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SPACE PAPER
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TOPIC ANALYSIS - SPACE
by
David M. Berube, Ph.D.
University of South Carolina
April 15, 1997
The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet
in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.
Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land.
-T. H. Huxley, 1887.
INTRODUCTION
The treatises of Aristarchus were burnt and lost in the fires of Alexandria. The Anastazi
built a solstice marker in Casa Rincanada in the 11th century. Copernicus and Kepler debated
heliocentricity in the 16th century. A hundred years later, Newton debated orbits (not the drink)
and centrifugal forces with Halley.
There is a devastated taiga forest at Tunguska and a giant Meteor Crater in Arizona.
There are the comets: Halley, Ikeya-Seki, Humason, West, Shoemaker-Levy, and Hale-Bopp.
There were space missions named after our gods, heroes, and dreams: Viking, Voyager, Pioneer,
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Mir. Most recently, bacteria fossils were found in a Mars rock and
oceans of shifting ice were discovered on the surfaces of the Jovian moons, Enceladus and
Europa.
Interest in space has always been with us, sometimes thrust on us. Recently, efforts
toward commercialization and privatization of space have been on the rise. Yet, America's
aerospace industry faces significant challenges in the years ahead. Defense cuts in 1986 and the
consequent reduction in the business base of high-technology industries compared with foreign
governments heavily subsidizing their aerospace industry has threatened the industry.
Nevertheless, in 1995 commercial space activities still generated $7.5 billion in revenue which is
greater than the motion picture industry.
WHY DEBATE SPACE?
We need to debate a topic which will allow negative ground for disadvantages. There is a
tradeoff between choosing a highly controversial topic area and one with unique disadvantages.
Space resolves that.
Space was debated in 1984-1985 with the topic: The United States federal government
should significantly increase the exploration and/or development of space beyond the
Earth's mesosphere. Moreover, it was debated in high school only six years ago. Nonetheless,
the topics were acclaimed and files from six years ago will need serious updating. Furthermore,
if students are drawn into this topic because of an earlier version, that can only be a desirable as
we seem to be experiencing a decrease in participation.
Any highly controversial topic area will appear in the literature with linkage evidence to
political power, leadership, and focus issues. However, the problem occurs when the topic area
is also an area of executive and/or legislative attention. This will not likely happen with space
during the second year of the second term of the Clinton Administration and the 105th Congress.
The NASA
budget has not fared well
over the last few years.
According to the
Planetary Society, its
budget continues to fall.
In FY 1994, their budget
was cut 18%. In FY
1995, it was cut by
another 13%. And in FY
1996, it was cut an
additional 5%.
Counterplan
ground might be
constricted or extended
beyond typical agent
counterplans to delay and
exclusion counterplans given creative topic wording. Critiques on inward/outward focus,
space/time, anti-time and those pertaining to science, esp. artificial life and space science, might
also be accommodated. In others words, debating space might serve many of our interests in
1997-1998.
SOURCES
With constantly improving research technologies, space will enable any program to stay
on top of the issues independent of on-line text retrieval services like Lexis-Nexis. Most of the
evidence on this topic is found in libraries, esp. government document repositories, and on the
Internet. While the Internet is an excellent source for space related literature, there are also some
highly specialized libraries, e.g., Goddard Space Center Library in Virginia.
There are dozens of periodicals which are dedicated to space issues: Acta Astronautica,
Ad Astra Aerospace America, Astronautics and Aeronautics, Astronomy, Astronomy
Report (formerly Soviet Astronomy), Astronomy and Astrophysics, Astrophysical Journal,
Aviation Week and Space Technology, British Interplanetary Science Journal, Icarus,
International Aerospace Abstracts, Journal of Aerospace Engineering, Journal of the
Astronautical Sciences, Observatory, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the
Pacific, Royal Astronomical Society Quarterly Journal, Sky and Telescope, Spaceflight,
Space Governance, Space Policy, and Space Science Reviews. A foundational bibliography is
include below.
LITERATURE REVIEW - THE ISSUES
Many groups have devised strategies to streamline our space program and to produce a
more coherent space policy. For example, the National Space Society makes the following
recommendations: revive the National Space Council to improve the governance process; extend
infrastructure bond tax-exemptions to spaceports, exempt space manufactured goods from
corporate income taxes and import duties, and establish tax-free commercial space enterprise
zones to improve space related tax structures; formally reject the U.N. Moon Treaty, recognize
private property rights in space, review the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and establish a free trade
regime for space goods and services to improve international agreements; and reduce
institutional costs, use multi-year NASA authorization, require overdue reports on space
settlement studies, establish voucher programs for use of aircraft, suborbital rockets and space
facilities, establish voucher programs for scientific data, fully fund the X-33 (new renewable
launch vehicle) effort under close oversight, emphasize understanding on non-terrestrial
resources in science and planetary missions (e.g., the Lunar Prospector), initiate a modest
research effort in solar power satellites and stations, and expand research on returning to the
Moon before 2005 to improve NASA.
The primary government agency responsible for space activities is NASA (National
Aeronautics and Space Administration) and it supports five enterprises: Mission to Planet Earth,
aeronautics, human exploration and development of space, space sciences, and space technology.
The Mission to Planet Earth is responsible for important imaging which is used to track
global climate changes and provide farmers and foresters important climatic information. The
project also includes: New Millennium Project (a general technology development program),
Earth System Science Pathfinder (small rapid-development science missions), and a commercial
strategy (to decrease the cost of scientific data). PDD-27 (Presidential Decision Directive) has
allowed for access to remove sensing space capability by others) has increased international
access to this information.
Aeronautics deals with NASA's customers: the Department of Defense, the Federal
Aviation Administration and U.S. industry. It is related to national security with its emphasis on
helping develop military aircraft, enhancing the safety of aviation systems, and helping maintain
the U.S. as an aerospace exporter. Specific projects include: High Speech Research
(supersonics), High Speed Civil Transportation (e.g., SST), Advanced Subsonic Technology (to
ensure U.S. leadership in aircraft manufacturing, system efficiency and safety, and protection of
the environment), and High Performance Computing and Communication (information
infrastructure technology acceleration and application to meet engineering and scientific needs of
U.S. aeronautics, Earth sciences, and space sciences).
Human exploration and development of space includes two major programs: the
International Space Station and the Space Shuttle (upgrading anticipated). Serious criticism has
been launched against the human factor in space exploration with greater emphasis placed on
microrobotics, e.g., Project Outreach. Programs no longer under serious consideration include:
lunar bases, lunar outposts, extraterrestrial bases, core planetary exploration, colonies, e.g,
O'Neill, Dyson, etc., and terra forming. Additional areas of concern include: comet and asteroid
deflection and mining, zero-gravity production, space adaptation syndrome research, and
extrasolar planetary materials research.
Space Sciences is a very large part of NASA and its Space Exploration Initiative and
involves the major telescopy projects: Hubble and the Next Generation Space Telescope,
including the Space Infrared Telescope Facility and the Gamma Ray Observatory. It also
oversees the Galileo mission to Jupiter (recently discovered moving ice sheets on Europa
suggesting a subterrestrial ocean), two missions to Mars (Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global
Surveyor), deep space probes (e.g., Cassini and AXAF), and the Discover and Explorer series. It
is also important to radio telescopy and was involved in SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence), e.g, Mission 41-B. Other areas of research might include: orbiting solar energy
platforms and research into black holes and warped space time, dark matter, interstellar matter,
and solar flares.
Space Technology involves research into reusable launch vehicles, e.g., X-33, X-34, and
DC-XA, and Advanced Space Transportation Systems. Propulsion research into directed energy
conversion, nuclear reactors, etc. Special technology research has included solar sails, mass
drivers, and space elevators.
NASA will soon find its flight operations contract reorganized. The downsizing will be
enabled by the United States Alliance, a consortium which will take over operation of the shuttle
fleet. This is a clear first step toward privatization.
NASA is intimately involved in satellite deployment though private companies, here and
abroad, and has added significant launch capabilities. Launch capabilities might be further
bolstered as excess ballistic missile assets under START II are redirected. Satellites serve many
purposes: esp. DOD tactical intelligence; national foreign intelligence programs,
counterintelligence and security, satellite warning systems, national missile defense program,
esp. BMD (ballistic missile defense); NASA/DOD intelligence sharing; NOAA (weather,
seismic, population ecology, geothermal, climate, etc.).
There are some substantial legal issues involved, e.g., patents, sensing, tracking etc. The
roots of space law are in air and sea law. Early treaties are derived from a report of an ad hoc
U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. This report led to a limited test ban treaty
banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. In 1967, came
the Outer Space Treaty which contravenes many principles of sovereignty and property rights.
This raises another area of concern related to law: East-West and North-South cooperations. The
Moon Treaty of 1979 is short for the Agreement on the Activities of States on the Moon and
other Celestial Bodies and covers issues relating to cooperative exploration, development, and
warfighting. There are many conventions: Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, Return of
Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space, International Liability for
Damage Caused by Space Objects, and Registration of Objects launched into Outer Space. For
an in-depth discussion of space law issues, see Reynold and Merges, 1997.
DEFINITIONS
Only two terms need explanation before hand. According to the The Man-in-Space
Dictionary, Outer space is "a definition much abused and whose specific meaning is widely
misunderstood. As commonly used, outer space is that area of space beyond the influence of the
earth's atmosphere. More accurately, the term refers to space beyond the limits of the solar
system" (141). A Guide to the Space Age makes the same distinction. "(1) Space beyond the
Earth's atmosphere. (2) Space beyond the solar system" (194). However, this is not a problem
since the second definition is not contemporary usage. Nonetheless, space with the limiting
phrase below seems preferable.
To help resolve this problem and to preclude cases which address any phenomena which
is beyond the confines of any exosomatic container, the phrase beyond the Earth's mesosphere
has been employed. Space Age Dictionary defines mesosphere as "the region 15 to 20 and 50
miles altitude above the surface of the earth, where photochemical activity is predominant.
Coextensive with the chemosphere, according to Chapman; however, according to Wares, the
mesosphere lies between 250 and 600 miles altitude" (50). Nevertheless, the more common
meaning is "a stratum of atmosphere that lies between the stratosphere and the ionosphere; also
known as the chemosphere" (Ciadin, 126). Though the term is not widely used, it will be an
important limiting word in the topic. For those, who wish to use a more contemporary term, you
can use chemosphere, but again there will be some disagreement on its exact location.
Here are some terms to play with in the topic writing stage. Should we establish or
implement. Establish means "to place in a secure or permanent position or to install or secure".
Implement means "to complete, perform, carry into effect and to fulfill". While the term
establish requires the plan to be mostly novel, implement does not (some inherency concerns).
On the other hand, implement places a stronger solvency burden on the affirmative with greater
circumvention and fiat issues than establish.
Exploration mean "the act of examining, investigating or scrutinizing". Development
means "to bring out the latent capabilities" or "to realize potentialities". The first term is science
and the second, technology. While in some instances, one or the other will due, in most
instances, an affirmative will be doing some combination of both. While this increases
affirmative response options to topicality, it seems inevitable.
Finally, a program is a "definite plan or scheme of any intended proceeding" or "an
outline or abstract of something to be done". On the other hand, a policy (from Greek) means "a
making known, a demonstration, an evidence, a proof" or (from French) "a writing setting forth
or serving as evidence of any kind of transaction".
TOPICS
Here are some suggestions:
(1) The United States federal government should implement a comprehensive
program to develop and explore space beyond the mesosphere.
(2) The United States federal government should substantially increase the
exploration and/or development of space beyond the mesosphere.
(3) The United States federal government should establish a national priori
ty to
develop and explore space beyond the mesosphere.
The first is most restrictive of the three, but the aforedefined terms can be substituted to come up
with different variations. The second is directional which may bespeak its doom after the last
season. At least, it only points in one direction. The third is a softer topic which focuses on both
planetary and extra planetary issues of exploration and/or development and it is the broadest.
(4) An international organization should establish a comprehensive policy to
develop and/or explore space beyond the mesosphere.
Maybe, an international topic without a specified actor will encourage G-7 or consortia
affirmatives. It might provide an interesting vehicle for examining governance issues including
world government, socialism, etc.
(5) The development and/or exploration of space beyond the mesosphere is
justified.
Included lest we not forget out roots.
Good luck and please post comments to my attention at berube@garnet.cla.sc.edu. PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
1996 NASA Authorization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Budgeting Request
for Fiscal Year 1996, Report of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation on S. 1048, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, October
11, 1995.
Besserer, C. W. & Besserer, Hazel C., Guide to the Space Age, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959.
Caidin, M. The Man-In-Space Dictionary, NY: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1963.
Combs, Larry, Space Environmental Topics, Boulder, CO: Space Environment Center, 1996.
Determinations and Findings for the Space Shuttle Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee
on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 104:1,
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 30, 1995.
El-Genk, Mohamed, ed., Space Technology and Application International Forum, Woodbury,
NY: American Institute of Physics, 1997.
Fiscal Year 1997 NASA Authorization, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Space and
Aeronautics, Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 104:1, Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, February 13, March 16, 1995.
Fiscal Year 1997 NASA Authorization, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Space and
Aeronautics, Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 104:2, Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, April 17, 1996.
Fiscal Year 1997 NASA Budget, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 104:2, Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, March 26, 1996.
FY 1997 NASA Posture Hearings, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 104:2, Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, March 28, 1996.
Hathaway, Brad, Earth Observing System: Cost and Research Issues, Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Accounting Office, 1996.
Hayes, Peter, ed., Space Power Interests, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
Life on Mars?, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senate, 104:2, Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, May 16, 1996.
Maintaining U.S. Leadership in Aeronautics: Scenario-Based Strategic Planning for NASA's
Aeronautic Enterprise, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997.
McLaughlin, C., ed., Space Age Dictionary, Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1959.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1995, Report of
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on S 1048, Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, October 11, 1995.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1995, Report of
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on S 1839, Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office, July 22, 1996.
NASA Mission to Planet Earth, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and
Space, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senate, 104:2,
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 16, 1996.
NASA Procurement in the Earth-Space Economy, Hearings before the Committee on Science,
House of Representatives, 140:1, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,
November 8, 1995.
NASA's Uncosted Carryover, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 104:2, Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, July 18, 1996.
Peebles, Curtis, High Frontier: The U.S. Air Force and the Military Space Program, Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997.
Reynold, Glenn H. & Merges, Robert P., Outer Space: Problems of Law and Policy, Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Space Commercialization Promotion Act of 1996, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Space
and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, House of Representatives, 104:2, Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 31, 1996.
Space Station and Space Shuttle Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Science,
Technology and Space, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senate,
104:2, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 24, 1996.
Vaughan, Diane, The Challenger Launch Decision: Risks, Technology, Culture and Deviance at
NASA, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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