Space

Huygens Probe Descends on Titan

Cassini, the NASA/JPL spacecraft currently in orbit around magnificent Saturn, is about to release a probe. On December the 24^th, the European Space Agency (ESA) designed and built Huygens Probe will be released on a glide path calculated to insert it on a landing trajectory on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The landing is scheduled for January 14^th, 2005.

The Huygens Probe is named after the multi-talented Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan and Saturn’s rings in the 17^th century.

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Here’s a good article by Paul Jacob on the merits of defunding NASA, and allowing private enterprise to lead the charge into space.

Americans and scientists and the current space industry must wean themselves from the idea of subsidy — a point I often make, of other industries, in my Common Sense e-letter. No matter how expertly NASA charges corporations for its services, such as satellite placement and repair, the very existence of a government-funded service bureau introduces a corrupting element into the industry.

Private enterprise can bloom in space. But only by getting NASA and government subsidies out.

Update: Ken made an excellent point in the comments. I was reponding, but I’ll respond here.

The free market has a record of innovation, lowering cost, and improving quality, particularly so in the high tech/high science industry. Government can and should piggy back off the private sector.

You would be surprised what private enterprise will fund. For example, say launch costs for putting heavy loads into space are cut to the point of commodity. Then the variable cost of the high-end research is diminished more or less to the research itself. Even that would probably benefit from privatization. Some company out there will want to look into Magnetic Sail Plasma Beam Propulsion. VC funded startups would want to patent it. Skunk works for the big defense companies would be the candidates with the infrastructure and knowledge base to support it. Letting a VC funded startup shoulder the cost for an expensive bleeding edge technology has historically been a very successful model. For that one startup that figures it out, the payoff would be, literally, astronomical. The other 99% of VC funded startups may be complete duds/write-offs. But that payoff is exactly what VC’s are gunning for. Say I am Kleiner Perkins. I would set aside $100 million, find 10 companies showing the most promise in space propulsion and put $10 million into each. If there aren’t any companies, I would incubate them (KPCB has an in-house entrepreneur program iirc) I would then syndicate the companies to where I own about 20% of each company to lessen the risk, and the companies would get more money to work with. So each company would get about $50 million in funding. If even one company does hit it big, that $10 million is going to be worth a lot more than $100 million. What’s high end space propulsion worth? If they had a lock on Magnetic Sail Plasma Beam Propulsion, I would value it in the public markets to the tune of $5 to $10 billion. 20% of $5 billion is $1 billion, for a 10 fold return on the original investment of $100 million. Bingo, science fiction becomes reality, and we have a new propulsion system.

It’s one scenario. But my main point is that government has a lackluster track record for innovation. They tend to play it safe when it comes to being a catalyst for major change. So why not let the profit-driven private sector do it? It may not seem as “noble” as the pure pursuit of science, but it has a knack of getting the job done.

I’ve already posted this over on Arcturus, but Lex asked that I share it here also. I’m noticing several interesting lessons in my favorite topics — project management (especially risk management) and public perception of large scientific endeavors.

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Over on Arcturus, I rashly promised to post something about how I’d do the whole Moon-Mars thing. And so I shall, but with no pretense of technological or future-historical accuracy, though I’ll mention some technologies and dates; instead, I’ll be building a strawman proposal, with attention to its project-management aspects (in what follows, all definitions are taken from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge [PMBOK® Guide], 2000 Edition; Project Management Institute).
The first of those being assumptions, whose formal definition is “factors that, for planning purposes, are considered to be true, real, or certain.” In particular, I’ll assume that stakeholder (“individuals and organizations that are actively involved in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected as a result of project execution or project completion; they may also exert influence over the project and its results”) interests have already been balanced.
They haven’t, of course, and the game-theoretic aspects of a program slated to stretch through as many as seven future Administrations, twice that number of Congresses, and nearly thirty Federal budgets, render the prospects for the new space policy rather bleak, I’m afraid. So let’s pretend that isn’t true. The American public is united in its support (or perhaps cowed into submission, or merely indifferent enough to raise no objection): we’re going to Mars! How do we get there?

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Jay is modest, so let me note that he has a number of excellent posts on the recent Mars and comet unmanned space expeditions, over at A Voyage to Arcturus.

Check them out:

Mars Post 1
Mars Post 2
Mars Post 3

Comet Post 1
Comet Post 2