Posted on 20-1-2002
Going
Where No Man Wants To
By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D., introduction by Alan Marston
Last week TV1 started screening a BBC series called `S P A C
E'. An
appropriate title in my opinion, if it is interpretted as meaning
that the
space between points of interest and value greatly exceeds programme
content - in short, what a rude one, or maybe more to the point,
what a
cheap one.
S P A C E uses Sam Neil, who like the BBC has gone from outside
the mall
(maul) pissing in to insider pissing out. If I was still a science
teacher
facing a wordly forth form I'd be risking a riot to show them
S P A C E. If
as I suspect it is the forth formers and below of this world
that the
corporates aim at in their drive for low cost high profit in
the
entertainment industry, then the corporate marketing heads should
start
rolling pretty soon. As for the rest of the population ... I
don't know, I
suspect I'm not too representative because the `entertainment'
industry
gives me indigestion.
Meanwhile, back in the centre of space-science, NASA, the entertainment
value or more to the point, the mass distraction and ego-boost
value of
`going where no man has gone before' is losing its pull. Or
is Jackie
Giuliano just another former insider complaining hard enough
to get kicked
upstairs? Over and out.
............
The world is a sacred vessel
Not to be acted upon.
Whoever acts upon it
destroys it.
Whoever grasps it
loses it.
Lao Tzu (from the Tao Te Ching)
I spent nearly 20 years working in America's space program.
At the time, I
saw it as a grand dream, an opportunity for humanity to unite
in the
exploration of the universe. I defended the expenditures, pointing
out the
dramatic benefits that could be derived from finding a common
cause for the
Earth's people. But tragically, as with nearly everything touched
by the
U.S. government, waste on a grand scale came to rule the land.
I found I
could no longer support an enterprise that condoned the intentional
destruction of multi-million dollar spacecraft and the wanton
pollution of
other worlds in our solar system. Once again the National Aeronautics
and
Space Administration (NASA), ironically, while under intense
criticism for
the vast cost overruns of the International Space Station program,
has
decided to prematurely end the life of one of the human race's
grandest
achievements.
Later this year, controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
NASA's lead
center for the robotic exploration of the Solar System, and
the facility
where I spent many years, will upload the last command sequence
to the
Galileo spacecraft. Launched on October 18, 1989, the Galileo
craft has
been in orbit around the gas giant Jupiter since 1995, sending
back
incredible pictures and data, advancing our knowledge of our
neighborhood
in space. The program cost $1.4 billion. Because funding technically
runs
out next year, NASA will not only stop
communicating with this amazing, and expensive, machine, but
it will
intentionally crash it into the atmosphere of Jupiter in September
2003,
dispersing its power source of 15.6 kilograms (34.4 pounds)
of
radioactive plutonium-238 and other hazardous wastes, around
that giant
planet.
Even though the heat from the plutonium would keep generating
power for the
craft for many years, once the propellant used to point the
spacecraft at
Earth runs out, commands could no longer be sent and data could
not be
received. The propellant is running out, but the timing of this
ending is
because of budgetary shortsightedness, not real needs. Besides
the
incredible waste of prematurely destroying a craft that took
years to build
and to travel to another world, we are once again spreading
our pollution
to worlds about which we know very little.
One of my few television indulgences these days, after my eight
month old
son goes to bed, is watching the latest series in the Star Trek
saga,
"Enterprise." Watching it these last few weeks has reminded
me of the grand
ideals that I and my colleagues entered the space program to
achieve. The
inspiring television tales of the first steps of humans off
of the Earth
have been a sharp contrast to the stark reality of the real
life space
program, a program fraught with lack of direction and monumentally
ludicrous choices. Galileo has been in orbit around Jupiter
more than three
times longer than its originally planned mission. The spacecraft
has
survived about three and a half times as much exposure to radiation
from
Jupiter's radiation belts as it was designed to withstand. It
has taken 33
loops around Jupiter, flying near the closest moon, Io, six
times and near
the other three of Jupiter's planet-sized moons - Europa, Ganymede
and
Callisto - a total of 27 times.
The Galileo spacecraft's prime mission was to spend two years
studying
Jupiter, its moons and its magnetic environment. When that original
mission
ended in December 1997, it was followed by a two year extended
mission,
scheduled to end in January 2000. The mission was extended again.
While NASA tries to make these extensions sound like gifts that
have
already made use of a spacecraft living beyond its expected
lifetime, they
are actually the result of the budget battles that constantly
go on in
Congress. Rather than seek approval for what is the true life
of the
mission, NASA budgeters play the game by only asking for a couple
of years
funding at a time, hoping for a more favorable budget climate
when that end
of mission comes. This philosophy has contributed to the astronomical
cost
overruns of the space station program.
I worked on the Galileo mission before it was launched, and
we all knew it
would last beyond the two years Congress was being asked to
fund. It was
hard to constantly manipulate the truth by telling the outside
world that
the spacecraft mission was only two years long. We all knew
that were
weren't going to be spending 10 years building the spacecraft
and taking
six years to get to Jupiter, and spending hundreds of millions
of dollars
to just take data for two years. We knew that NASA would get
more money
when that time was up. But the game was afoot and unstoppable.
Jet
Propulsion Laboratory engineer Robert Gounley said in an article
about the
mission, "By 2004 or so, the gas gauge will read empty and Galileo
will
become a free-floater, unable to change course. Chances are,
it will orbit
around Jupiter for millions of years without incident. Galileo,
however,
was not sterilized during its assembly. A few traces of terrestrial
life
might yet endure in some of the more heavily shielded electronics
bays.
There is the possibility, difficult to quantify, that someday
Galileo will
collide with Europa and leave traces of terrestrial life there."
Since oceans have been discovered beneath the frozen ice of
Jupiter's moon
Europa, suggesting the possibility of the early beginnings of
life, these
concerns sound worth noting. But while the concerns about contaminating
Europa with Earth microbes are interesting, even though the
possibility of
the spacecraft making it there on its own are remote, it is
disappointing
that NASA doesn't have any concern about dumping plutonium or
our space
junk around the Solar System. Project scientists would say,
of course, that
adding the plutonium to Jupiter's atmosphere will make no difference.
But
such a statement reveals the constant inconsistencies in how
science is
practiced today. The reality is that scientists have no better
idea of what
the implications of dumping plutonium into Jupiter's atmosphere
are than
they do of what affect some Earth microbes might have on
Europa. But humans will always pick the "truth" that corresponds
the
closest to their desired objectives.
NASA and JPL project managers look at the environmental assessment
process
and any comments from the public about spreading our waste in
space as a
bother and an annoyance. It shows in their documents and in
their
discussions. I have sat in many meetings where the public has
been called
"stupid" and the environmental assessment process has been called
a big
waste of time and money.
A NASA created composite of Galileo images from the Jovian system,
includes
the edge of Jupiter with its Great Red Spot, and Jupiter's four
largest
moons. From top to bottom, the moons shown are Io, Europa, Ganymede
and
Callisto. Also, engineers are trained to downplay risks. They
consider a
risk of one in a million insignificant. But to a lay person
who has seen
the results of thousands of environmental accidents where the
risk was
supposedly very low, one in a million seems quite possible.
Engineers love
to manipulate statistics.
This won't be the first time we have ended the life of a spacecraft
prematurely and dumped our toxic junk
on another world. In 1998, the Lunar Prospector spacecraft was
crashed on
the Moon, looking for water. It didn't find any water, but it
left behind
smashed spacecraft remains. Although its power source is provided
by
batteries charged by sunlight, those nickel-cadmium batteries
now littering
the Moon's surface are classified as a hazardous waste on the
Earth.
In 1994, controllers crashed the Magellan spacecraft into Venus
when the
money ran out, although the spacecraft had considerable life
left in it.
And the future Europa Orbiter plans to crash its nine kilograms
of
plutonium on Jupiter's moon Europa, the very moon Galileo scientists
want
to protect, a moon that could harbor the beginnings of life.
NASA will
protect another world from Earth microbes, but has no problem
spreading
deadly nuclear material around. Of course, how can we get anyone
to be
concerned about the possible harmful effects of dumping our
radioactive
waste on other worlds when modern science condones illness,
cancers, and
even deaths if they advance a technology or turn a profit. Our
culture has
made it OK to release a drug if the side effects "only" kill
two percent of
the users under certain circumstances. v NASA's new administrator
should
clean up the sloppy goal selection process for space exploration
missions
and insist that future mission designs include ways to stop
spreading our
hazardous waste around the Solar System.
Otherwise, future space explorers will find worlds contaminated
in ways we
can't possibly imagine. Maybe the Star Trek mantra needs to
be changed to
"boldly go where no one has trashed or polluted before." That,
it turns
out, will be a much more difficult mission.
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