Retro Rocket

There's news out that India has test launched a mini space shuttle mounted on a rocket. This is just a prototype: the real one will be much bigger, similar to the American Space Shuttle. But building a shuttle isn't too trendy: the US is currently borrowing the (disposable) Russian Soyuz capsule, while working on building their own new spacecraft which is a throwback to the old Apollo design. And the relatively new Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft is a simple disposable similar to Soyuz.

So the Indians may be swimming against the tide. The Space Shuttle concept used to be popular: The Soviets built one (then quickly cancelled it.) And the Europeans and Japanese looked into building small shuttles. But the idea faded.

I guess it's because the American shuttle was disappointing, what with its accidents, expense, and overall failure to make space travel easy and routine. But I don't know that it's necessarily such an inherently bad idea. Whenever I've read anything about the shuttle's design, I've always been amazed at how the expectations where so out-of-line with the actual use. For instance, everyone involved had the assumption it would be going into space at least every week. But the reality was that it never got more frequent than once a month.

Also, the military was heavily involved in the design. You might think that would be because it's the U.S. and the military has to be involved in everything, but it was actually a political play to get congressional support for the Shuttle. The assumption was that shuttles would be constantly needed to launch new military satellites, so the Air Force specified minimum performance requirements. The reality was that there was little military use: disposable rockets were cheaper for launching satellites, and there was never much need for satellites to be launched on a quick ad hoc basis.

The point is that the Space Shuttle was designed for reasons that never came to pass, with abilities that were never used. Though it had to be built with those needs in mind, otherwise it never would have been approved. Confused? Welcome to the American government. So I wonder: if they had an accurate idea of what the Shuttle would be used for, and the political backing to build that, how would that have changed the design, and could they have come up with something far more efficient than what we actually ended up with?

I think it's possible that you could do a better job. The shuttle was always going to have difficulties because of the lack of flights that prevented economies of scale. But combine a nice simple shuttle with the SpaceX self-landing booster and you could have a new level of easy access to space.

Don't Blame This Sleeping Satellite

Plenty of times I've complained about ads, particularly car ads, but this Audi "choose the moon" ad has me emotionally perplexed. The aging of the astronauts who walked on the moon is quite sad. There were twelve, and only seven are still alive. So it's nice to acknowledge that, even if it's being used to sell a $180,000 car.

On the one hand, it's a lazy "association" ad, where the message is that our cars are cool because - look, spaceships! It's not the first time I've even seen a decline-of-the-space-program connection in a car commercial. A few years ago, there was a Corvette ad built around the idea that America still builds rockets. But that just came out as depressing evidence of American decline. Oh, a Corvette, that's much better than going to the moon. (And just so you know, astronauts actually got special deals on Corvettes.)

But on the other hand, this ad does a good job of emotionally drawing you in with this sad story of the aging astronaut. It actually expresses the melancholic decline of the space program better that just about anything else I've seen. Perhaps it took a German company to pull it off, since they didn't need to wave the flag, and could just concentrate on telling one person's story, even if that person seemed to personify the country's fading away.

Even the use of David Bowie's "Starman" is unsettling. Is that a nice tribute to a recently departed hero, or an attempt to cash in before he's cold in his grave.

And the catch phrase, "Mr. President, thank you for choosing the moon" is an interesting way to tie the ad together. Though it's also rewriting history. The moon landings were famously triggered by JFK's challenge in 1961, but of course, he didn't live to see them happen. In fact, the president during all the moon landings - the one with his signature on the Apollo 11 plaque on the moon that will outlive our civilization - was his rival, Richard Nixon. So he was the one making the phone call to the moon depicted at the start of the ad. Many think it was quite a shame that during the real-life phone call, Kennedy's name never even came up. Really, he was the one who "chose the moon."

But now that I think about it, here's why the commercial seems particularly touching: The idea of an old man feeling sadly disconnected from his past glories shouldn't be a surprising concept. But for people my age, when we're trying to imagine the young man behind today's senior, it's to picture a man marching off to war.  So you might feel some sadness comparing his elderly self to his more active youthful self, but that is tempered by the fact that he's probably better off in his dull present day life than in the horrors of war. But this man has positive, proud exploits that he'd want to revisit. That's not how we're used to seeing it, just as we're not used to seeing an older person who has experienced technological marvels we'll never experience.

What An Adorable Little Starship

One thing I missed in the past week was the announcement of Breakthrough Starshot, an effort to send the first space probe to another star. Mini-spacecraft going to Alpha Centauri. Didn't see that one coming.

The main difficulty with traveling anywhere in space is weight. Here on earth, we're used to the idea that you can make something faster just by giving it a bigger engine. Sure, you'll be going through fuel faster, but that just means you'll have to stop to refuel more often; you'll still be faster overall. But in space, there's nowhere to refuel; you have to carry it all with you.

That's a limitation you just can't get around: more powerful engines mean that you'll need to carry more fuel, which will weigh down your spaceship and nullify the advantage of the more powerful engines. So with current rocket technology, there's really no way to get to Mars in less than about 18 months, or to Alpha Centauri in less than ten thousand years.

The only way to go faster is to come up with new technology that gets more energy per pound of fuel. Nuclear power would help, though not as much as you might hope. You'd still need a huge amount of fuel, requiring a huge ship. Some people have tried to get around the weight problem by not carrying the fuel with you. One such concept is the Bussard Ramjet. It would scoop up the very few atoms hanging around space and shove them into a nuclear reactor to generate power. Unfortunately, this would require a huge ship, and no one is entirely sure the concept will work.

Another possibility is to provide the energy from elsewhere. That's how this proposal works. For a while people have suggested the idea of a "solar sail." In that concept, the ship would be pushed by the miniscule force of the sunlight hitting it. Of course, because the force is so small, you would need big sails, and even then the force wouldn't be great; but it would be persistent, and over the course of weeks or months, it would add up to great speed, possibly faster than conventional rockets.

But solar sails will only work in the inner solar system. To go further, you'd need some artificial source of light. Of course, to accelerate any reasonably-sized spacecraft, it would have to be an incredibly powerful laser, beyond what we could currently build.

And that's where this proposal comes in: it takes advantage of the fact that we can make the ship very small, and thus very light, so that we could build lasers big enough to accelerate it to high speeds. When you think about it, that's quite symbolic of how our technology works today: in the past, we imagined that we would build starships by creating huge new power sources. We haven't had much luck making those, but we have done better than we ever expected at miniaturizing machines. So it appears we're going to use those technologies to our advantage.

One thing that's surprised me about this story is just how many people are clueless about astronomy. Sure, as a geek who occasionally interacts with non-geeks, I'm aware that many people know words like "galaxy" and "nebula" only from movies, but have no idea what they mean. But I always assumed that in any small group of people, at least one will have seen enough episodes of Cosmos to be astronomically literate.

Yet I saw two different news programs say that this proposal was to send a probe to the nearest galaxy. I can understand a flustered host who was hired mostly for his voice making that mistake, but these were in a recorded voice-over and a bottom-of-the-screen title. That means it would have passed a few people without anyone noticing how embarrassingly inaccurate it was.

If You Believe They Put A Man On The Moon

People sometimes ask, "if they can put a man on the moon, why can't they (Insert complaint here)."  I've never done this though.  For one thing, the moon landings were all before I was born, and of course, anything that happens before your birth seems like it's always been there.  Of course we put a man on the moon, we've always been able to put a man on the moon.

But there's also the fact that it doesn't really feel like a technical achievement any more.  Looking back at it from my perspective: the moon program was a huge accomplishment at the time, and was a result of making full use of our intellectual capacity, thanks to an alignment of political motives.  Since then, we've had the ability to go to the moon, but haven't because of a lack of political necessity and cooperation.  So from my perspective, the moon landing is a testament not to human technology and ingenuity, but to the fickleness of human motivation.

You know what has always stood as the they-can-do-this-so-why-can't-they-do-that example for me?  Cookie Dough Ice Cream.  That's always seemed to be the silliest, most childish achievement I've seen in my life.  But in our society, the taste whims of middle class North Americans create huge motivations for invention, while the lives of many others offer little to no incentive.  Heck, even other North American consumers don't rate high enough to get their own products.  I'm still waiting for smaller, "single guy" packages of food that I can get through before it spoils.

It's that motivation that is the real driver behind change in our society.  The lack of technological change no longer surprises me; I'm only disappointed if there is an innovation that would please large numbers of desirable consumers.  So tonight, when I asked myself, why can't they invent a crouton that you can poke with a fork without breaking it, my mind when to Cookie Dough Ice Cream, not a man on the moon.

Turning Japanese

Well its finally happened: I saw the news reports about the little Japanese robot being sent to the space station, thought "I should blog about how stereotypically Japanese that is, then thought "that sounds familiar." I looked it up and sure enough, six months ago when the robot was first announced, I made a post just like that.

So this time I'll take a different angle. Since this robot looks like Robo-sapien crossed with Astro Boy, it's clear there is some pop-cultural influence here. I've heard that point before: Japan's tech-positive anime is in contrast to western movies where the machine is often the enemy, and that translates to their greater enthusiasm for robots. Really, it's hard to see the direction of causality here: are the Japanese robo-positive because their fictitious heroes drive giant robots, or does anime/manga freely use tech because that's what their public wants?

But I would like to think that culture can affect the progression of technology.  It seems that most often, our culture is shaped by the things we invent, and what we invent is just a result of a slow succession of one invention after another. In our world, we see China as a potential successor to the U.S., but for all the talk of their mystery and tradition, they seem to be building a modern world just like the one they're eclipsing. Meet the new superpower, same as the old superpower.

So I hope Japan is showing us that we can chose the nature of our future. For one thing, I hope the future really will be as cute as they will try to make it. But it also gives me some solace that I may have seen a preview of the future through our imaginings of it. I may not live to travel the stars, but at least I helped sow the cultural seeds that guarantee who ever does travel the stars will do so using something they'll call, "warp drive."

It's Safer And More Hygenic Than A Carnival Cruise

So former "space tourist" Dennis Tito wants to launch a privately-funded trip to Mars.  It's not as crazy as it sounds: because the plan doesn't involve landing there - or even slowing down - you could make the whole trip without much more technology or fuel than a simple launch into orbit.  Of course, there's never been a private manned trip into orbit either, so it is still hardly easy.

The news coverage of this proposal has had some fun with the concept that it should be a middle-aged married couple, since they'll have to live for a year-and-a-half in a capsule the size of a bathroom (but note: no shower.)  That's just wonderful.  Out of nowhere, an opportunity comes along that fits with my advancing age, and I'm ruled out for being single.

I have to wonder if this Mars project is really worth it though.  Yes, I realize that this is pretty obviously a symbolic thing, convincing ourselves that we can still do the unprecedented.  But I'm not sure that a fly-by will do the trick.  As an example, they've pointed out that the prospective Mars mission will be on the anniversary of Apollo 8, the first mission to flyby the moon.  Quick, name anybody on that mission.  Did you even know there were non-landing moon missions before Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11?

But whether it's crazy or not, the proposal is a welcome comeuppance for the Australian billionaire who plans to rebuild the Titanic.  He announced his plans yesterday, but now he looks like a backwards opportunist next to Tito.  If only he'd been juxtaposed against one of those guys trying to set a ballooning record.

1% Inspiration

You may have seen the news this week that a company called Golden Spike will be offering trips to the moon for $1.5 billion.  First of all, I'll believe that when I see it.  Though it may seem like an astronomical amount of money (pun not intended) that's no where near enough money to go to the moon.  Presumably they're counting on a lot of people taking them up on the offer, and pooling the money into one big effort.  I know, it sounds to be talking about economies of scale for a product with a cost in the billions, but it could happen in today's world.  What I question is: are there really enough billionaires in the world that would part with a significant portion of their fortune for a one-off trip to the moon?  Yes, the Russians have already carried paying customers into space; but that was for the relative pittance of $20 million.  Most of those tourist astronauts couldn't afford this moon trip.  But I do find this concept reassuring in one way: rich people could finally start spending money on impressive stuff, not just any old expensive thing. 

Income disparity is a big concern these days.  I'm not happy to see the income gap myself, but I do concede that it has one possible positive:  New technologies and ideas - too expensive to enter mass-production - can be offered in smaller numbers at a higher price to the rich.  We've already seen how lots of electronics can enter at the top of the market, gain customers and investors, then spread through all of society.  To put it another way, I don't have much confidence in money trickling down, but technology often does.

Trouble is, a lot of what rich people buy is expensive but not really innovative.   Look at an area I know: cars.  The famously most expensive car in the world is the Bugatti Veyron.  With a 250+mph top speed, it's certainly an impressive car.  But technologically, it isn't much more advanced than your average compact.  Yes, it has a thousand horsepower, but that's not because the engine is "better" than any other car, there's just more of it (16 cylinders and 8.0 litres to be exact; essentially the size of four compact car engines.)  You could think of it as the car equivalent of a mansion: the large house isn't better at being a house than a suburban bungalow, there's just more of it.  I don't know that much about the world of expensive products - I've been in the dark since Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous went off the air - but it seems this patter repeats itself in many areas: expensive things are big or rare, but not unprecedented and original.

Hopefully the super-rich will decide that putting millions of miles on the private jet is less impressive than one round-trip to the moon.  I'd even let them keep the Bush tax cuts then.

Neo Tokyo, We Have a Problem

I came across this article about how the Japanese space agency is creating a robot to assist the Japanese astronaut who will soon be going to the International Space Station.  But this isn't some utilitarian machine to do esoteric technical work.  No, it's a cute, human shaped robot whose primary task is to make conversation and keep the astronauts company.

That's what love about Japan: I don't think there's any other country on earth that is as gloriously, unapologetically reaffirming of its own stereotypes.  The Americans didn't put gun racks on the shuttle.  The Russians didn't put a little spacecraft inside a bigger one inside a bigger one.  And the Chinese spacecraft, to my knowledge, was both expensive and made of non-toxic materials. 

Here in Canada, our greatest contribution to space exploration has been the Canadarm.  I suppose that's a little stereotypical: it's practical, it's not flamboyant, in a pinch it can be used as a bottle opener.