I was eating with a guy at Monsoon in Old Bellevue (try the ribs) and he said ‘Americans who don’t do Space every day think that we won in ’69 and it’s all over forever… it isn’t. Dandridge Cole said “The Moon is Panama” and anyone who thinks Panama is important here on Earth really should be told about Cole’s analysis before they let some salesman talk them into something that will make them look very dumb just a couple of elections from now.’
It got me thinkin’. Then yesterday my Wall Street Journal thumped the front door. And I saw that page 1.
My mother used to tell us: “Don’t worry. They’ve been talking about the end of the world forever and we haven’t blown ourselves up yet and we never will.” That was comforting.
The very popular Robert A. Heinlein had characters more than once talk about how you cook a frog: Put it in a pot of nice cool water and very, very slowly turn up the heat and he won’t notice until he’s too cooked to jump. That was not so comforting.
My dear – and scarily smart – wife says: “The Truth Is Always Somewhere In The Middle.”
Those are three very different perceptions of the same elephant in the living room but Mom, RAH and Sam definitely all would agree that there are crossroads in life, points in time where the choices made will have actual ramifications. And, in this writer’s opinion, us people restricted to a planet are near to one of those points in time right now.
Some L-5ers, long and old timers, say it is just the same old Mars vs Moon religious war from before the beginning of the Space Industry. ‘Relax kid’, they say, ‘we didn’t change anything so no one else ever will.’
Some younger experts say it is just the same childlike-play-pretend-buzz-lightyear-cosplay-pew-pew fanboys and fangirls vs Post-O’Neillian-but-O’Neillian-use-the-Moon-for-resources-to-actually-help-humanity stern-faced math people. ‘Yes,’ they say on their podcasts with Michio and Neil, ‘the past 60 years have been frustrating for both sides, but the balance would always be kept for the good of all because that was and is the safest spot for NASA.’
Their view, in an above it all academic way, is that NASA could talk and talk and talk and release pretty pictures but never have to do anything that was helpful to real people because they are NASA. They are in charge. They know better than anyone. They are NASA. Nobody could or can ever get past NASA when NASA puts its foot down. (NASA has a tiny budget but they use every opportunity to push the perception of having the biggest feet.)
Well, it’s different now. Someone has called their bluff and they blinked. NASA is scared. And they should be. And it’s their own fault for dragging those big ol’ feet for far, far too long but… here we all are.
The frustrating but safe balance is no longer assured. There actually is currently, unlike any other time, a chance of one way or the other being made real. There is a real person in real play with crazy real money and he likes showing off how he can buy whatever and whomever he wants. Will anyone stand up and defend the other, actually Efficient option? Is there some past but still respected NASA administrator beloved and trusted by all who will pass a powerful message? Is Jeffrey Preston Bezos strong enough in his convictions to stand up and re-sell what he said was important to him? Nothing ‘just happens.’ As James Vedda so wonderfully spelled out, what we get out of Space is about “Choice, Not Fate.” And there ARE actually two options.
We could choose, or have chosen for us, a hugely expensive Martian Apollo where the tickertape “We Won!” parade is followed by never going back again. That would be annoying but we all lived after the Moonshot right? The thing is, though, that circumstances and players are different now and the end would likely be worse than Apollo. Back then our PR stunt triumph made others back down, but this time while we pour money (OUR MONEY, not ELON’s money) into going hugely far away for no tangible value that anyone can explain, someone else is ready and willing to take the more nearby High Ground and all of the best real estate and resources that are sitting there. Sitting right there. Right there where every human being can just look up and see it happening most every single night. Being done before our eyes by and for someone not us. But we might have pictures of bootprints and a flag, so yay for that right?
Or, and it does not look good for this option as I write this note today, people, and not just Space Industry people but people people, will start seeing that the Moon is not simply a stepping stone to someone else’s childhood dreams of Mars. The awareness will come to people, regular good normal people who just hadn’t heard the whole Big Picture truth before, that the Moon is a potentially Economic and Absolutely and Definitely *Strategic* location that is, all by itself, tangibly important to their futures. This is what they have to start hearing.
The truth IS always somewhere in the middle. You are correct, my dear.
But the pendulum is swinging. How far it goes and in which direction is right now – RIGHT NOW – up to us.
– Smith, Robert, your fellow SSI Senior Associate
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Article by Emily Glazer and Micah Maidenberg.
