This could have catatrophic effects on the food chain, because of mass die-offs of plants and plankton, and lead to widespread disruption of the biosphere.

Artist’s rendition of a gamma-ray burst (NASA)

Put simply, there are things out there in space that can kill us and our only defense is to go out there, study and understand those threats, and develop strategies for mitigation.

Human beings tend to cluster in groups for mutual benefit and survival.  It is an evolutionary strategy that usually works well for us.  However, there are always a few who break out on their own to explore new areas and establish new groups.  Most do not succeed.  However, those that do ensure the continued survival of our species and introduce tremendous growth.

If fact, I would argue that the United States itself is a perfect example of that.  Our nation was founded by people who left the Old World behind to start anew and make something special for themselves.  That is how the original Thirteen Colonies were started.  That is how “the West was won.”  As a nation, we have been at our best when we are out on the frontiers.

Now, we live in a world with a globalized economy.  The leadership of the United States is in question.  History is starting to repeat itself.  Like many great nations before us, we are becoming fat and complacent, more concerned with entertainment than accomplishment.  However, we still have advantages in resources and ingenuity.

Artist’s rendition of an exploration mission to an asteroid (NASA)

I can think of no more fitting legacy for the United States than to lead the way in what Gerard K. O’Neill, physicist and space advocate, called “the High Frontier.”  The problems of space travel, asteroid and comet deflection, and the colonization of other worlds are immense.  We are, quite literally, just scratching at the surface.

The balance here on Earth is tenuous, though.  Every human being that has ever lived and died has done so here on this planet.  All of our proverbial eggs are in one basket.  There are many threats to that balance from within, such as global climate change, natural disasters, and our own propensity for violent political and economic struggle.  We cannot assume that our fortune at living in a time relatively conducive to human civilization will continue indefinitely.

Just as the United States escaped the majority of the devastation of World War II to become the world’s technological and economic powerhouse, I think it likely that our descendants on other worlds will one day be called to do the same by avoiding calamity here on Earth.

So, what role is there for the government in all of this?  That will be the subject of Part II.

Cross-posted at A World With No Boundaries.

Onboard Discovery, three female astronauts: NASA’s Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and Stephanie Wilson and Naoko Yamazaki of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. They will join Space Station Expedition 23 crewmember Tracy Caldwell Dyson.

Four women in space at the same time! How cool is that?!?

Naoko will tweet during the mission. You can follow @Astro_Naoko in English AND Japanese. Space Station is like our Space United Nations (S.U.N) with multiple nationalities and languages.

Not only did we launch three female astronauts into space onboard a rocketship this morning to join the fourth on Space Station, but we also launched our NASA Deputy Lori Garver into the Twittersphere with her first tweet from launch at the Kennedy Space Center. You can follow her tweets @Lori_Garver.

In fact, one of Lori’s first tweets inspired this blogpost.

Lori also launched her Facebook fan page this morning. NASA’s social media presence ROCKets!

So, girls out there in the universe: Take hope. Aim high. Work hard. Never let a little “no” stop you. Your WORLD awaits you, as we have proof today.

Crosspost on GovLoop and BethBeck’s Blog.