Space Aff Grapevine

8/3/2019 Space Aff Grapevine

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THE PLAN:

THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD CONSTRUCT A LARGE-CAPACITY, UNIVERSALLY-ACCESSIBLE SPACE

ELEVATOR.


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CONTENTION 1: GENERAL ECONOMY

ECONOMICCOLLAPSEISINEVITABLEINTHESTATUSQUOTHEBENEFITSOFTHESTIMULUSWILLRUNOUTABSENTMASSIVE

NEWPUBLICPROJECTS

MIKE WHITNEY, 2010, 1-6-2010. FREELANCE WRITER CITING JOSPEH STIGLITZ, NOVEL PRIZE WINNING ECONOMIST, ANDQUOTES FROM MOODY ANALYSIS, THE STIMULUS KILLER AVAILABLE ONLINE AT

The economy is getting better, but will it last? Many economists don't think so, including those at opposite ends of the ideological

spectrum, like Paul Krugman and Martin Feldstein. They think the economy will begin to fizzle sometime in the latter partof 2010 when Obama's $787 billion fiscal stimulus runs out and consumers are forced to pick upthe slack in demand. That's a safe bet, too, considering that unemployment will still be somewhere in the neighborhood of 9per cent and households will still be digging out from the $13 trillion they lost during the crisis. The fact that the Fed is planning toend its quantitative easing (QE) program in early April, doesn't help either. That will just suck more liquidity out of the system and

push long-term interest rates higher. When that happens, housing prices will fall, inventory will rise, and a surgein foreclosures will put more pressure on the banks balance sheets. That's why the pros are so glum,because they know the economy needs a second dose of stimulus to stay on track, but the politicosare dead-set against it. Congress is afraid of the backlash from voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

They'd rather drive the economy back into recession then risk losing their jobs. Despite the propagandain the media, stimulus works. In fact, Goldman Sachs attributes all of last quarter's (positive) growth to Obama's stimulus.

Here's how Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz sums it up in his China Daily article "Harsh lessonswe may need to learn again": "Keynesian policies do work. Countries, like Australia, that implemented large,well-designed stimulus programs early emerged from the crisis faster. Other countries succumbed to the old orthodoxypushed by the financial wizards who got us into this mess in the first place. Whenever an economy goes intorecession, deficits appear, as tax revenues fall faster than expenditures.The old orthodoxy held that one had to cut thedeficit - raise taxes or cut expenditures - to restore confidence. But those policies almost alwaysreduced aggregate demand, pushed the economy into a deeper slump, and further underminedconfidence." When consumers are forced to cut back on spending, because they're too far in debt or worried about their jobs, thegovernment has to step in and make up the difference or the economy goes into a tailspin.The deficits need be bigenough to maintain aggregate demand while the private sector regains its footing. Otherwise,consumer spending declines, which lowers earnings and forces businesses to lay off moreworkers. It's a vicous circle. But if the stimulus is distributed wisely, multipliers kick in and help to

lift the economy out of the doldrums. Here's a good breakdown of how it works from an article in the New York Times:"Every dollar of additional infrastructure spending means $1.57 in economic activity, according toMoodys, and general aid to states carries a $1.41 bang for each federal buck. Even more effective are increases forfood stamps ($1.74) and unemployment checks ($1.61), because recipients quickly spend theirbenefits on goods and services. By contrast, most temporary tax cuts cost more than the stimulusthey provide, according to research by Moodys. That is true of two tax breaks in the stimulus law that Congress,pressed by industry lobbyists, recently extended and sweetened a tax credit for homebuyers (90 cents of stimulus for each dollarof tax subsidy) and extra deductions for businesses net operating losses (21 cents)." ("New Consensus Sees Stimulus Package as

Worthy Step " Jackie Calmes and Michael Cooper, New York Times) So far, the stimulus has done exactly what itwas designed to do; give the economy a big enough boost to get through a deflationary roughpatch. Unemployment is flattening out, manufacturing is expanding again, the stock marketkeeps climbing higher, and a recent survey of individual investors shows the highest ratio ofbulls-to-bears since 2007. That's a good start, but the economy is still weak and needs more

help. So why are policymakers so eager to take the patient off the ventilator before he can breathe on his own again? Politics, that'swhy. The congress is worried about voter rage at the ballot box, but that doesn't explain whyObama has started moaning about slashing deficits in the middle of a severe slump. Theadministration's agenda is entirely different than Congress's. The White House economics team is trying to garner support for policiesthat will strap the faltering economy into a fiscal straightjacket and pound the green shoots into mush. All the railing against deficitsis just empty blather backed by junk economics. Ex-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin--one of the chief architects of the globalfinancial crisis--articulates the position of his proteges at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave thus: "Putting another major stimulus on top ofalready huge deficits and rising debt-to-GDP ratios would have risks. And further expansion of the Federal Reserve Board's balancesheet could create significant problems.... Today's economic conditions would ordinarily be met with expansionary policy, but ourfiscal and monetary conditions are a serious constraint, and waiting too long to address them could cause a new crisis.... First, theremust be sound fiscal and monetary policies. The United States faces projected 10-year federal budget deficits that seriously threatenits bond market, exchange rate, economy, and the economic future of every American worker and family. Those risks areexacerbated by the context of those deficits: a low household-savings rate, even after recent increases; large funding requirementsfor federal debt maturities every year; heavy overweighting of dollar-denominated assets in foreign portfolios; worsened fiscal


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prospects in the decades after the current 10-year budget period; and competing claims for capital to fund deficits in othercountries." ("Getting the Economy back on track" Robert Rubin, Newsweek) Rubin admits that the recession "would ordinarily be met

with expansionary policy", but suggests that he has a better remedy than stimulus. Does that make sense? It was Keynesiancounter-cyclical public spending (stimulus) that just produced positive GDP for the first time in 4quarters, whereas, it was Rubin's deregulation of the financial system that pushed the globaleconomy to the brink of disaster. There's no question of whose theory is more credible or likelyto work. Even so, it's worth considering what Rubin has to say, because it clarifies the views of Obama's chief economics advisorsGeithner and Summers. After all, the trio is joined at the hip. "The American people are growing increasingly concerned aboutdeficits, creating a public environment more conducive to political action. And the Obama administration, in my view, has a deep

understanding of the critical importance of addressing this issue..... " Indeed. So, Obama has already joined the ranks

of the deficit terrorists. Rubin again: "As President Obama and the other G20 leaders warned, restrictive trade measures inresponse to the current crisis could lead to highly destructive trade wars. For the long run, we should continue pursuing the openmarkets that the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, estimates have added $1 trillion toAmerica's current GDP." So Rubin is working for Peterson? That explains everything. Here's an excerpt from a Dean Baker articleappearing in CounterPunch today: Peter Peterson is a Wall Street billionaire and former Nixon administration cabinet member whohas been trying to gut Social Security payments and Medicare for at least the last quarter of a century. He has written several booksthat warn of a demographic disaster when the baby boomers retire. These books often include nonsense arguments to make his caseFor example, in one of the books making his pitch for cutting social security as matter of generational equity, Peterson proposes

reducing the annual cost of living adjustment. So, the real goal is to slash spending to impose onerousausterity measures that will lay the groundwork for dismantling critical social programs, likeSocial Security, Medicaid and Medicare. That's why Rubin is working hand-in-hand with his allies in and out of the WhiteHouse. It has nothing to do with what's best for the country. It's another looting operation spearheaded by thesame band of Wall Street pirates who just blew up the financial system. Rubin: "For American workers, sustained growth is the mostpowerful force for higher wages and greater personal economic security....The dynamism of American society, its flexible labor and

capital markets, its entrepreneurial spirit and the sheer size of its economy, are great strengths for succeeding in a rapidlytransforming global economy....Finally, in an increasingly interdependent world, transnational issues key to all of us can only be

addressed through effective global governance." More free trade, more outsourcing, more off-shoring, morelost jobs, more structural adjustment (at home, this time) more privatization, more screwballglobalist Utopianism. It's all right out of the neoliberal playbook, corporate America's sacred text.


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BUILDINGASPACEELEVATORISAMEGAPROJECTITWILLSTIMULATEMULTIPLEECONOMICSECTORS

DR DAVIDRAITT & DR BRADLEYEDWARDS, 2004, SENIOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER OFFICER, TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER &PROMOTION OFFICE, EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY ESTEC, NOORDWIJK, THE NETHERLANDS, PRESIDENT, X TECH CORP.SARASOTA, FL, USA, THE SPACE ELEVATOR: ECONOMICS AND APPLICATIONS, IAC-04-IAA.3.8.3, 55TH INTERNATIONALASTRONAUTICAL CONGRESS 2004 - VANCOUVER, CANADA, HTTP://BIT.LY/JKJHESADDED VALUE OR WASTE OF MONEY? There is no doubt that many space projects, as well as building bridges, tunnels,and maglev systems are costly and many people, not least the public, consider such megaprojects a huge waste ofmoney. Space exploration, for instance, is estimated to cost Americans $50 per annum, comparedto $15 in Europe. But a lot has to do with the perceived value of the projects, what the benefits are and to whom, and whether thecosts can be recovered in a reasonable amount of time. What good does it do to have a half a billion dollar launch vehicle (the space

shuttle) carrying spacecraft worth just a few million dollars into orbit? What is the tangible value of the costly ISS?Will the experiments performed in space, or the experience gained in helping astronauts survive there, result in health and medicalproducts that will improve our daily lives? These are questions that are asked regularly. In some instances, there have already been

space spin-offs which are benefitting segments of society4 Some mega building projects bring immediate andtangible results and benefits to users and therefore may, eventually, justify the cost. In the case of tall towers andbuildings, for some there will be accommodation and housing -and the fact of growing upwards rather than expanding outwards willbring environmental benefits because of the reduced footprint. For many- including the general public the value will be in greaterconvenience. Bridges allow rapid transport of goods and people between points at a saving of cost and time. The Tokyo Bay Aqualinesaves motorists a 50km detour. The 0resund bridge obviates the need to fly or take a car ferry between Copenhagen and Malmo.

Similarly the Straits of Gibraltar bridge will immediately open African markets to European goods and vice-versa in an unprecedentedmanner- the time-saving over sea transportation will be astounding. The Channel Tunnel has opened up the border between Britainand the Continent- permitting quicker freight and passenger transfers. However, despite the fact that the Channel Tunnel wasexpected to put ferry boats out of business, they still command 50% of the market. Furthermore, budget airlines have also flourishedbecause planes are still perceived by the general public to be faster, even though trains through the tunnel actually provide a quickercity centre to city centre link between London and Paris. Better road and rail links also improve the flow of traffic- the widening of theM25 around London and the Boston Big Dig should doth is, so should establishing high-speed rail links as people movers. Maglevtrains will help meet growing travel demands, reducing the need for additional highways, rail capacity and airport expansion. In theBaltimore Washington corridor as well as along the Eastern Seaboard, maglev is projected to divert about 20% of air travel to themaglev mode. It is believed it will divert 27,000 vehicles per day from the highway system in 2010, and reduce daily vehiclekilometres travelled in the corridor in the year 2020 by over 800,000 vehicle kilometres every day. Furthermore, maglev does notproduce local air quality impacts associated with gasoline engines, diesel locomotives or jet engines. There are other ways in whichcommunities may benefit. Maglevs are fast people movers and it is suggested that a high speed maglev connection could draw theBaltimore and Washington metropolitan regions closer together by reducing travel times between the two cities to less than 20minutes. This could foster economic growth, particularly in downtown Baltimore. Maglev could also greatly increase the market sharefor the Baltimore Washington International airport in the Washington region by reducing the travel time from downtown Washington.

The same applies to other maglev systems connecting cities and airports such as Shanghai where the travel time is reduced a mereseven minutes. Like any major construction project, be it aerospace or construction, significant jobopportunities in regard to both construction and operation can manifest themselves. TheChannel Tunnel created building infrastructures, shops, petrol stations on each side of the tunnelwith all the attendant economic and employment benefits for the regions. The Mackenzie Gas Project aimsto have the involvement, participation and ownership of the indigenous communities and will provide work, cheap gas, and heatingfor homes as well as creating benefits for aboriginal and other northern and Canadian people. Such benefits include education andtraining, improved skills, employment and business opportunities. Indirect benefits include the expansion of service, transportationand other industries to support the Project, as well as natural gas exploration and development by oil and gas companies.Governments will also benefit by collecting royalty payments and taxes. The Alice Springs to Darwin rail link exceeded its agreementto use a 15% indigenous workforce and, furthermore, land around the track was rehabilitated using native soils in order to meet

environmental concerns. In addition, such megaprojects foster new research and development into newtechnologies and materials (including subsequent spin-offs) as well as additional transportation andindustrial applications. This will be the case of the Space Elevator.There has been an

interest in beaming power to aircraft for over thirty years and NASA has recently completed trials in which a modelaircraft maintained flight through a ground-based laser beam which was converted to electricity by photovoltaic cells on the aircraftto turn the propeller. An aircraft could remain flying without batteries or on board fuel as long as the laser energy source was

uninterrupted.The concept has potential commercial value to the remote sensing andtelecommunications industries and the technological advances being developed in laser power beaming for the SpaceElevator will be able to be employed in many other applications.The private sector alone cannot usually financeand build these massive infrastructure megaprojects because risks are too great and the returnis too small. They need to be either joint public-private partnership ventures, such as the 0resund Bridgeor funded entirely by the State. The construction of the Great Belt Link in Denmark and the 0resund Bridge betweenDenmark and Sweden was funded by loans in the Danish and international capital markets and these loans are guaranteed by theDanish and Swedish governments. The entire construction costs (some $10bn), including interest, will eventually be paid by the usersof the road and rail links including tolls from the motorists and fees from the railroad operators. The debt for the 0resund bridge isthus expected to be repaid in 2035 - 35 years after the opening of the bridge, although the debt for the landworks will be repaid


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within a time frame of almost 60 years. Other bridges and tunnels will also be funded by tolls. A variety of tolls will also help financeBoston's Big Dig and it has been intimated that it wi II take up to 50 years to pay back the project costs. For the Californian maglevsystem, it is projected that revenues from passenger fares, parking fees, freight and the like will be some $60bn over the next 40 orso years. And despite the huge costs of building the Channel Tunnel, revenue emanating from its use, although lower than projectedand anticipated, is still greater than its operating costs. In a similar manner, revenues can be earned by the Space Elevator to pay offpublic or private loans, by the transportation of goods (e.g. space outpost structural elements, satellites, stores, passengers) tovarious departure points along the ribbon. Such revenues could be generated early on and the expense of building a Space Elevatorcould become akin to building a motorway or rail network. Taking into account the cost recovery durations of for example 35 yearsfor the 0resund bridge and even 20-30 years for a typical house mortgage, then there is no reason why the costs of building theSpace Elevator should be not be recovered over a similar period. But it could pay for itself in far less time. If the Space Elevator costs$6bn and is paid back over 30 years- that works out to something like half a million dollars per day having to be recovered. If launch(operating) costs are eventually reduced to the projected level of $10/kg and a charge was made of $110/kg then the operators

would get this $0.5m with the first elevator just lifting 5000kg/day. At a charge level of $1000/kg the elevator could be run at rates ofcurrent launches and make $5m/day. With second-generation climbers capable of transporting 20.000kg, a $1000/kg charge wouldbring in $20m per day with just one climber. Contrast this to the space shuttle which henceforth is expected to do only four launchesper year. Even conventional launchers such as Ariane, Delta, Atlas or Proton are carried out only a few times per year. It has been

argued that reusability (in the form of a space shuttle) is the death-knell of low cost access to space. On the other hand, it mightmake sense to have reusability if the cost of that convenience outweighs the costs and inconvenience ofexpendability- as it does with megaproject bridges, tunnels and trains, and as it would do with aSpace Elevator. The profit of the Space Elevator will lie not so much in the cheap cost of placing objects and manufacturingfacilities into space, but more in bringing the results down again. So what could the Space Elevator be used for which would outweighits costs of construction and give a perceived benefit and value to its customers and the public at large?


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THEMASSIVEEXPENSEOFASPACEELEVATORWILLBEAHUGEECONOMICSTIMULUSWITHTHEADDEDBENEFITOFACCESSTO

SPACE

CHRISTOPHER J. KOBUS, 2009, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOROF MECHANICAL ENGINEERINGAT OAKLAND UNIVERSITY, WEDNESDAYJANUARY 21, ELEVATINGOURSELVESINTOOUTERSPACE! THEBLOGPROF, HTTP://BIT.LY/MULKHMBeing a sci-fi fan, long before I became a scientist, I have been fascinated with space travel since a small child. I was definitely one of

those "I want to be an astronaut" kind of kids. Even though my field of research is in the fluid/thermal sciences, I keep track oftechnological developments especially in the area of space travel. One of the best ideas out there, IMO, is the "spaceelevator." In essence, it's like swinging a ball overhead on a string, just on a planetary level. Thecentrifugal forces in the spinning counteract the gravity force that will invariably pull down theobject. The centrifugal force, as a result of centripetal acceleration, is related to the velocity. That is why stuff in space orbiting theEarth have to fly around at tremendous speeds (17,000 mph+). In any case, if we could put a large object in geosynchronous orbit,and then run a strand of lightweight wire down to the surface of the Earth, and then another, and then another, etc. until we have avery solid cord tethered between the surface and the object in space, we can then use the cord to elevate objects into space just likea conventional elevator. Of course, because of the scale, the manufacture of this material might likely have to be in space, not onEarth. So there's that too. Now for the problem: we have nothing that's nearly strong enough and at the same time light enough. So I

read an interesting article on FoxNews today: "Engineering Breakthrough May Make Possible 'Space Elevator.' " Could thedream be closer to reality than I thought? Possibly. If this material could be produced, it will haveto be done so on a massive scale.And the elevator will be by far the largest (and mostexpensive) structure ever built by[HU]man[ITY]. If the investment can be made (hey - the U.S.government is about to dump $1 trillion to maybe stimulate the economy), then we willhave vastly cheaper access into space. The shuttle will no longer be launched from the surface of the Earth, which istoo expensive. We will go to Mars. Heck - we might be taking vacations in space stations!


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MOREIMPORTANTLY, SPACEISKEYTOBREAKOUTOFTHECYCLEOFTHERESTRICTEDECONOMICSOF EARTHTHEONLY

WAYTHATCAPITALISTGROWTHCANBESPENT ISEITHERONMAKINGWEAPONSORTHEGLORIOUSEXPENDITUREOFSPACE

PROJECTS

NEAL CURTIS, 2006, LECTURER IN CRITICAL THEORY, UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM, WAR AND SOCIAL THEORY WORLDVALUEAND IDENTITY, 74-79Economy (general versus restricted) In 1939, the year that the persistent ideology of community, spirit and destiny erupted once

more onto the world stage, Roger Caillois, the cofounder with George Bataille of the Collge de Sociologie, published Man and theSacred. In this book he likened war to the primitive festival, which purifies and rejuvenates society (Caillois, 2001:166). Like the festival, war, which Caillois calleda black festival (179), is the only modernphenomenon that compares in its function with regard to collective life. As in the festival, warassembles, arranges, aligns and welds [people] together, body and soul (166). While Cailloisrecognizes that the intelligence must condemn war the heart, he remarks, can only respect it, forit appears as the very norm of the universe, the essential mechanism of the cosmos and the most beautiful floweof civilization (171). It thus has a religious or sacred significance. For Caillois, war is creative in contrast to peace which causeseverything to perish through engulfment and erosion (171). Like Simmel there is a struggle here between a creative order and achaotic entropy, but while Simmel only speculated regarding what the benefits of war might be, speculations he reviewed afterwardsCaillois remained convinced that wars are necessary to regenerate societies and save them from death, to preserve them from the

effects of irretrievable time, which is why the quality of the fountain of youth is lent to these blood baths (171). But while

Caillois conceives of war in relation to the centrality of transgression and the expenditure ofenergy, his analysis is rather limited. A more stimulating and challenging address to the importance of theseexcessive practices, as well as the community and communion that is their aim, is to be found in the work of Bataille.

To approach the subjects of community, violence and the sacred in the work of Bataille it is helpful to start with the first of the three

volumes that comprise The Accursed Share in which Bataille sets out his own interpretive confrontation with our mode of being-in-the-world and proposes a conception of economic thinking that surpasses the calculating concerns ofindividuals and nation-states in favour of an economy in keeping with the boundlessness andcontinuity of the cosmos as a whole. The first volume opens with what Bataille calls a basic fact that the livingorganism receives more energy than is necessary for maintaining life; the excess energy(wealth) can be used for the growth of a system (e.g. an organism); if the system can no longergrow [. . .] it must necessarily be lost without profit; it must be spent, willingly or not,gloriously or catastrophically (1988: 21). The question for the living organism is therefore

always posed in terms of extravagance (23).This general movement of waste, being a necessityis also something that[HU]man[ITY] cannot stop. Paradoxically it is also tied to his freedom, or what Bataille callssovereignty. Being (at) the summit of living matter, Bataille argues that man is identified with this movement and thisexcess. What is more, it destines him, in a privileged way, to that glorious operation, to uselessconsumption (23). Failing to understand this does not affect the outcome, which is as inevitable, heclaims, as a river flowing into the sea. We can ignore or forget the fact that the ground we live onis little other than a field of multiple destructions. Our ignorance only has this incontestableeffect: It causes us to undergo what we could bring about in our own way [. . .]. For if we do nothave the force to destroy the surplus energy ourselves [. . .] it is this energy that destroys us; it iswe who pay the price of the inevitable explosion (234). The price was paid in 1914 and again in1939 with the outbreak of wars, the scale and destructive force of which could not havepreviously been imagined. It is Batailles contention that economic growth in the hundred years

preceding the outbreak of the First World War could soak up the excess of the system onlytemporarily. Increases in resources, production and population that were key features of the ageof the industrial revolution all contributed to the use of surplus energy until that expenditure wasimpossible to sustain. This industrial plethora (25) was at the origin of both wars. To avoid such afuture catastrophe, we must learn to divert the surplus into further industrial growth, or we mustdirect it into unproductive works (Bataille, 1988: 25) that dissipate the excess. Given that Bataille only trulyprescribes the latter, it is odd that he should offer these two alternatives. What he regards to be truly necessary is anoverturning of economic principles (25), which is also an overturning or transvaluation of ethics.

The problem with economic science and the temporary solution of further industrial growth isthat such a conception is based on the traditional restricted conception of economic activity andthe limited ends of economic man. It does not consider a play of energy that no particular end


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limits: the play of living matter in general (23).The solution of unproductive works and gloriousexpenditure is part of a general economy that recognizes how life aspires in manifold ways toan impossible growth; the exuberance of a movement always bordering on an explosion (30).Bataille thus states that this analysis of general economy takes the problem of war as its first priority(40). With this in mind, if part of our wealth is doomed, or ought to be doomed to destructionwithout profit, it is logical, even inescapable, to surrender commodities without return (25) and subordinate growth to the act of giving. One example of such general economic practiceswasthe Marshall Planthat sought to reconstruct Europe at the end of the Second World War.

The situation that could hardly be better for an awakening of the mind (171) was the onset of the Cold War between the US and the

USSR, which Bataille described as an absolute schism, where what prevents one from believing war to be inevitable is the idea thatunder the present conditions the economy, to alter Clausewitzs phrase, might continue it by other means (171). While theUS economy, as in Germany in the 1930s, remained an explosive threat due to itsoveraccumulation and need for exudation, Bataille saw in the Marshall Plan an inkling of a warthat need not result in military conflict. He writes: While it is true that it is hard to imagine theUnited States prospering for long without the aid ofa hecatomb of riches, in the form ofairplanes, bombs and other military equipment, one can conceive of an equivalenthecatomb devoted to nonlethal works. In other words, if war is necessary to the American economy, itdoes not follow that war has to hold the traditional form. Indeed, one easily imagines, coming fromacross the Atlantic, a resolute movement refusing to follow the routine: A conflict is notnecessarily military; one can envisage a vast economic competition, which for the competitorwith the initiative, would cost sacrifices comparable to those of war, and which, from a budget of

the same scale as war budgets, would involve expenditures that would not be compensated byany hope of capitalist profit. (172) Did the Marshall Plan indicate that a revolution in economic thinking was taking place,as claimed at the time by the French economist Franois Perroux; a revolution where the rules of the capitalist world were

suspended and goods could be delivered without payment; and where the product of labour could be given away? For Perroux, therevolution lay in the fact that the Marshall Plan proceeded not from the isolated calculations ofone nation on which classical economics are based, but proceeded instead from the generalperspective and was an investment in the worlds interest (Bataille, 1988: 177). But while the Plan didindeed contest the economics of isolation, it was not as revolutionary for Bataille as Perroux had thought, for while it operatesfrom the general perspective as an unsecured investment, it nevertheless remains a componentof restricted economy by defending capital against the advances of communism in Europe.However, what the Marshall Plan did indicate was that as long as there was a tension betweenthe US and the USSR, as long as there was a threat of war, the war would be continued by

economic means and the US would continue to think from the general perspective. But, asBataille wryly notes, if this tension were to fail, a feeling of calm would be completelyunwarranted; there would be more reason than ever to be afraid (188). That the current USadministration is isolationist and militarist is testament to Batailles fears of a worldwith only one hyperpower, a situation in which the economic experiment that was theMarshall Plan no longer has a place.While the Plan never did match the exuberance of livingmatter as a whole, gift-giving today, in the form of international aid, is absolutely tied to arestricted economy of utility, calculation, strategy and return. Aid is the antithesis of a gift. AsMichael Mann has noted in 2003, despite George W. Bushs announcement of an increase in the US aid budget, aiming, by 2005, at$18 billion dollars, a 50 per cent increase over 2001 levels, this still only represents 0.2 per cent of GDP, a level that will still rank the

US as the meanest of the 22 wealthiest nations (2003: 53). What is more, over a quarter of this money is militaryassistance and training programmes, with a further quarter going as security aid, that is, the provision of weapons.

The instrumentality rather than beneficence of aid is further exposed, as Mann points out, when one

examines who actually gets it. A third goes to one of the 20 richest countries in the world Israel. A fifth goes to Egypt, which is effectively being paid not to attack Israel. Tiny Jordan, also paid not to attack Israel,rivals massive India and Russia as the next largest recipient. So over half the total aid program goes to prop up the small state ofIsrael, which contains one-thousandth of the worlds population! [. . .] In fact strategic rather than development needs dominate

most aid (534). 3The very possibility and indeed necessity of Batailles gift economy rests on acomplete rejection of the founding principle of traditional economics, namely the notion ofscarcity. For Bataille, scarcity was little more than a myth, and a dangerous one, from thebeginning. Understanding the world in terms of scarcity is an error based on theperspective of an individual and not society, or indeed, the cosmos as a whole . In truththere is an excess of resources over needs (Bataille, 1988: 45).The problem arises because, as notedabove, the current economy proceeds from judgements made from the particular rather than thegeneral point of view. As a rule, particular existence always risks succumbing for lack of resources.


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It contrasts with general existence whose resources are in excess and for which death has nomeaning. From the particular point of view, the problems are posed in the first instance by a deficiency of resources. They areposed in the first instance by an excess of resources if one starts from the general point of view (39). According to Bataille, then,

the restricted economyis based on a miserable conception (1985: 117) of life.Itreduces theworld to utility, conservation, calculation, rationality and useful activity. Pleasure andplay become subsidiary, diversionary concessions where bourgeois society, maintainingsterility in regard to expenditure [. . .] has only managed to develop a universal meanness (125). Inthe light of this, classical economics, argues Bataille, has always misunderstood primitive exchange byreducing it to the restricted world of barter. Against this, Bataille notes how Marcel Mauss discovered that

primitive forms of exchange also included the need to destroy and expend as evidenced in apractice known as potlatch, which excludes all bargaining and, in general, it is constituted by aconsiderable gift of riches, offered openly and with the goal of humiliating, defying and obligating a rival.Theexchange value of the gift results from the fact that the donee, in order to efface the humiliationand respond to the challenge, must [. . .] respond with interest (121). Connected with festivals on the occasionof marriages, funerals and initiations, it is a manifestation of wealth very different from what we understand from the perspective of

our restricted economy. It is not about avarice, greed is not good, and wealth is not determined by acapacity for the expanding accumulation of money. On the contrary, wealth is determined by thecapacity to lose, and only through loss can the donee acquire honour. Expenditure is a risk in which man stakes his wholebeing. It brings unproductive glory, which is the ability to grasp what eludes him, to combine the limitless movements ofthe universe with the limit that belongs to him (70). To return briefly to the Cold War that was, as Bataille correctlypointed out, a war between economic methods, it is possible to see the space race as a form of

agonistic potlatch between capitalist and communist rivals, where one expedition intothe heavens would obligate the other to not only match the expenditure, but match it withinterest. While space exploration is undoubtedly part of the calculations of restricted economy,developed with a view to the procurement of new resources, the invention of new technologies and the domination of a realm

increasingly important for national security, the intensity of the space race and the fact that NASAs budgetwas so dramatically cut after 1989 suggests thatthe space race was as much a symbolicgesture as it was the cold calculation of an economic prospector. Throughout the1960s, 1970s and 1980s vast sums of productive surplus were sacrificed in theseextravagant gestures of excess, and while it is reductive to tie the Soviet collapse to the effects of this potlatch, itwas certainly a contributing factor in its demise. The result for the victor was the bestowal of rank with the near sacred capacity ofdeclaring a close to the course of history.


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WEMUSTREPLACEOURNOTIONOFRESTRICTEDECONOMICSYSTEMSRULEDBYSCARCITYWITHABROADERNOTIONOFTHE

GENERALECONOMY, WHEREEXCESSANDEXPENDITUREARETHEPRIMEDRIVERSFAILURETOBREAKOUTOFTHEGENERAL

ECONOMYWILLLEADTONUCLEARWARANDMASSIVEECOLOGICALDESTRUCTION

ALLANSTOEKL, 2007, PROFESSOROF FRENCHANDCOMPARATIVELITERATUREAT PENN STATE UNIVERSITY, BATAILLES PEAKENERGY, RELIGION, AND POSTSUSTAINABILITY, 36-38Batailles Version of Expenditure The Accursed Share, first published in 1949, has had a colorful history on the margins of Frenchintellectual inquiry. Largely ignored when first published, it has gone on to have an interesting and subtle influence on muchcontemporary thought. In the 1960s, fascination with Batailles theory of economy tended to reconfigure it as a theory of writing: forDerrida, for example, general economy was a general writing. The very specific concerns Bataille shows in his work for various

economic systems is largely ignored or dismissed as muddled.8 Other authors, such as Michel Foucault and Alphonso Lingis,writing in the wake of this version of Bataille, have nevertheless stressed, following more closely Batailles leadthe importance of violence, expenditure, and spectacular transgression in social life.9 The basis forBatailles approach can be found in the second chapter of the work Laws of General Economy. The theory in itself is quite

straightforward: living organisms always, eventually, produce more than they need for simplesurvival and reproduction. Up to a certain point, their excess energy is channeled into expansion: they fill all available spacewith versions of themselves. But inevitably, the expansion of a species comes against limits: pressure will beexerted against insurmountable barriers. At this point a species explosive force will be limited, and excess members will die.

Batailles theory is an ecological one because he realizes that the limits are internal to a system:

the expansion of a species will find its limit not only through a dearth of nourishment but alsothrough the pressure brought to bear by other species.10 As one moves up the food chain, each species destroysmore to conserve itself. In other words, creatures higher on the food chain consume more concentrated energy. It takes more energy

to produce a calorie consumed by a (carnivorous) tiger than one consumed by a (herbivorous) sheep.The ultimateconsumers of energy are not so much ferocious carnivores as they are the ultimate consumers ofother animals and themselves: human beings. For Bataille, Mans primary function is to expendprodigious amounts of energy, not only through the consumption of other animals high on thefood chain (including man himself ) but in rituals that involve the very fundamental forces of uselessexpenditure: sex and death.11 Man in that sense is in a doubly privileged position: he not onlyexpends the most, but alone of all the animals he is able to expend consciously. He aloneincarnates the principle by which excess energy is burned off: the universe, which is nothingother than the production of excess energy (solar brilliance), is doubledby man, who

alone is aware of the suns larger tendency and who therefore squanders consciously in order tobe in accord with the overall tendency of the universe.This for Bataille is religion: not theindividualistic concern with deliverance and personal salvation, but rather the collective andritual identification with the cosmic tendency to lose. Humans burn off not only the energyaccumulated by other species but, just as important, their own energy, because humansthemselves soon hit the limits to growth. Human society cannot indefinitely reproduce: soon enough what today iscalled the carrying capacity of an environment is reached.12 Only so many babies can be born, homes built, forests harvested.

Then limits are reached. Some excess can be used in the energy and popu - lation required for militaryexpansion (the case, according to Bataille, with Islam [OC, 7: 83 92; AS, 8191]), but soon that too screeches to ahalt. A steady state can be attained by devoting large numbers of people and huge quantities ofwealth and labor to useless activity: thus the large numbers of unproductive Tibetan monks, nuns,and their lavish temples (OC, 7: 93 108; AS, 93110). Or most notably, one can waste wealth in militarybuildup and constant warfare: no doubt this solution kept populations stable in the past (one thinksof the endless battles between South American Indian tribes), but in the present (i.e., 1949) the huge amountsof wealth devoted to military armament, worldwide, can lead only to nuclearholocaust (OC, 7: 159 60; AS, 16971). This final point leads to Batailles version of a Hegelian absolute knowledge, onebased on the certainty of a higher destruction (hence an absolute knowledge that is also a non -knowledge).The imminence ofnuclear holocaust makes it clear that expenditure, improperly conceived, can threaten thecontinued existence of society. Unrecuperable energy, if unrecognized or conceived as somehowuseful, threatens to return as simple destruction. Batailles theory, then, is a profoundly ethicalone: we must somehow distinguish between/ versions of excess that are on the scaleof the universe, whose recognition -implementation guarantee the survival of society(and human expenditure), and other versions that entail blindness to the real role ofexpenditure, thereby threatening mans, not to mention the planets, survival. This, in very rough


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outline, is the main thrust of Batailles book. By viewing man as a spender rather than a conserver, Bataillemanages to invert the usual order of economics: the moral imperative, so to speak, is thefurthering of a good expenditure, which we might lose sight of if we stress an inevitably selfishmodel of conservation or utility. For if conserva - tion is put first, inevitably the bottled -up forceswill break loose but in unforeseen, uncontrollable, and, so to speak, untheorized ways. We shouldfocus our attention not on an illusory conservation, maintenance, and the steady statewhich canlead only to mass destruction and the ultimate wasting of the worldbut instead on the modes of expenditure inwhich we, as human animals, should engage.13 But how does one go about privileging willed loss in an era in whichwaste seems to be the root of all evil? Over fifty years after the publication of The Accursed Share, we live in an era in which nuclear

holocaust no longer seems the main threat. But other dangers lurk, ones just as terrifying and definitive:global warming, deforestation, the depletion of resourcesand above all energy resources: oil,coal, even uranium. How can we possibly talk about valorizing heedless excess when energy waste seems to be the principalevil threatening the continued existence of the biosphere on which we depend? Wouldnt it make more sense to stress conservation,sustainability, and downsizing rather than glorious excess?


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AND, SPACE SOLVES THE TRANSITION TO A GENERAL ECONOMY BESTGLORIOUS EXPENDITURE ON THE SPACE ELEVATOR

WILLREFRACTBACKDOWNTOEARTH, CREATINGNOVELANDCREATIVERELATIONSTOOURECONOMICCONDITIONSONEARTH

ASTRIDSCHWARZAND ALFREDNORDMANN, 2010, INSTITUTFR PHILOSOPHIE, TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITT DARMSTADTANDDEPARTMENTOF PHILOSOPHY, DARMSTADT TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, THE POLITICAL ECONOMYOF TECHNOSCIENCE, SCIENCEINTHE CONTEXTOF APPLICATION, ED. NORDMANNAND CARRIER, P. 330-334Exceeding the Limits to Growth We have seen that feedback-cycles and self-regulation played an important role in the developmentof systems theories. The notion of self-organization is sometimes identified with this and sometimes implies an added dimension ofemergence and creativity. In contrast to the conservative general systems of the cyberneticists, selforganizing systems are said tocreate genuine, often surprising novelty they take the system to a new level and move beyond intensification to innovation.24 Onthe one hand, then, self-organization harks back to the model of a well-balanced and rather conservative nature that accommodatesitself within given limits. But on the other hand self-organization opens the door to an image of nature that appears to be emergent

and creative.The corresponding model is based on a political economy of technoscience that takesthe seemingly unbounded technological creation of genuine novelty as a paradigm of nature.

Technoscience does not accommodate itself to a limited world but seeks to expand those limits by disclosing new space and new

resources. Space travel like the Apollo program serves to disclose new space and new resources,and it does so by way ofconspicuous consumption and some would argue an orgy of excess: The resourcesinvested in the Apollo program cannot be accounted for; perhaps they are wasted or perhapsthey bring infinite gain, and in the meantime they might be written off as a kind of national

fireworks that deliver glorious pictures of the galaxies and the blue planet earth. On the level of

research, this program was taken up by cabin ecology and biosphere design. Technoscientifically, the disclosure of newspace and new resources corresponds to the construction, literally, of space-ship cabins thatenable the discovery of new worlds beyond the biosphere. The idea behind exceeding containment was toconstruct a closed space that would be suitable for the maintenance of life and thus help to escape earthly confinement. Whatwas to be created, then, was a perfectly controlled space at the limits of intensification self-sustaining without loss as nearly as possible. This exercise in total control served to minimizereliance on the special conditions of life on Earth and to go beyond the absolute limit of spacethat was set by the biosphere. All this can be seen in the story ofthe emergence of cabin ecology asa field of research with legions of technicians and scientists working on the technical and conceptualimplementation of water, nutrient and gas cycles.This serious scientific-technological research program began in the1950s with the dream ofdeveloping outer space as an unlimited spatial resource by establishing human

settlements in Earths orbit or even colonizing Mars.25 The technical conception of constructed ecosystems forspace travel took on added significance when in the 1960s the entire planet became visible as a spaceship that needs to maintainconditions of life for a human population. Spaceship Earth was no longer associated with space travel but increasingly with the

emerging environmental discourse.The 1968 Apollo image of the blue planet brought into view not onlythe Earth as an enclosed and, above all, limited space but along with that the various scientificparameters for describing space (closed-loop cycles, stability, carrying capacity, and so on). Thus the spaceshipbecame the rational model for the global management of Earth, but one in which humans couldsuddenly turn into an irritant by producing too much CO2 or waste. Humans became a form ofpollution on Earth, spreading like a disease and putting Gaia in mortal danger as ecologist James Lovelock put it (Lovelock1996).With economist K. E. Boulding the spaceship underwent a transformation. The actual, technical model of space-travel forastronauts was now projected onto the planet as an object of management. Boulding turned the cabin or spaceship into amacroeconomic model in which carrying capacity played a major role and the limitation of space became identified with all otherresource-limitations: the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or forpollution, and in which, therefore, man must find his place in a cyclical ecological system which is capable of continuous reproduction

of material form even though it cannot escape having inputs of energy (Boulding, 1966, 34).26This economy of thespaceship earth came to underpin the concerns expressed in the Club of Rome report on theLimits to Growth. And as with cabin ecology, in particular, the envisioned control by a few parameters ofspaceship earth and of planet earth as a total world model implies a form of excess. Travel into outerspace, the current conquest of nanospace, and this project of managing the blue planet share the idea that space itself can be used

to exert technical control. Within the conservative framework of an absolutely limited Malthusian earth,the notion of carrying capacity equated available surface area with available space. For example,alarmist images of how much standing room is taken up by all the inhabitants of the Earthtranslated into political calls for population control underlined by scientific models. The use of space for technicalcontrol came into its own when available surface area became divorced from available space with the notion ofthe ecologicalfootprint. This notion also serves to send alarmist messages about the land use required to sustain asingle citizen of the US or of India. The measure of the ecological footprint signals that we live far beyond our means. At


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the same time, somewhat paradoxically, it also signals that we can live far beyond our means:The sum of ecological footprints already exceeds the available surface area on Earth by a factor of 1.4 and it is simultaneously theworry of limits-to-growth environmentalists and the hope of technoscientific researchers that this factor will become bigger in yearsto come. One way of doing so is to productively exploit the fact that at the nanoscale surface area is immensely large in relation tobulk. Ever since Richard Feynmans call in 1959 to enter a new field of technological possibility by discovering plenty of room at thebottom, this nanotechnological project is not viewed as a more intensive exploitation of an available resource but as the discovery ofan entirely new space of action that permits a form of engineering which draws on the creative processes of nature. While excess inmolecular biology or in nanotechnology involves shaping the world atom by atom or molecule by molecule, ecotechnology producesexcess through manipulation and enhancement of the cybernetic world machine. Today, scientific expertise about the limits togrowth serves as a starting point and technological challenge to the so-called sustainability sciences and related technological fieldswhich are primarily concerned with the control, discovery, and constant renewal of resources. The declaration of the recently foundedWorld Resource Forum is a good example for this kind of agenda: Traditional environmental technologies are no longer enough[. . .].We call for a new global strategy for governing the use of natural resources [. . .]. By combining efficiency and resourceproductivity targets with sufficiency norms evolved through participative mechanisms, it should be possible to avoid the traditional

type of growth.27This is a conceptualization of limits that already points at its transgression andtherefore exhibits a similar ambivalence as the notion of the self-regulating system. TheWorldResource Forum asserts that the acknowledgment of limits of resources creates possibilities for escapingthese limits by means of efficiency in the sense of enhanced systems performance. This kind ofefficiency is to result not primarily from conservation and the avoidance of waste but fromtechnological as well as societal innovation (participative mechanisms).28This programcorrespondsto a new environmental movementthat embraces technological innovation and that refersfor this, in particular, to the luxurious gifts of energy from the sun: We should see in hubris notsolely what is negative and destructive but also what is positive and creative: the aspiration toimagine new realities, create new values, and reach new heights of human possibility.29 Conclusion

Are we confined to Venadskys conservative biosphere or does the generous gift of the sunproduce an abundance and concentration of wealth that needs to be released in the form ofexcess, waste, and creative destruction such that the technological problem of sustainable development is thecontrol of how this release takes place: by way of exuberantly rising ocean levels, by grandiose geoengineering schemes, or by evermore sustainable production and consumption? Do we accommodate ideas of technological possibility within the framework ofknowledge production in the special, restricted, limited sciences, or do we view technoscientific research as a productive, creative,

liberating force of wealth-production?These questions return us to Georges Batailles reflections onrestricted and general economics: How can we conceptualize the transformation from a limitedworld of scarcity to a world of excess. And can we control the transformation from a specialeconomics of zerosum games and of supply balancing demand, to a general economics ofluxurious abundance and abject waste? This essay on some of the transformations undergone bythe blue planet and Spaceship Earth allowed us to simultaneously consider ecotechnologiesand nanotechnologies as technosciences that do not accommodate to limits. In both cases we aredealing with space travel and the control of space as a technical resource (Nordmann, 2004; Schwarz, 2009). Ecotechnologiesand nanotechnologies accept and incorporate arguments about limited growth and in responsedevelop strategies of control that open up a boundless space literally and metaphorically oftechnical possibilities, for example by discovering vast new surface areas (nanomaterials research), bydeveloping new forms of energy (hydrogen economy), by harnessing morphological and organismicpotential (synthetic biology), or by designing the renewal of nature (restoration ecology).There are variousways in which the technosciences seek a transgression of limits, for example, through theproduction of hybrids. Here we were interested in just one of these ways, namely the transgression of alimited or restricted economy of science that assumes finite resources and finite energy, towardsan unlimited or general economy that celebrates the production and consumption of excess. Thismay have led us to the origin of technoscientifichype andhubris. More importantly,however, it led to a condition where the norms of representation that orient the sciences no

longer shape our ideas of a constant and limited world. Instead, the explorative aspects ofexperimentation and the creative dimension of art and engineering provide an imageof boundless technical innovation which suggests that the world itself is constantlyrenewable and an unlimited source of novelty.


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CONTENTION 2: SPACE COMMONS

THEPRIVATIZATIONOFSPACEISOCCURRINGNOWTHISISACONTINUATIONOFNEOLIBERALEXPANSIONINTOEVERYSPHERE

OFLIFE

R. THOMAS BUFFENBARGER, 2010, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS ANDAEROSPACE WORKERS, DEARMR. PRESIDENT, HTTP://THESENT.NL/JQ30I9At a time when the U.S. economy in mired in the worst recession in 70 years and is in desperateneed ofajobs creation program your Administrations proposal to have NASA rely on the private sector todevelop and operate manned space craft will contribute to the loss of several thousand well paiddomestics jobs. These are the kinds of jobs that our economy needs if we are to have a strongeconomy recovery. Moreover, it will sacrifice new and innovative industries that could emergefrom a NASA which continues to have its own space vehicles. NASA plays a critical role in both ournational and economic security. Our space program has been a critical driver of innovations in such keytechnologies as computers and composite materials, and plays an important role in emergingindustries such as wind energy and sensors to detect biological threats. As NASAs own Scientific andInformation (STI) website states, For more than 40 years, the NASA Innovative Partnerships Program has facilitated the transfer ofNASA technology to the private sector, benefiting global competition and the economy. The resulting commercialization hascontributed to the development of commercial products and services in the fields of health and medicine, industry, consumer goods,transportation, public safety, computer technology, and environmental resources. While our military services rely on privatecontractors to design and build most of their equipment, the military owns the planes, ships, armored vehicles, weapons, information

systems, and other key technologies. The armed services also own their domestic bases and operate their own foreign bases. Themilitary, like NASA, uses private contractors, but the military exercises control of its operations and the technology. NASA has ownedits manned space vehicles and its launch facilities. Laws and regulations govern NASA and military procurement so that sourcing,

security, technology transfers, and a wide range of key decisions promote U.S. security and economic interests. NASAAdministrator Charlie Bolden stated that NASA will partner with the aerospace industry in a fundamentally new way toprovide astronaut transportation to the International Space Station. An enhanced U.S. commercial space industry will create newhigh-tech jobs and spin off other new businesses that will seek to take advantage of affordable access to space. Yet he

provided no evidence that this privatization proposal would create more jobs or spin off more newbusinesses than under current policies; and even if it did, that these new jobs and industries aremore likely to be located here at home. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) makes the unfounded claimthat this privatization proposal Embraces the commercial space industry and the thousands of new jobs that it can create bycontracting with American companies to provide astronaut transportation to the Space Stationthus reducing the risk of relyingexclusively on foreign crew transport capabilities. The only reason the United States must rely on foreign launches, while losingthousands of jobs currently engaged in transporting astronauts, derives from the Bush Administrations misguided policies to phaseout the space shuttle before a replacement program was operational. Yet, even with your Administrations proposal the United

States will still be relying on foreign launches since the space shuttle will still be phased out before a private sector program willexist. OMB also claims A strengthened U.S. commercial space launch industry will bring needed competition and help reduce

the cost of human access to space. Yet OMB does not explain why relying solely on privately-ownedvehicles and launch facilities will generate more competition or reduce costs compared to NASAkeeping control of its own space flights. Without strong convincing evidence to back up itsclaim, we have to assume that this is ideological blind faith in private marketsand afailure to acknowledge NASAs long and valuable history of managing complex systems inconstrained budget environments. By dramatically changing the policy under which NASA owns and controls theoperation of its manned space craft, the U.S. will weaken both our national security and economic interests. Although details have

not yet been made available on your Administrations proposal there are many areas to be concerned about. Theseinclude: The movement of critical research, development and design out of the United States, further weakening our scienceand engineering workforce. The movement of production, maintenance, and assembly operations out of the United States as U.S.and foreign-based companies with industrial capacity outside of the U.S. capture this work. The loss of high-level manufacturing

skills as more jobs are lost in this vital area. This will have a deep impact on the U.S. for years to come and will have direct impacton the development of new industries and technologies 3 The failure to adopt strict accountability provisions.We have seen what happens when huge government programs are privatized far too often. Aswe saw in Iraq, over reliance on contractors can lead to all sorts of disasters, frauds, and abusesthat undermine the goals of the U.S. and cost taxpayers money. The private sector maycompromise fundamental safety issues. For safety reasons, NASA uses redundancies and back up systems to provideprotections from even very low probability problems. When the space shuttle is launched, a second shuttle is also put on a launch

pad just in case it is needed to rescue a crew of astronauts. When the private sector is in control of the mannedspace program, it is only too easy to imagine that safety will be compromised and sacrificed tomaximize profits. The private sector cannot respond to emergencies as efficiently or as quickly as NASA.If the private sector cannot respond to an emergency, will this responsibility fall to the Federal government and taxpayers? Theprivate sector cannot ensure the level of security that NASA exercises. There is tight security when NASA is using its own mannedvehicles and launch facilities. Once private sector vehicles are being launch from private sector facilities, it will be hard to maintain


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the same security levels to protect both key technologies and prevent other threats, including terrorism. The continueduncertainty about the financial viability of the private sector space industry poses seriousquestions over the reliability of essential NASA programs. When a private sector company whichNASA relies on for space travel has a disaster or goes into bankruptcy, will the government endup footing the bill? Will this be another example ofprivatizing profits while thegovernment bears the risksand covers the losses? The threat posed by foreign interests who may directlyor indirectly control companies that perform work that has been privatized. Do we really want to be dependent on other countries

for our space industry? The space industry, whether it is in the U.S., Russia, Europe, Japan, or China, isa creation of government spending. If the private markets could create a successful private

space industry we would have seen it develop somewhere by now. Other countries promote their spaceprograms because they understand it is an important industry for both economic and national security purposes. 4 The pushto privatize space travel is similar to efforts to privatize other critical governmentservices. These efforts are based on anti-government ideology and are promoted bycompanies that want to profit from government outsourcing. It defies common sense tobelieve that the way to save NASA money is to outsource even more when these samecontractors are already frequently over budget and often involved in over-billing and even fraudAs U.S. Senator Bill Nelson said in a recent hearing You cant do it on the cheap. The problem is that you have put allthe eggs in the basket of assuming that those commercial rockets are going to work and that NASA is not going to have to spend alot more on making sure those commercial rockets are safe for humans. There is no fail-safe position . If those commercialrockets dont work, then for the foreseeable future were going to be relying on the Russians just to get to our space station. Thats

got to be changed. I respectfully urge you to reconsider the proposal for NASA to become completelydependent on private contractors for space travel. Thousands of high wage, high skill jobscritical to our long-term economic future are at state. In the meantime, instead of relying on the Russians tolaunch our astronauts, we need to extend the space shuttle program and accelerate and modify the Ares and Orion program to meetNASAs mission needs. Only then can we be assured that America will continue to be the world leader in new and innovative spacetechnologies vital to future economic and national security.


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PRIVATIZATION OF ACCESS TO SPACE WILL LEAD TO THE NEXT GREAT WAVE OF MILITARISM AND DESTROY THE ABILITY

EXPLORESPACEINTHEPROCESS

BRUCE GAGNON, 2003, COORDINATOR OF THE GLOBAL NETWORK AGAINST WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR POWER IN SPACEHTTP://WWW.SPACE4PEACE.ORG/ARTICLES/ROAD_TO_CONFLICT.HTM

The news brings us the story of "space pioneers" launching privately funded craft into the heavens. A special prize is offered to the

first private aerospace corporation who can successfully take a pilot and a "space tourist" into orbit. Is this "privatization" ofspace a good thing? Is there any reason to be concerned about the trend? Are there any serious questionsthat should be raised at this historic moment?Three major issues come immediately to mind concerningspace privatization. Space as an environment, space law, and profit in space. We've all probablyheard about the growing problem of space junk where over 100,000 bits of debris are now tracked on the radarscreens at NORAD in Colorado as they orbit the earth at 18,000 m.p.h. Several space shuttles have been nicked by bits of debris inthe past resulting in cracked windshields. The International Space Station (ISS) recently was moved to a higher orbit because space

junk was coming dangerously close. Some space writers have predicted that the ISS will one day be destroyed by debris. As wesee a flurry of launches by private space corporations the chances of accidents, and thus moredebris, becomes a serious reality to consider. Very soon we will reach the point of no return, wherespace pollution will be so great that an orbiting minefield will have been created that hinders all access to space. The time ascertainly come for a global discussion about how we treat the sensitive environment called space before it is too late. When theUnited Nations concluded the 1979 Moon Treaty the U.S. refused, and still does, to sign it. One key reason is that the treaty outlawsmilitary bases on it but also outlaws any nation, corporation, or individual from making land "claims" on the planetary body. The 1967U.N. Outer Space Treaty takes similar position in regard to all of the planetary bodies. The U.N., realizing we needed to preempt

potential conflict over "ownership" of the planetary bodies, made claim that the heavens were the province of all humankind. Asthe privateers move into space, in addition to building space hotels and the like, they also wantto claim ownership of the planets because they hope to mine the sky. Gold has been discovered onasteroids, helium-3 on the moon, and magnesium, cobalt and uranium on Mars. It was recently reported that the HaliburtonCorporation is now working with NASA to develop new drilling capabilities to mine Mars. One organization that seeks to rewrite spacelaw is called United Societies in Space (USIS). They state, "USIS provides legal and policy support for those who intend to go to space.USIS encourages private property rights and investment. Space is the Free Market Frontier." Check their web site at

http://www.space-law.orgThe taxpayers, especially in the U.S. where NASA has been funded withtaxpayer dollars since its inception, have paid billions of dollars in space technology researchand development (R & D). As the aerospace industry moves toward forcing privatization of space what they are reallysaying is that the technological base is now at the point where the government can get out of the way and lets private industry begin

to make profit and control space. Thus the idea that space is a "free market frontier." Of course this means that after the

taxpayer paid all the R & D, private industry now intends to gorge itself in profits. One RepublicanCongressman from Southern California, an ally of the aerospace industry, has introduced legislation in Congress to make all spaceprofits "tax free". In this vision the taxpayers won't see any return on our "collective investment." So let's

just imagine for a moment that this private sector vision for space comes true. Profitable miningon the moon and Mars. Who would keep competitors from sneaking in and creating conflict overthe new 21st century gold rush? Who will be the space police? In the Congressional study published in 1989 called MilitarySpace Forces: The Next 50 Years we get some inkling of the answer. The forward of the book was signed by many politicians likeformer Sen. John Glenn (D-OH) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). The author reported to Congress on the importance of military bases onthe moon and suggested that with bases there the U.S. could control the pathway, or the "gravity well", between the Earth and themoon. The author reported to Congress that "Armed forces might lie in wait at that location to hijack rival shipments on return."

Plans are now underway to make space the next "conflict zone" where corporations intend tocontrol resources and maximize profit. The so-called private "space pioneers" are the first step in thisnew direction. And ultimately the taxpayers will be asked to pay the enormous cost incurred by creating a military space

infrastructure that would control the "shipping lanes" on and off the planet Earth. After Columbus returned to Spainwith the news that he had discovered the "new world," Queen Isabella began the 100 yearprocess to create the Spanish Armada to protect the new "interests and investments" around the world. Thishelped create the global war system. Privatization does not mean that the taxpayer won't be paying any more.Privatization really means that profits will be privatized. Privatization also means that existinginternational space legal structures will be destroyed in order to bend the law toward privateprofit. Serious moral and ethical questions must be raisedbefore another new "frontier" ofconflict is created.


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SPACECONFLICTSWOULDBEEVENMOREDESTRUCTIVETHANEARTHCONFLICTSTHEYWOULD IGNITEINEVITABLEEARTH

WARSANDINVOLVEORBITINGDEATHSTARS

GORDON R. MITCHELL, 2002, COMMUNICATION AT UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, BEYOND WITH US OR WITH THETERRORISTS, 2002 ORVILLE HITCHCOCKLECTURE, UNIVERSITYOF IOWA, JANUARY 29, 2002, HTTP://BIT.LY/LKAIP0Space weaponrys political baggage comes in part fromthe frightening technical dynamicsinvolved. The dizzying speed of space warfare would introduce intense use or losepressureinto strategic calculations, with the specter of split-second attackscreatingincentives to rig orbiting Death Stars with automated hair trigger devices. In theory, thisautomation would enhance survivability of vulnerable space weapon platforms. However, by taking the decision tocommit violence out of human hands and endowing computers with authority to make war,military planners could sow insidious seeds of accidental conflict. Perrows analysis of complexlyinteractive, tightly coupled industrial systems shows that it is impossible to anticipate all theways in which such systems can fail. Space weaponry certainly qualifies as the sort of system Perrow says is vulnerableto normal accidents. Space weapon platforms, by design, must be complex, centralized, and tightlycoupled. As Perrow explains, normal accident theory holds that that given such system characteristics, multiple and unexpectedinteractions of failures are inevitable. Deployment of space weaponry with pre-delegated authority to firedeath rays or unleash killer projectiles would likely make war itself inevitable, given thesusceptibility of such systems to normal accidents. Even staunch space control advocates such as Dolmanacknowledge the risk of accidents. Echoing Perrows normal accident theory, Dolman notes: . . . [C]oupling the dissemination ofcontrol with rising international tension clearly could serve to increase the possibility of inadvertent war tightly coupled systemsare notorious for producing overcompensation effects. The military response to heightened world tension is to heighten readiness.As readiness increases, tensions increase, producing a spiraling decision matrix that can take on a life of its own, complete with full

tautological rationality (p. 47). Dolman continues to point out that the type of space-based laser systemenvisioned by Bush planners becomes more prone to Murphys Law of accidents the less thesystem is under direct control: Spacecraft with military missions, especially unmanned ones (forexample, the proposed Brilliant Pebbles/Brilliant Eyes kinetic kill vehicles envisioned in the Strategic Defense Initiatives (SDI)

antimissile shield) will of necessity work in a threat environment that may preclude constantmonitoring and contact. The probability that a computer or other mechanical error will cause anunauthorized or unintended malfunction/unauthorized attack increases in accordance withMurphys Laws the less the system is under direct control (p. 47).

FORTUNATELY, THE SPACE ELEVATOR CREATES A PLATFORM UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO SPACEIT WILL BE A PUBLIC GOOD

ANYONECANUSE

BRADLEMLEY, JULY 2004, GOINGUP, DISCOVER MAGAZINE, VOL. 25, ISSUE 7, EBSCOHOST.IN EDWARDS'S VISION,THE FIRST PROJECT UNDERTAKEN BY A COMPLETED space elevator should bebuilding more elevators. While he estimates that constructing the first one would be a six-year $6 billiontask, the second could cost as little as $2 billion and take just seven months because it couldemploy the first to boost construction materials into space. The requisite time and money would shrink for eachsubsequent elevator, and payload size could increase dramatically. Edwards's long-term plan calls for climbers on the third and fourth

elevators, each hoisting 140 tons. He says that's why NASA needs to get serious now: "The guy who builds the first onecan have several built before anybody else can build a second one.Now the first guy has so

much capacity, his payload price is down to zero.He can run the other guy out of business. Talk about grabbing

the brass ring." And Edwards emphasizes that the United States is by no means fated to win this race. The first builder might noteven be a government. "We have actually been told by private investors, 'If you can reduce the risk and prove it can be done, getting

$10 billion is nothing.'" Having an international consortium of public and private entities pitch in maybe the best scenario for ensuring the common good. A world blessed with a half-dozen space elevatorsconstructed cooperatively, radiating from the equator like lotus petals, could provide near-universal access to space at a payload cost

of as little as $10 a pound. In the long run, "you wouldn't want the elevator only on Earth. A similar systemwould work on Mars or some other planetary body," says NASA's David Smitherman. Indeed, saysEdwards, any large object in the solar system that spins could become a candidate for a space elevator. But for now, Edwardsremains focused on getting the first one built. Along with all the other boons it would deliver to humankind, the elevator also has thepotential to realize Edwards's personal dream of voyaging into space. "In 20 years, I'll be 60. I should still be plenty healthy enough togo on the space elevator. Maybe it will turn out that the only way I can get into space is to build the way to get there myself."


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CONTENTION 3: ASTROFUTURISM

SPACE IS INEVITABLECRITICAL PERSPECTIVES MUST HARNESS THE IMMENSE CULTURAL AND POLITICAL ENERGY OF THE

PUBLICSDEDICATIONTOSCIENCEANDSPACE

GIRONI, 2010, AHRC FUNDED PHD STUDENT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STUDY OF RELIGIONS IN SOAS, UNIVERSITY OFLONDON [FABIO, SCIENCE-LADEN THEORY : OUTLINES OF AN UNSETTLED ALLIANCE, SPECULATIONS VOLUME 1HTTP://WWW.PUBLICPRAXIS.COM/SPECULATIONS/?PAGE_ID=73]

The Copernican Revolution, in Colour The most obvious place to look, when seeking a condition7 for this new philosophy, is to direct

our attention to the developments ofthe natural sciences in the last forty years, both in terms of their dramaticinternal growth (the elaboration of successful new theories or promising new research projects) and external publicengagement (the increased interest amongst broader society in the results ofscience). My contention isthat these two elements, by shaping the last decades ofwestern intellectual history, have indirectly contributedto the re-emergence of realism as a philosophical trope. Within speculative realism, a science-friendly attitudeis explicitly associated with the rejection of a certain kind of (post-critical, human-centred,phenomenologicalin a wordcorrelationist) philosophy: see for example Ray Brassiers demand that science be takenseriously, since [t]aking as a given the empirical fact that all philosophical attempts to defineconditions of possibility for scientific thought have proved to be dismally unsuccessful, weconclude that these failures are a matter of principle rather than empirical circumstance, and that it is the presumption thatphilosophy is in a position to provide a transcendental footing for science which must be abandoned.There is no first

philosophy. Consequently, although relatively autonomous vis a vis science, philosophical ontology can neitherground nor disregard the ultimately physical description of the universe provided by the naturalsciences.8 Or, take Graham Harmans claims about the dullness of philosophical literature, as opposed to the speculative range ofscientific texts: pick up a random book of recent physics and you will find dazzling speculation on allmanner of things: the creation and destruction of the universe, the existence ofparallel worlds, chance andnecessity, hidden spatial dimensions, time travel, and two-dimensional holograms that delude us into believing inthree.We have reached a point where I, a passionate reader of philosophy, prefer any section in bookstores except philosophy

[P]hilosophy has become boring.9 And, of course, the entire argument against correlationist thought in Meillassouxs AfteFinitude is another such example, which hinges upon a precise dating of ancestral phenomena such as the origin of the universe,something which has only been possible through (relatively recent) scientific techniques. So, rather than a contemporary philosophy

flat-lined by the phenomenological climate, it was science that made it meaningful to disagree about whatthere might have been when we did not exist, and what there might be when we no longer existjust as it is science that provides us with the means to rationally favour one hypothesis overanother concerning the nature of the world without us.10The authority of contemporary scienceis fuelled by its achievements.The extraordinary experimental successofthe Standard Model ofparticlephysics and of the description ofquantum mechanical interactions between those particles, the observational dataconfirming the Big Bang theory and the age of the universe, as well as the discovery of its accelerating expansion (not tomention more speculative hypotheses/research programs such as those linked to the Multiverse and String Theory), aremomentous results that have been achieved in less than half a century . Such a massive scientificoutput11concentrated in such a relatively short time-spanhas had an enormous cultural impact outsidelaboratories and observatories, largely thanks to the increased resources dedicated to public outreach from the scientists side.Whether because of their eagerness to share the revolutionary discoveries of their discipline, or for the more pragmatic realization

that general public interest aids the acquisition of governmental and private funding; natural scientists have come torepresent intellectuals in close contact with the public. Following this increase in public engagement with sciencein the last decades we have witnessed pieces of scientific equipment raise, possibly for the first time,12 to the status of cultural iconsand sources for entertainment and awe. A solid example of this is the Hubble Space Telescope (hst), whose huge impact on physicalastronomy since the early 1990s is matched by its impact on the general public, providing us with an unprecedented peek into thefar universe via a dazzling series of images of distant galaxies and nebulae making their way onto the front covers of hundreds ofmagazines. Pictures of these astronomical objects, immensely far in both space and in time, have offered us a whole newunderstanding and visual grasp of the term things in themselves.13 By opening up a space beyond the moon, the outer planets,and the icy Oort Cloud with its stagnant mist of dim future comets the Space Telescope14 has allowed us to probe deeper into thefabric of the universe while at the same time imposing upon us the humbling acknowledgement of our myopia, since beyond thegaze of these instruments are sites more distant than these, some of them grimmer than the plains of Hell.15 So strong has thecultural impact of the hst been, that the 20th anniversary of its commissioning (24th of April 2010) has been celebrated with full-pagearticles in several major newspapers around the globe, commemorating its birthday with a selection of its most iconic imagesaccompanied by words of praise for this overworked piece of technology. And the hst is only the most iconic of an army of suchinstruments: we have enjoyed the sunset on Mars thanks to the images from the Mars Exploration Rover, we have peered at thedistant Earth through the rings of Saturn when receiving the images from the Cassini probe and we have observed the aeons-old firstlight of the universe thanks to the wmap satellite. Moreover, it is thanks to the discoveries granted by the data received from lessiconic but equally successful probes, that our vocabulary has extended to include terms like expanding universe, black hole, darkmatter, dark energy and exoplanets, concepts that soon proved fertile new metaphors for philosophersand speculative


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realists.16 It is well known how speculative realists call for a return to the true meaning of the Copernican Revolution, against the

Kantian hijacking of this term. If, according to Meillassoux it is due to a sense ofdesolation and abandonment whichmodern science instils in humanitys conception of itself and ofthe cosmos17 that we are forced toface the contingency of thought and therefore to rethink the priority of human access, it appears that nocultural force has managed to present more powerfully to humankind as a whole thedisconcerting vastness of the great outdoors than the last forty years of physical sciences, particularlyastronomy. To substantiate this claim, I would like to take a brief historical excursus. In his Earthrise, historian Robert Poole explainshow the famous Earthrise picture taken in 1968 by the crew of the Apollo 8 mission (showing the planet rising from the lunar horizon)and its even more popular Blue Marble successor, taken in 1972 by the astronauts of the Apollo 17 (showing the planet in its fullspherical appearance) were appropriated and diffused in popular culture by the dominant ideologies of the time. In a complex

network linking such different forces as the technical constraints of the Apollo missions, cold-war era political interests, theamazement of the first astronauts seeing the planet from above, and the lsd-fuelled rise of 1970s hippie counterculture, the first

images of planet Earth ended up as bearing an unprecedented meaning. In particular, Poole argues that [t]he famous Apollo17 Blue Marble photograph appeared in December 1972, just in time to supply theenvironmental movement with its most powerful icon. It was, however, the Apollo 8 image of December 1968that had started it all off. Both images owed much oftheir instant power to the way they tapped into aready-made agenda: in the case of the Blue Marble it was the eco-renaissance; in the case ofEarthrise it was Spaceship Earth. What happened over the years in between was that natural metaphors for the planetbegan to take over from technological ones.18 Hence Blue marble, according to Poole the single most reproduced image in humanhistory,19 was fruitfully assimilated by contemporary culture, and at the same time produced a feedback effect, fuelling theamazement for a living planet, and shaping a holistic attitude which subsequently appropriated the Gaia hypothesis as a scientificproof of the life-cycles of the global organism that Earth was. The picture from outer space, even if showing the fragile beauty ofEarth, effectively increased the intrinsic value of the planet, so that the focus of the environmental movement (and of the emergentNew Age spirituality) which adopted the photograph as a graphic reminder of the wonders of our planet, was not wilderness or

nature but the environment, with humankind very much in the picture,20 a humankind now seen as never before as the luckyinhabitants and custodians of a natural marvel, strikingly alive in an empty, dark, and colourless space. Let us try to compare theBlue Marble picture, and its effect on the cultural unconscious, with another, more recent picture of our planet. On the 14thFebruary 1990, the Voyager probe, having completed, the main part of its mission in its first 13 years of interplanetary flight, wasinstructed to turn its camera around, and to take a picture of Earth from a distance of approximately 6 billion kilometres. The alive,dynamic planet that in the early 70s was shown in its blue marble glory was now, in the famous words of Carl Sagan (the manresponsible for convincing nasa to take the picture and for its successive popularization),21 a pale blue dot, a handful of pixels on abackground of black nothingness. The Earth, which thirty years earlier had been a glorious Blue Marble was now shown as a paleblue dot. If this picture did not directly slide so glamorously into the popular media and in popular culture it is not only because of itsinferior intrinsic aesthetic value, but also because of the radically different social climate of the early 90s. And yet, I believe that wecan fruitfully look at the pale blue dot picture as having as strong a cultural significance as its predecessor. Indeed, where to find abetter, more powerful representation of the true meaning of the Copernican Revolutionas we are reminded by Meillassouxthan inthis pale blue dot picture, sent as a faint electromagnetic signal by an unmanned probe, from a distance where no human had ever,or has since, reached? If humanity could previously be seen as the privileged custodian of a sacred cosmic gem, it was now merelydwelling on a infinitesimal speck of dust, a planet whose awe-inspiring face was now irresolvable, irrelevant, disfigured. If thecoloured face of the planet dominated the Blue Marble picture, it is the featureless cosmic space which dominates this secondpicture, a space where the Earth, and the environment it hosts, is but a mere point floating across an arbitrary set of coordinates.22

Science delivered the photographic evidence of theat bestprovincial placement of our planet, a graphic memento that there ismuch more to the universe than our world (both in the sense of a correlationally defined existential space and in the sense of ourmaterial planet), a picture that indeed in its coarse immediacy strikes a powerful blow to the pathetic twinge of human self-esteem.23 The philosophical trope of otherness itself was now to be revised: from the otherness of a human neighbour to that of anonhuman, utterly alien,24 external reality. Eight years after the pale blue dot picture, physical cosmology delivered some evenmore stunning results: the empty, cosmic space, through which

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