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Space fetishism: space activism’s obsession with technological and ideological saviors
You don’t have to spend much time at space activist conferences or reading the comments on space blogs or discussion groups before you start to notice certain patterns. Very quickly you will recognize that certain people, or groups, have specific issues that they care passionately about, and they repeatedly advocate the same technological or ideological solutions to the problems that they think are most worthy of attention. They fit two of the three definitions of fetishes—things that space activists believe contain supernatural powers, and/or things that they have an abnormal fixation upon. There’s an old saying that when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. A good corollary to this is that when you idealize your hammer, you look for things to pound.
Technology fetishism
With only a little bit of effort, it would be possible to produce a long list of examples of technologies that individual space activists are obsessed with and believe are the solution to different problems. At the top of this list is space solar power, which many space activists currently believe is a solution to… well, just about everything: global warming, the high cost of gasoline, poverty, Middle East instability, and terrorism. Build solar power satellites, some activists believe, and most problems in the world will be solved.
[snip]
Now many of these technologies have some merit, and there is justification for spreading some development money around in order to see which ones can bear fruit. These technologies are not inherently invalid or stupid, but their enthusiastic advocates often dramatically overstate their utility, and ignore political or economic reality. Quite often, they are advocates talking to themselves, and failing to convince anybody outside of space activist circles.
[snip]
But more to the point, many of these technologies have limited respectability even within the space R&D field, where engineers and managers are focused on near-term problems and technologies that can serve more immediate needs. Several years ago I read a blog commentary where somebody proposed in situ resource utilization (ISRU)—turning atmosphere into fuel—as a “solution” to a Mars sample return mission. But if you talk to the engineers who devote their time to Mars sample return, ISRU is a solution to a problem they don’t have. Their problem is not reducing the amount of propellant that they need to carry to Mars, but finding a way of protecting the propellant that they carry during a long cold soak in the extreme Martian environment. ISRU is unproven and highly challenging. It is not something that they would add to a mission that already has a large number of technology challenges. ISRU is a potentially highly beneficial technology, but not the kind of thing that any sane engineer would insert into an operational mission until it had been developed and tested on its own. To the people who work in the field, it is not a solution, but a diversion. To the activists, ISRU was a magic technological capability that they reflexively applied to a proposed Mars mission.
[snip]
The Holy Grail
It’s worth repeating, because some readers will undoubtedly not get it: this is not an argument of absolutes. Commercial spaceflight approaches can be good. ISRU could be useful. Fuel depots may provide expanded spaceflight capabilities. VASIMIR may someday revolutionize interplanetary travel. And space solar power may be worth at least some further study. The point is not that these technological and ideological fetishes are all false, but that they are applied by activist advocates with too broad a brush, based on a belief that they are so inherently good that they will work beyond their technological niche, or in areas where they are not really suited. Commercial spaceflight may be a better approach in many areas than what NASA is currently doing, but not in all of them, and overselling its virtues can actually discredit it. And unless it aligns with what the government and its agents (like the government-supported science community) actually need, then it will not be adopted. It will be a solution in search of a problem.
That hammer may be useful, that hammer may be cool, but it is certainly not the only tool with value, and pounding away with it too much may ultimately be self-destructive.
Space fetishism: space activism’s obsession with technological and ideological saviors
You don’t have to spend much time at space activist conferences or reading the comments on space blogs or discussion groups before you start to notice certain patterns. Very quickly you will recognize that certain people, or groups, have specific issues that they care passionately about, and they repeatedly advocate the same technological or ideological solutions to the problems that they think are most worthy of attention. They fit two of the three definitions of fetishes—things that space activists believe contain supernatural powers, and/or things that they have an abnormal fixation upon. There’s an old saying that when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. A good corollary to this is that when you idealize your hammer, you look for things to pound.
Technology fetishism
With only a little bit of effort, it would be possible to produce a long list of examples of technologies that individual space activists are obsessed with and believe are the solution to different problems. At the top of this list is space solar power, which many space activists currently believe is a solution to… well, just about everything: global warming, the high cost of gasoline, poverty, Middle East instability, and terrorism. Build solar power satellites, some activists believe, and most problems in the world will be solved.
[snip]
Now many of these technologies have some merit, and there is justification for spreading some development money around in order to see which ones can bear fruit. These technologies are not inherently invalid or stupid, but their enthusiastic advocates often dramatically overstate their utility, and ignore political or economic reality. Quite often, they are advocates talking to themselves, and failing to convince anybody outside of space activist circles.
[snip]
But more to the point, many of these technologies have limited respectability even within the space R&D field, where engineers and managers are focused on near-term problems and technologies that can serve more immediate needs. Several years ago I read a blog commentary where somebody proposed in situ resource utilization (ISRU)—turning atmosphere into fuel—as a “solution” to a Mars sample return mission. But if you talk to the engineers who devote their time to Mars sample return, ISRU is a solution to a problem they don’t have. Their problem is not reducing the amount of propellant that they need to carry to Mars, but finding a way of protecting the propellant that they carry during a long cold soak in the extreme Martian environment. ISRU is unproven and highly challenging. It is not something that they would add to a mission that already has a large number of technology challenges. ISRU is a potentially highly beneficial technology, but not the kind of thing that any sane engineer would insert into an operational mission until it had been developed and tested on its own. To the people who work in the field, it is not a solution, but a diversion. To the activists, ISRU was a magic technological capability that they reflexively applied to a proposed Mars mission.
[snip]
The Holy Grail
It’s worth repeating, because some readers will undoubtedly not get it: this is not an argument of absolutes. Commercial spaceflight approaches can be good. ISRU could be useful. Fuel depots may provide expanded spaceflight capabilities. VASIMIR may someday revolutionize interplanetary travel. And space solar power may be worth at least some further study. The point is not that these technological and ideological fetishes are all false, but that they are applied by activist advocates with too broad a brush, based on a belief that they are so inherently good that they will work beyond their technological niche, or in areas where they are not really suited. Commercial spaceflight may be a better approach in many areas than what NASA is currently doing, but not in all of them, and overselling its virtues can actually discredit it. And unless it aligns with what the government and its agents (like the government-supported science community) actually need, then it will not be adopted. It will be a solution in search of a problem.
That hammer may be useful, that hammer may be cool, but it is certainly not the only tool with value, and pounding away with it too much may ultimately be self-destructive.
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