Inspiring Image, Mystery Artist

I found the artwork I call “Frontier Montage” on my desk at Martin Marietta Aerospace one morning in 1980 or 1981. In those days, I ignored corporate propaganda, but I eventually framed it and hung it in my front hall at home. There it attracted favorable attention from visiting friends, one of whom remarked, “That really says it all, doesn’t it?” Black space in the background, Earth’s limb on the left, a Saturn V rises from its launch mount in the foreground. An Apollo spacecraft pursues a full Moon into the opposing upper corner. A space shuttle in orbit occupies the focal point (that’s the propaganda). A Wright flier traverses the blue band of sky between space and a green-wooded idyll, where a pioneer family, in a wagon, crosses the bottom of the canvas. It’s unsigned. I never figured out who made it or where it came from. Anyone have a clue?

Spaceship Mixup: Orion vs. Orion

Not so long ago, in a solar system really near you, the Supranational Authority was up to Hooda-knows-what. Let’s see if you can figure it out.

Some interesting nonsense that played out in three nearly sequential issues of Aviation Week & Space Technology recently involved confusion about a name, the designation of a current NASA project to build a spaceship of exploration called Orion and the name of a late 1950s/early 1960s program, also called Orion, to build a nuclear rocket with a payload on the scale of an aircraft carrier’s displacement, 100,000 tons vs. 100 tons for the proposed U.S. Space Launch System and 16 tons for the defunct Space Shuttle. Reader “A” in the letters column of June 30 offered an observation that, if the nuclear ship’s funding had survived the 1963 test ban treaty, it would have taken us “to Alpha Centauri and back twice by now.”

That’s a bit of poetic license, but it stirred the pedagogical instincts of a retired astronaut who replied based on the capabilities of the chemically-fueled spaceship, the other Orion (riding atop the Space Launch System), with its maximum velocity of 10 miles per second. His conclusion: it would take 55,800 years for the journey. We heard about it in the July 21 issue. Aviation Week went out of its way to emphasize the lecture with a halftone screen under the text and an actual algebraic equation and everything.

Finally, a reader from Hong Kong set the record straight in the July 28 edition with data from a 1968 Freeman Dyson article in Physics Today, pointing out the nuclear Orion’s 6,000 miles per second top speed. The article is available online at ow.ly/zt7jm.

In the middle ‘70s NASA made light of Gerry O’Neill’s space colonization ideas, citing the enormous mass that would have to be lifted into orbit. Of course, O’Neill had emphasized the need to obtain materials from the moon, not Earth. I have often thought that governments (and other devious types) intentionally introduce confusion about things they don’t want discussed. Now I think it again. Can you cite other instances of the same behavior?

New White Paper

A new white paper by SpaceFarers Corporation examines how to establish a spacefaring civilization without government intervention by turning space technology development into a popular form of entertainment linked to sustainable living on Earth. The current view of the future produces an emphasis on sacrifice and austerity. In the proposed ethic, the most fundamental freedom is the freedom to leave. Our research indicates that promoting this freedom through a specific form of entertainment will produce sustainability with prosperity on, and off, the earth. The customary way to leave a civilization as recently as 1900 was to head for a frontier, defined as an isolated region of resources without proprietors and with anonymity for new arrivals. The absence of frontiers is termed enclosure, manifesting as a constellation of symptoms in common with “isolated confined environment syndrome,” including depression, anxiety, and anger. This is a global phenomenon, a fatal cocktail of emotions requiring a frontier formation response. We maintain that the only accessible and fully functional frontier at this time is the solar system. The white paper postulates that (1) enclosure results in reproductive failure of the enclosed population, producing senescence followed by collapse and (2) no mitigation can happen on the required scale unless a large segment of society views space frontier formation as fun. The first premise has been tested and found to be arguably true in rodents. SpaceFarers is implementing, a test case for the second premise blending science, technology, craft, and performance art. We are looking for collaborators. The paper is posted online at the SpaceFarers web site, www.AlienLandscapes.biz/tospci.html.

Enclosure Sickness: Deadlier Than An Asteroid

Try a thought experiment.

Place 100 people behind walls. Provide plenty of food, water, sanitary services, comfortable living quarters and physical security against outside threats, but no challenge, and no ability to leave. Some individuals will feel a need to dominate others. It is inevitable with humans. Others will try to avoid domination.

Both types will attempt to satisfy their needs by social aggregation, forming crowds, perhaps at food courts, a natural place for humans to gather. Prey seek safety in numbers. Predators must be where their prey is. Every so often, an apparently normal male will attack a female, a juvenile, or an individual of lower status without preamble or provocation.

Most such will be beaten and expelled from the crowd, but, with nowhere to go, they will linger on the margins, cultivate their resentment, and fight among themselves. In darkness, they will prowl the tenements, seeking weak prey, especially the young. Their attacks will eventually saturate the defenses of the normal males, some of whom will abandon their posts and abdicate their responsibilities.

Families will dissolve. The young will be killed, sometimes by their stressed and distraught mothers, who will subsequently shrink to the most remote apartments they can find and abandon all normal reproductive activity. The weaker males who have given up will find solace in incessant grooming and will also abandon  family life.

Because external dangers have been minimized, and comfortable living conditions are maintained, death will be rare except among the young. Over a few generations, perhaps only three or four, the population’s age distribution will drift into senescence, consisting of many older individuals and only a few young ones. Extinction will follow in short order.

This experiment has never been performed in a controlled way with human beings, although history does record similar collapses that are said to have occurred for multiple and vague reasons (see Jared Diamond’s book Collapse). The trouble with human experiments is that complete enclosure and support of beings like ourselves over generations is not an acceptable option. It is considered cruel and unusual. There have been short-term experiments (see Jayne Poynter’s The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2). However, as we are not so picky about animals, experiments using small rodents have been performed with the results described above (see John B. Calhoun, “Population Density and Social Pathology”, Scientific American, February 1962, and Wray Herbert, “The (Real) Secret of NIMH”, Science News, August 7, 1982).

The difference between enclosure and population density is not trifling. All living things instinctively fear a cage. A crowd is generally not a problem unless one fears the worst, that the doors will be shut and barred. Although social psychologists typically ignore the difference, they should not.

No need for giant rocks from space on a collision course with Earth to wipe us out. We are already in the grip of enclosure, a global version of the more familiar isolated confined environment syndrome, and we are already taking damage.

To remain healthy, don’t hide from it. Think of it as temporary. Think of it as a problem for the rational mind. Think of it as a reason to engineer a breakout. Think of it as a litmus test, useful in identifying real sources of danger: Only one group will actively, even aggressively, resist the proposition of escape, and they are the predators.

Maybe It's the Birth of Something

I'm working on a paper for a space conference in June. The title I have in mind is, "Toward a Spacefaring Civilization: An Entertainment-based Approach to Creating a Consensus for Space Frontier Formation."

It describes a way to establish a spacefaring civilization without government intervention by turning space technology development into a popular form of entertainment linked to sustainable living on Earth. We start with the romance of the American West and its premise that the most fundamental freedom is the freedom to leave. Political philosophy does not today acknowledge this truth. Instead, the common wisdom insists that “someone”  impose beneficial change, ultimately in a zero-growth environment. That line of thought produces an emphasis on austerity. In the proposed ethic, SpaceFarers Corporation maintains that competition for population is good because individual departures will force change, as in commerce. Our research indicates that creating a market for the good behavior of Terran civilization will produce sustainability with prosperity on and off the earth. It requires that some of us leave so that the rest may know that they can. The customary way to leave a civilization as recently as 124 years ago was to head for a frontier, defined as an isolated region of “resources without proprietors” and anonymity for new arrivals. The absence of frontiers is termed enclosure, manifesting as a constellation of symptoms in common with “isolated confined environment syndrome,” including depression, anxiety, and anger. We hypothesize that nothing happens on the required scale unless a large segment of society views space frontier formation as fun. We propose, and are implementing, a test case involving what we hope will be a masterful blending of science, technology, craft, and performance art.

The test case has a steering group called "League of the Brick Moon" on Facebook and on LinkedIn. The group is public. Feel free to participate. Of course, you can also ask questions and offer criticism right here.

Maybe it's the birth of something.