Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

392 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age
national prestige; 3) military defense; 4) applications and economics; and 5)
science and discovery. (another whimsical way of listing those rationales
is to say human beings do fve things in space: work, play, fght, boast, and
worship.) It seems in retrospect that what happened between 1955, when the
IgY satellite program was announced, and 1961, when Yuri gagarin orbited,
was the elevation of prestige to an inordinate, artifcial primacy in that mix of
rationales. that spawned a crash program that space enthusiasts believed was,
or should be, the norm when in fact it was a grotesque aberration made even
worse by the 1970s decision to throw the baby (apollo/Saturn hardware) out
with the bathwater.
Where we stand today with respect to global vs. national identities and
rationales for spacefight can be deduced by recalling two wise sayings from the
otherwise not-always-wise robert S. McNamara. First, he said space is not a
mission or a cause; it is just a place. Second, he said the budget is the strategy. So
let us look at humanity’s budget. Let us indeed “follow the money.” according
to the Space Foundation’s latest estimates the world’s allocations for activities
in the place called outer space totaled $74.5 billion in 2006. 6 By coincidence,
that is almost identical to the supplemental appropriations the White house
requests every year for Iraq. (hence, space advocates need no longer rely on
the quip that U.S. consumers spend more on tobacco or cosmetic surgery than
the space program because they need only observe that the U.S. government
spends more existing tax revenue on one dubious exercise in overseas statebuilding
than the whole world does on space exploration.)
equally signifcant is the fact that just under $60 billion, or about 80 percent
of global investment in space, is america’s share, so ipso facto the priorities of
the human race are really the priorities of one nation state. I understand where
Neil Degrasse tyson and Jim garvin are coming from when they say that
america has been standing still, that China, Japan, and India may spark the next
space race, and that a manned mission to Mars will likely plant “a whole sheaf
of fags” in the ruddy dust. But apart from such high-profle human endeavors
as the ISS or planetary exploration, space technology remains overwhelmingly
a national activity overwhelmingly dominated by the United States.
eSa contributes $3.5 billion or just below 5 percent, and all other national
programs (led by Japan and China) about $11.4 billion or 15 percent. the
motives of eSa derive largely from science and applications. the motives of
national programs such as those of Japan, China, India, and France run mostly
to defense, economics, and prestige. Needless to say, no one spends a euro or a
yen on “human destiny and the survival of the species.”
6. Data on space spending is Space Foundation, Colorado Springs, CO, “government Budgets—
the Space report 2007 Update (October 11, 2007), http://www.spacefoundation.org/news/story.
php?id=419.