AHC and Culture Butterflies: Space Frontier Continues

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
Inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson's history of NASA in this clip, on when describing how space exploration galvanized people to think of tomorrow.

First the challenge -- following the Apollo 11 mission, what could NASA do differently to continue advance the frontiers of space, something that can excite Americans? Second, how would American pop culture -- in the 1970's and after -- be affected by this change?
 
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Hkelukka

Banned
Focus on habitation in space instead of exploration.

Exploration is interesting for scientists, living in space is interesting for the unemployed masses.

Focus on trying to sell the concept of "you invest 20 billion a year for 20 years and we have unlimited resources brought in from deep-space mining. In 2000 or so"

Try to get as many corporations interested in the concept, try to sell it based on "just look at how much we could mine"

Greed, always play on greed.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
Yup.

Nothing like a coffee cup that costs 500 dollars thats made of melted moon rock for the posh industrialist.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
I Would estimate that for a VERY long time, "moon stuff" would be a kind of diamond like accesory that is bought for the sheer "bling" value.

IF NASA gets a lot of hollywood bigwigs, industrialists and politicans to buy stuff made from moon rocks gathered in their tons from space. Keychains, mugs, glass, pots, anything that can be made from moon materials on the relatively cheap.

It would probably be "everyone else hates america not because of Tupperware, but Moonware!"

It would probably be a smallish niche like iProducts were originally.

NASA Would be responsible for the maintanance of the facility and the transport Earth-Moon while companies would buy the moon stones by the ton and make them into accesory items of various styles.

Instead of Peace Corps being a home for the hippies. Moon Corps might turn into one, basically because hippies, moon, and the need to manage gardens = pot.

Edit: One small toke for a man, one, giant inhale for mankind!
 

TxCoatl1970

e of pi'd love this

We've chewed over what the US could've done post-Apollo and I agree with Hlekkuka, you have to give the civilian sector some skin in the game to want to get and stay in space.
What the STS lads understood needed to happen but didn't quite accomplish was reducing launch costs out of Earth's gravity well.

Barring some work on MOL's/Skylab being more than a passing stunt with leftover hardware and actually being permanently manned, with a useful overarching mission... :cool:

some work on a NERVA space tug doing sat retrieval, upgrades, refueling, construction of bigger/better orbital habitats, ... :cool:

us conveniently ignoring the oceans and recycling as sources of material NOT needing to go up or down the gravity well with its attendant costs...:rolleyes:

THEN lunar/asteroid mining makes sense, especially for stuff like helium-3 or other materials that would be difficult/impossible to find on Earth. :p

Unfortunately, space exploration and colonization depend on major countries subsidizing them with hundreds of billions to a trillion USD developing the tech and taking the risks (and laying the infrastructure!) until it gets cheap and easy enough for private companies and individuals to start playing.

The USSR had money troubles of its own and the US always balked at the costs without making a respectable analog of the USS Enterprise, FTL warp drive and all happen in the next budget cycle to show enough progress.:rolleyes: The Euros and Japanese were happy if they could launch probes and satellites.

One can argue what the USA shoveled in defense spending alone from 1990-present could very well have gotten us a space elevator, moonbase with 100 permanent staff, and asteroid mining that provides us with 90% of our global mineral needs if the entire world lived like middle class First Worlders. :D:D

I'm not joking, we have the technical and financial resources to do it, just ZERO political will.
Sacrifice the F-22 and make ion rocketry as cheap and ubiquitous as DC-3's were in the 1930's by 2000.
It's a question of time, $$$, and effort.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
TxCoatl1970 said:
We've chewed over what the US could've done post-Apollo and I agree with Hlekkuka, you have to give the civilian sector some skin in the game to want to get and stay in space.
What the STS lads understood needed to happen but didn't quite accomplish was reducing launch costs out of Earth's gravity well.

Barring some work on MOL's/Skylab being more than a passing stunt with leftover hardware and actually being permanently manned, with a useful overarching mission... :cool:

some work on a NERVA space tug doing sat retrieval, upgrades, refueling, construction of bigger/better orbital habitats, ... :cool:

us conveniently ignoring the oceans and recycling as sources of material NOT needing to go up or down the gravity well with its attendant costs...:rolleyes:

THEN lunar/asteroid mining makes sense, especially for stuff like helium-3 or other materials that would be difficult/impossible to find on Earth. :p

Unfortunately, space exploration and colonization depend on major countries subsidizing them with hundreds of billions to a trillion USD developing the tech and taking the risks (and laying the infrastructure!) until it gets cheap and easy enough for private companies and individuals to start playing.

The USSR had money troubles of its own and the US always balked at the costs without making a respectable analog of the USS Enterprise, FTL warp drive and all happen in the next budget cycle to show enough progress.:rolleyes: The Euros and Japanese were happy if they could launch probes and satellites.

One can argue what the USA shoveled in defense spending alone from 1990-present could very well have gotten us a space elevator, moonbase with 100 permanent staff, and asteroid mining that provides us with 90% of our global mineral needs if the entire world lived like middle class First Worlders. :D:D

I'm not joking, we have the technical and financial resources to do it, just ZERO political will.
Sacrifice the F-22 and make ion rocketry as cheap and ubiquitous as DC-3's were in the 1930's by 2000.
It's a question of time, $$$, and effort.
Click to expand...

Yup, which is why it isnt a technical or even finances question, it is the public perception, no one likes to support the nerds and the geeks, they prefer killing each other and shooting guided missiles at women, children and camels.

To get that around, you need people that are VERY important to the US national charachter that support the concept of expansion into space for the very sake of expansion into space. A kind of Maniest Destiny rewritten. It doesnt matter how much it costs, just that it happens, its the American destiny after all, to expand where ever there is space to expand into, and there aint more space than in space.

That being said. If in the 60's the people undertand that it is not a race for the moon, the moon is like the first colonists reaching Boston Bay. It can only get better from here. Draw many parallers over the cost of the colonization in its first years, and its dangers, and how important it is to keep pushing regardless.

IF it works and NASA gets something like permanent 10% of the US military budget, about, we'd be living in a golden age now.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
Respect <- Money <- Influence

Also goes both ways.

Nerds get more money, cruise missiles for camels get less, nerds get more respect. Simple.

So, yes, science would be a bigger thing in culture, smarts and nerds and sci-fi too. Especially if the reduction in military and a increase in civilian spending conincides with some common sense modifications of the US policy, such a re-thinking of the whole Drug War seeing as it was one giant government aid package.
 

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
How would pop culture be affected by a (successful) 1980's US program to land on Mars by the end of the decade (similar to the 1960's and the Moon)? Anything aside from the kind of more generic respect for science we've been talking about?
 

e of pi

...How did I miss this? Seriously, what the heck. I mean, sure, I was asleep at the time it was created, but that's no excuse.

Anyway, this is definitely a public policy and perception question, not a technical one. If you want to see my answer for what a NASA might have looked like in the '70s with, say, 2x OTL's budget and a bit more public support, tune in to Brainbin's That Wacky Redhead in a few weeks. And because of that TL's focus, pop culture effects are included. :)
 

Hkelukka

Banned
Let me paint you a real quick picture.

3 pod's

1. The colonization of space and the procurement of resources is seen as the logical continuation of the colonization of first, the Americas and then Africa. This time, with no nasty ethical implications of mass murder to consider. Focus is put on space and space colonization as any earthly wars are essentialy MAD covered. US spends 3-5 times more on space colonization than military, and defence tops at about 200 bil during the cold war. SU still collapses pretty much on que due to internal unrest.

2. No war on drugs, terror, crime, teletubbies Etc maintains the moral and emotional integrity of the US and it doesnt devovle quite so fast into a police state.

3. After ww2 western countries agree that the singular purpose of the state should be to improve financial opportunities amongst its people, oversee the maintanance of the state and extend the lifespan of all its people.

I say that if the 3 following POD's happen in 1970's, by 2010 US has 50% industry in space 50% on land. Life expectency is over 100+ years and 75+% of OTL laws do not exist in ATL. There is no war on terror and no never-ending quaqmire in the middle east.

But, i suppose, every generation needs their pointless bloodbath, we have ours in the middle east. Lets hope this doesnt expand anymore than it needs to.
 

Archibald

Banned
Star Trek, 2001 and Apollo 8 at least have a common feature: in the glory year of 1968, they did such a strong impression on public opinion that it took a good decade (or so) to find the three a valuable successor.

It took a decade to give Star trek another start (The motion picture)

It took a decade to reborn space operas (Star Wars)

It took NASA a decade to replace Apollo with the shuttle
(December 1972 - April 1981)

That's makes for an interesting coincidence.

the way I see it: NASA should have an kind of "space culture advisory council" at Headquarters. That advisory group would be chaired by some popular personality like Carl Sagan.
Members would be sci-fi writers, novelists, TV and movie producers interested in the space program (Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, James Cameron, Spielberg all shown interest for NASA at some point.)
People that are also interested by a trip into orbit...
 
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MerryPrankster

No Vietnam War might help. A Cold War focused on competition in non-military fields like space might also do.

Hmm...no fall of Krushchev?
 
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