WI: Building a Launch Loop in 1997--political and practical ramifications

[smjb]

So I've been kicking around an idea for a timeline--it'll be ASB, as it involves scientists spotting a quasar that'll fuck the solar system up in 130 years (incidentally, it'd be nice to know how long these scientists would need to be observing it to make that determination)--involving Clinton wanting to build a Lofstrom Loop as a prelude to an Orbital Ring and/or moon base (to be decided by the next administration).

My first question is, should Clinton decide to do this for whatever reason (wink wink nudge nudge), what sort of political obstacles are we looking at? My instinct is that Republicans would not be happy and run against this. (Presumably this would be mitigated somewhat in the timeline I'm kicking around, as Republicans weren't completely ape shit crazy (at the time), but ~2127 is a long way away, so I'm thinking it'd still be there.)

As for the technical aspects here's what I'm thinking: A Lofstrom Loop should be built on the ocean, naturally. It seems to me that the natural place to build it would be with one end at Cape Canaveral and the other in the mid-Atlantic. You need massive power being generated at both ends, which I imagine they'd re-purpose nuclear submarines for. According to that link above, Keith Lofstrom estimated the total cost for building this thing in 2009 to be $2 billion, including R&D and launch costs to be $3/kg; I'm assuming the difference in technology between 1997 and 2009 would offset inflation, so it'd still be $2 billion, but that is something I pulled out of my ass purely for convenience's sake. Also, I imagine that this Loop would be used by space shuttles and be designed with them in mind.

Is anything I just said remotely realistic?

Let us assume that this plan proves popular (for whatever reason, wink nudge etc) and the 1998 midterms went as well for Democrats as they did OTL--or maybe even better, if Republicans opposed the Loop in any meaningful way--and construction begins on the Loop in '98. Presumably this creates something of a jobs boom, particularly in Florida, which considering how close the 2000 election was (so close that Gore technically won) could easily be enough to make Gore president.

I think I'll make a separate thread for the consequences of a Gore presidency in general but, assuming the aforementioned series of events strikes you as reasonable, what do you think Gore would do with this revamped and amped up space program? Or if this does not strike you as realistic, what would Bush do?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

estimated the total cost for building this thing in 2009 to be $2 billion, including R&D and launch costs to be $3/kg; I'm assuming the difference in technology between 1997 and 2009 would offset inflation, so it'd still be $2 billion, but that is something I pulled out of my ass purely for convenience's sake. Also, I imagine that this Loop would be used by space shuttles and be designed with them in mind.

Hoo boy.
1) his loop is sized for launching Gemini sized spacecraft, not shuttle sized. (5 tonnes. Yes Gemini is less than that, but by the time you add your electromagnetic grab etc, you'd be lucky to stay under that mass limit)
2) according to Wiki, the cheap loop ($2billion) gets you a more expensive launch cost. The $3/kg was for a $30billion system. Iirc.
3) every loop gives you only a single orbital inclination. If your goal is beyond earth orbit, that's OK, just built everything in geostationary orbit, say, and use in engines to match.
4) His costs are guaranteed to be off. Wild new innovations in aerospace ALWAYS cost more than the initial plan.
5) building space structures out of tiny building blocks is also going to be EXPENSIVE.

Now. Assuming that there's some existential threat that would Congress to cough up the money, say raising taxes and cutting the military, then yeah, maybe this could get built.
But it would require something like that.

 

[Arkenfolm]

You don't have to be a Republican to think that building something like that is a pretty dumb waste of money. If the disaster is over a century away and is a global threat, then why should anyone worry about it today when the technology is barely there? I could see Democrats coming out against it too, saying the money is better spent on other issues.

On the other hand, a Lofstrom loop, if in the United States, would run through mostly Republican states so obviously they would have a much bigger incentive to put their foot down against it. But I could see state Democratic parties complaining about it too, especially since there's quite a few elected Democrats in those states in the late 90s/early 00s. Being seen as part of a massive government program which brings questionable benefits would hurt their chances at (re)election.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Not making a political point (honest!) but the recent Trump tax plan reduced US tax income by $1400 billion over ten years. I'm assuming that the imminent end of the world is perhaps a tad more important than this so $30 billion is still chicken feed - hell $300 billion would be.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Not making a political point (honest!) but the recent Trump tax plan reduced US tax income by $1400 billion over ten years. I'm assuming that the imminent end of the world is perhaps a tad more important than this so $30 billion is still chicken feed - hell $300 billion would be.

It said 130 years. That's not imminent. Realistically, very, very few Americans could expect to be alive in 2127, least of all the voters. Besides, a tax cut is a bit of a different deal than however you'd raise all this money. What programs get cut? Are taxes going up?

Realistically, the average American in 1997 would rather it be kicked down the road another 50 years or even 100 years. By then, the technology will be available and it can be feasibly built. Now, the threat of certain doom hanging over everyone's heads is going to definitely cause a massive amount of research into how to get things into space cheaper and other means of civilisation preservation. As the largest economy, the US will obviously take the lead on this and will probably end up spending the most on this research. I could see this being a major international effort which will encourage more global cooperation and possibly spill over into other fields like combatting climate change. There will be some powerful international organisations set up to deal with this crisis, I'd think.

 

[Derek Pullem]

A government led project (e.g. war, Apollo moonshot) increases national debt. You don't raise taxes to fund it directly (you may move towards it but not on a 1-1 basis). Just the same as cutting taxes really - you're not making 1-1 reductions in programs . You may move towards those cuts but not immediately.

Either way the pitch is things will get better tomorrow to pay for all this stuff (or things will get really bad if we don't do this) so we won't have to worry about the marginal cost of the debt we just added to the nations account.

Works for capital programs as well as tax cuts - what you prefer depends upon your politics.

 

[smjb]

Hoo boy.
1) his loop is sized for launching Gemini sized spacecraft, not shuttle sized. (5 tonnes. Yes Gemini is less than that, but by the time you add your electromagnetic grab etc, you'd be lucky to stay under that mass limit)
2) according to Wiki, the cheap loop ($2billion) gets you a more expensive launch cost. The $3/kg was for a $30billion system. Iirc.
3) every loop gives you only a single orbital inclination. If your goal is beyond earth orbit, that's OK, just built everything in geostationary orbit, say, and use in engines to match.
4) His costs are guaranteed to be off. Wild new innovations in aerospace ALWAYS cost more than the initial plan.
5) building space structures out of tiny building blocks is also going to be EXPENSIVE.

Now. Assuming that there's some existential threat that would Congress to cough up the money, say raising taxes and cutting the military, then yeah, maybe this could get built.
But it would require something like that.

Appreciated, but right now I'm more concerned with selling it to the American people. Though, the ballooning costs would put an arrow in the quiver against Gore...

It said 130 years. That's not imminent. Realistically, very, very few Americans could expect to be alive in 2127, least of all the voters. Besides, a tax cut is a bit of a different deal than however you'd raise all this money. What programs get cut? Are taxes going up?

Realistically, the average American in 1997 would rather it be kicked down the road another 50 years or even 100 years. By then, the technology will be available and it can be feasibly built. Now, the threat of certain doom hanging over everyone's heads is going to definitely cause a massive amount of research into how to get things into space cheaper and other means of civilisation preservation. As the largest economy, the US will obviously take the lead on this and will probably end up spending the most on this research. I could see this being a major international effort which will encourage more global cooperation and possibly spill over into other fields like combatting climate change. There will be some powerful international organisations set up to deal with this crisis, I'd think.

The obvious counter-argument is that the technology won't be there unless we make it. I mean, manned space flight hasn't really advanced since the seventies and frankly, we have no real plan for advancing it. In '97, before the advent of private aerospace companies, the outlook was even bleaker than today.

If there happens to be some sort of widely-agreed-upon very-long-term goal for the space program to achieve acting as an impetus (wink nudge etc), and a union between space nuts, people distraught over the fact that we don't do great things as a nation anymore, and Keynesian economics (it's not like the money's being shot into space, after all), and one is an optimist, one could reasonably assert this would be enough to tip the balance in favor of it.

A government led project (e.g. war, Apollo moonshot) increases national debt. You don't raise taxes to fund it directly (you may move towards it but not on a 1-1 basis). Just the same as cutting taxes really - you're not making 1-1 reductions in programs . You may move towards those cuts but not immediately.

Either way the pitch is things will get better tomorrow to pay for all this stuff (or things will get really bad if we don't do this) so we won't have to worry about the marginal cost of the debt we just added to the nations account.

Works for capital programs as well as tax cuts - what you prefer depends upon your politics.

Quite.

 

[Arkenfolm]

The obvious counter-argument is that the technology won't be there unless we make it. I mean, manned space flight hasn't really advanced since the seventies and frankly, we have no real plan for advancing it. In '97, before the advent of private aerospace companies, the outlook was even bleaker than today.

If there happens to be some sort of widely-agreed-upon very-long-term goal for the space program to achieve acting as an impetus (wink nudge etc), and a union between space nuts, people distraught over the fact that we don't do great things as a nation anymore, and Keynesian economics (it's not like the money's being shot into space, after all), and one is an optimist, one could reasonably assert this would be enough to tip the balance in favor of it.

Understandable, but what this practically means is a lot of extra money given to space-related causes, as well as international efforts regarding this. Neither Clinton nor Gore will be cutting the ribbon on a launch loop or a system to build one. Even in the late 10s, no president will be doing it, simply because neither the tech nor the money isn't there. What will happen is the space lobby will become a lot more powerful. The partisan divide will be Republicans preferring to give support/tax breaks to private initatives like SpaceX while Democrats prefer to give money to government programs. Either way, I expect private and public efforts to combine to some degree, since they have the same goal--preventing the far-off catastrophe. This would also include programs educating the public and increasing the amount of people in the space industry, which would be good for the economy.

I think a more modest program which is building up to prevent this catastrophe would be much more politically palatable. Ideally, it would prevent questionable (to say the least) uses of money like the Iraq War, and not creating too big of an increase in the national deficit. Welfare and other social programs would also not have to suffer to pay for the increase in science funding. Military cuts would occur, since the increased sense of internationalism brought about by our impending destruction would mean we could more easily deal with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other rivals to the US, who would no doubt also be cooperating on international solutions to deal with this.

Gore will probably win Florida over this by promising more jobs and an economic boost in Florida (unless Bush can come up with a good counter to this), and he'll stand a high chance at winning the 2000 election as a result. Hopefully, Gore can build a "high-tech image" to win '04 which will give him eight years to re-orient the United States toward a culture where we need lots of space science to prevent our destruction. Probably the Republicans will win in '08 (since that would be 16 years of Democrat domination of the presidency), and ideally they'd be continuing to lay the groundwork, albeit likely more in the private sector. The key in the early years (which would probably be until 2050) is not to overdo the amount of funding toward the project and approach it with fiscal moderation--building the groundwork is key, and we need to prevent any sort of large-scale backlash. By 2050, we'll be more than ready to start with the main parts of the project--the launch loop itself, or even multiple launch loops, hopefully funded by every single nation through international agencies which originated in the Clinton/Gore era. Once that's done, we can work on the orbital ring(s) and hopefully some sort of shield to save the human race.