First, C4C did result in an increase in the fleet’s average fuel economy, and therefore resulted in a savings in terms of expected gasoline consumed in the US. The following chart displays the level of gasoline savings as compared to doing nothing (or business as usual (BAU). The business as usual assumption also produces a savings in gasoline as current vehicles are more efficient than older vehicles, but not as significant as the C4C program.

Next, considering financial benefit to individual consumers we have to examine which vehicle they may be trading in and which vehicle they might purchase. This part of the analysis considers only the top 10 vehicles traded in and purchased under the program. As might be expected, loan interest, fuel costs, insurance costs, and vehicle purchase costs, along with miles expected to be driven, and length of time the car will be owned, in addition to resale costs, all affect the consumer’s bottom line. The following matrix displays the net present value (NPV) to the consumer for a 100 different trade in and purchase combinations assuming 20,000 miles driven per year and a time horizon of 5 years between purchase and resale of the new car.

As seen from this high mileage scenario, only 60 of the 100 options provide a positive financial return to the consumer. Driving only 12,000 miles per year or less would mean than all of the vehicle trade options would provide a negative return to the consumer.

The main caveat to this analysis is that maintenance costs were not considered, due to a lack of data available. This would be expected to be a benefit (perhaps slight or significant) to the purchase of a new vehicle over retaining the old one, although, I would anticipate only a slight to moderate benefit in that direction.

In conclusion, I believe that a certain skepticism has to be entertained regarding the stated goals of the program (which have to be politically justified) and the actual unspoken goals of the program–which in this case was to push a lot of capital into the economy in a timely and popular fashion. This unspoken goal was clearly accomplished, although perhaps at a greater benefit to foreign corporations than anticipated.

*Jose Alfredo Galvan, Mohd Nor Azman Hasan, Rebecca Mayer, and myself conducted equal portions of this analysis. Full report available here (pdf).

Environmental issues such as conservation and biodiversity are often seen as peripheral to our lives or the problems we face, but nothing could be further than the truth. This world is habitable because of the weathering of rocks and the death and recycling of organisms, because of the filtration, oxygenation, and water capturing functions that plants carry out, because of consumers’ roles in suppressing the populations of plants and other animals and producers’ conversion of solar energy to chemical energy. All of that happens within the Earth’s ecosphere and the ecosystems that comprise it, and all of it is self-sustaining and self-maintaining. Or, at least, it is until we start interfering with it.

We always will have an effect on the Earth, and that’s to be expected, since we’re part of the system; there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem has been that we don’t really consider the long-term effects of our actions on our descendants, other organisms, or the Earth, and we’re just beginning to get the bill for all the damage we’ve done. Some say that nothing is happening, but they are wrong. Even if climate change is a complete hoax (extremely unlikely, given how hard it is to get scientists to come to a consensus on something this controversial), looking at the fossil record, the current rate of biodiversity loss is serious enough to qualify as a mass extinction event. If both problems are happening at the same time, I find that far more troubling. If these problems aren’t enough to give us pause, nothing is. Consider this- if we change our ways and nothing happens, we pay a price by decreasing our consumption but benefit in terms of increased efficiency, better quality of life, and decreased need to replicate “ecosystem services” such as water filtration, erosion control, climate moderation, and the like. If we change and the worst does happen, the changes we carry out might just save us from the worst effects of a changing world.

Conservation of mass and energy are not just quaint suggestions; they’re the law, and the human population is finally becoming large enough to push against those laws on a planetary scale. They won’t give- we will, and we won’t like it if we have to find that out the hard way. “Victory shines upon those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur.” We have an opportunity if we’re willing to lead the change to a sustainable world. If we’re not willing, then I’m sure that there are plenty of other parties willing to do so, even if they lack the resources that we have at our disposal.

Everything is interconnected, and, as Miyamoto Musashi might point out, we need to learn to see the great in the small as well as the small in the great, and we need to cultivate the skills that we will need, not only those that we do need. We also need to learn to appreciate the flower for being a flower and a magnificent example of biology, chemistry, and physics, rather than needing to find a bottom line. Sometimes, that bottom line is extremely thin and we don’t notice it until it is too late. The price currently being paid by nature in the coin of extinct species is one that can never be reversed; we owe it to Nature and ourselves to minimize that cost.

Space exploration and, indeed exploration of extreme environments in general, may be seen as an unnecessary luxury, but such could not be further from the truth. To the extent that such exploration expands our scientific knowledge, it also holds the potential to enhance our technological base, as well. While one may be able to scuba dive, the requirements to do so, to temporarily push back our human limitations, are significantly less than the requirements to successfully dwell in an underwater environment. To dwell in an environment not only requires an understanding of that environment, but of ourselves and our relationship to our native environment, as well. Take the International Space Station, for instance. One of the major challenges of living in the ISS is the perpetual maintenance required to keep it functioning and providing a life-sustaining environment for its occupants; the Earth does this for free through natural processes that, as simple as they may seem at first glance, elegantly provide critical “ecosystem services” day in and day out. Just as something absent is often something better appreciated, having to artificially mimic or replace our natural environment can help us to better understand and appreciate our own.

Such exploration is not simply a matter of short-term scientific or technological gains. Such gains form the foundation of tomorrow’s science and technology, just as today’s great minds in science and technology stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before. I want our descendants to have the choice to explore space or the oceans, to improve upon what we have accomplished so far. If they’re to be able to do that, then we need to establish a foundation for them to build upon. If we want ourselves to have greater knowledge and capability fifty years from now, we need to put in place today the policies, research the disciplines and technologies, and nurture the minds that will accomplish that. A not insignificant part of that challenge is the need to change the public perception of education from a field “for those who can’t do” to a field for those who can, but choose to serve instead. That may well require an increase in compensation in order to attract talent, but, speaking for myself, monetary gain has never been all that significant a motivation. I think a far more significant attractor is a coherent vision and the access to the tools and the means to make it a reality.

One such issue is the nature of American democracy. I have nothing but respect for the framers of the Constitution, but, as an outgrowth of that, I feel that Americans have a responsibility to assess whether the system we have still addresses the realities of American life and allows people to actively participate in government, if they so desire. Our system should reflect the changes that have happened over the years as well as take advantage of the technologies that have come out of the Information Revolution. I think that there are a number of such technologies (blogs, social networking websites, and web-capable handheld devices, to name a few) that could potentially increase the degree of involvement in governance at all levels. My wife proposed the idea of allowing people to choose to vote on specific issues by interest, and I think that step would not be so far away from where we are (except, perhaps, for a desired shift away from instances of voting on an issue because it’s on the ballot, regardless of the level of knowledge of the issue) as it looks. Like her, I, too, believe that part of the key is, as I learned in AmeriCorps, to allow people to volunteer or, in this case, participate based on their interests and expertise. I can imagine a world where people sign up for RSS feeds that give them regular updates on the policy issues that matter most to them. I know that the technology is capable of far more, but we need to start a discussion on this topic before we can figure out just how far it can go. We would also need to improve technological literacy before we can get there, since it would be unacceptable for citizens to be left out because they lack the skills or the technology to fully participate. Still, using the available technology to inform citizens in an effective and timely way seems like a good place to start. In the long run, I would hope that such participation would eventually allow citizens to participate on an equal footing with special interest groups- not because “special interests” are inherently bad, but because citizens should not have to participate in such groups for their voices to be heard.

Progress in how we participate in democracy, however significant, will mean very little if the yoked issues of energy policy, environmental stewardship, and scientific exploration are not addressed effectively. In order to do so, however, we need to, as Steven Covey puts it, “begin with the end in mind”. We need to decide what kind of world we want to bequeath to the next generation, or, preferably, even farther than that. We need to decide how we want to be remembered and what is truly important. I know that, personally, I want the next generation to be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water. I want them to be able to go out into nature and see functioning ecosystems, and I want the diversity of nature to remain as intact as possible, given the changes taking place in our world. I want our society to be one that thinks about the “big picture” and designs their cities and towns accordingly, one that lives in and among nature instead of outside of it. I want as many people as possible to have access to food, shelter, energy, and technology. I want humans to have the tools to explore the entire cosmos, starting with ourselves and the planet Earth, in far greater detail than we can imagine today, and I want them to use that knowledge to improve their quality of life and enrich their own understanding.

Though energy prices have been trending downwards of late, energy policy is something that we desperately need to address. It’s not just about becoming carbon-neutral or reducing emissions by a set amount. To do that is to do no more than study to pass the test. We need to understand how efficiency and renewable energy sources serve the best long term interests of our world and ourselves. It does no good for higher education to nurture technologically-competent graduates if those graduates cannot then find high-quality jobs; strengthened efforts in these areas hold the promise of creating such jobs not only for recent graduates, but those already in the job market, as well. Given global energy trends, there is a real opportunity for America if we choose to lead the way in developing and adopting alternative energy sources and improved resource efficiency, energy and otherwise. The advantage of globalization in our current situation is that, if we lead, others will be compelled to follow, and I believe the job of the federal government in this case is to overcome industry’s “static friction” and get it rolling en masse towards doing more with less. Once it gets rolling and the benefits start to accrue, I don’t think there will be nearly as much questioning of whether it was worth it.

To Be Continued…

In the same way that economics experiences cycles, booms, and busts, innovation and progress when considered as a market of ideas also experiences those things. This earlier article on regulation explains some of this, but we are going to take this idea a few steps further.

Many of us, especially those of us too young to remember anything earlier than the ’60s or ’70s, usually think of progress and innovation as some collective force that always continues pushing upwards albeit with greater or lesser rates depending on the circumstances. But taking a longer view shows that is not the case. Technologies like concrete and many civil engineering skills were known and regularly employed by the Roman Empire during a period of several centuries before the empire fell apart starting around the 5th century. Over the next several centuries known as the Dark Ages in Europe, many of those Roman skills were lost, totally forgotten for long periods of time, such that even by the time of the beginning of the Renaissance in the 15th century, engineers and builders still did not know how to make concrete.

So, while other civilizations had different experiences around this same point in history, we can at least say that it is completely possible for a society to experience a long term decline in innovation and progress even to the point of losing the ability to do many things that were once routine.

But, back to our question, how do we regulate ideas? Although many people may not be aware, inventions are more often planned and predicted than they are spontaneous and unexpected. Government and corporations often make innovation a requirement like saying “build a 50% more energy efficient refrigerator” [also see this article on efficiency and conservation], knowing that the technology does not already exist to achieve that capability. These kinds of requirements are useful to teams of engineers as they help focus the direction of invention, and enable trade offs between different possibilities. Society overall could respond to this innovation in different ways, either by using twice as many refrigerators (doubling the amount of food that can be stored), or by using half the energy to store the same amount of food, or something in between.

But consider the possibility that there may exist another solution to efficient food storage not known to corporate or government rule makers (or not understood) that is not related to refrigeration. In this situation the 50% more efficient refrigerator requirement could be stifling progress, directing the people available to work on innovation away from the best solution to the most easily understood solution. So, while innovation is continuing, societal progress is slowing.

On the other hand, a rule that increased the cost of energy used for food storage by 50% would allow all solutions to the problem a more equal footing in the marketplace of ideas, whether refrigeration or some other possibility. This kind of rule, would even permit another unrelated and inefficient process to be cleaned up and come to the aid of food storage by freeing up the equivalent amount of power needed, thus resulting in the same overall costs to society with increased capability.

So, look around at how our governments try to encourage the direction of innovation. Do they set the right kinds of rules? Or do we allow them (and ourselves) to jump to conclusions?

Space exploration has brought many direct benefits in the years since its inception, though perhaps none that most people recognize that we could not live without. One of the most prominent successes is the Hubble Space Telescope
(and other space-based observatories, as well), without which any number of insights into the workings of the cosmos may not have been made.

Scientific knowledge is useful, but most citizens measure the effectiveness of a program relative to its positive or negative impact upon their lives. To increase public awareness of the benefits of space exploration, NASA has gone so far as to establish a website dedicated to elaborating on some of the successful technology transfers (http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html) between the American space program and everyday life; perhaps more significantly, the website also mentions their dedication to looking for “spin-in” opportunities, as well. Borrowing ideas and technologies from outside the space sector stimulates the economy by providing a market for those technologies, provides incentive for small businesses and researchers to form partnerships with the public sector, and reduces the development costs to taxpayers.

Some of the more significant spin-offs include improved firefighter breathing gear, rescue jaws, scratch-resistant lenses, and spacesuit fabric (used as roofs for sports stadiums, malls, and airports). The variety of spin-offs makes it clear that the connections are not always direct or obvious- a case in point is the use of image processing techniques that calculate the height of terrain to analyze the effectiveness of makeup! The Spinoff magazine (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinfaq.htm) NASA produces is dedicated to pointing out connections between the space program and business, though some of these cases are a matter of NASA lending expertise rather than transferring technology specifically developed for space uses. (Contrary to popular belief, Tang, Teflon, and Velcro are NOT spinoffs of developments in the American space program.) Despite the effect of the Constellation Project on other aspects of NASA’s research budget, it still plays a significant role in US research and development.

Not all the benefits of space exploration are direct- for instance, some of the engineering experience acquired can be put to use on other projects incorporating similar technologies or operating in extreme environments such as Antarctica and the deep ocean, to name two prominent examples, and managers with experience in coordinating high technology projects are a valuable national or, in this increasingly globalized world, international asset. Both China and India recognize their space programs as a critical component of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, since such an effort serves as a powerful draw and a source of jobs for talented individuals- it is also no coincidence that it may also help to reduce the rate of high-tech “brain drain” towards Western countries.

Space exploration can also serve as a source of national pride or an economic asset; one need only look so far as the space race that occurred between the United States and Soviet Union for an example of the former or the European Space Agency’s Ariane rocket for an example of the latter. Indeed, in the early twenty-first century, access to space in the form of communications, navigation, and earth observation assets seem almost essential to an extremely high standard of living. High-bandwidth satellite communications and transportation efficiency make possible just-in-time inventories, Dish TV, and direct point-to-point aircraft flights.

From a scientific perspective, a number of revelations have occurred specifically due to our active exploration of outer space; take, for instance, the fact that we now know with a large degree of certainty that there was water present on Mars’ surface at some point in the past, a revelation that we would have been unlikely to arrive at by simply observing Mars from a distance. That better understanding of Mars gives us an appreciation for and knowledge of how the scientific laws and theories we’ve developed here on Earth apply elsewhere in the universe- it adds a context to that knowledge, just as a knowledge of geology, meteorology, climatology, and chemistry provide context to biology. And, from a philosophical perspective, long-term space exploration is likely to challenge our sense of self and place, our decision-making processes and organizational structures, and our ability to construct “built environments” and ecologies (or perhaps arcologies) that can sustain us and allow us to grow in a multitude of dimensions, physical and otherwise.

Considering all of the above, it would seem that there is a direct benefit from much of the unmanned space exploration that is being carried out; in terms of maybe the correct question to consider is, “what does manned space exploration do for us?” I think that, a fundamental way and like other explorations that have come before, it prepares us to make an informed decision about what we want to become. To this point, Earth has defined us as it has all living things we share this planet with; as we move outward, we may have no choice but to move inward, changing who we are in such a significant way that, while we will still (and always) be Earth’s children, we will no longer be defined by her. In the long run, this may well prove to be our own Copernican revolution.

A number of questions seem pertinent to this question. First, how much do we actually spend on space exploration in a single year? Following on the heels of this question is one of what benefits we derive from such exploration and whether these benefits could be acquired through other means. After these questions have been addressed, we need to look at the long-term question of where we want to go as a species and a planet, and what we’ll need to get there. This first article addresses those short-term questions, while the second makes a start at discussing the long-term one. The third addresses societal and systems issues that have a bearing on the success of space exploration, and the fourth addresses the challenge of maintaining public awareness of exploratory efforts.

How much money do we spend on space exploration? Either a whole lot or precious little, depending on how you do the reckoning. The following list of space program budgets is by no means comprehensive- it is intended to give a sense of the size of the global space program budget pool and the proportion of that pool that each program accounts for. Based on a Wikipedia table of space agency budgets, the total global expenditures are approximately equal to $35 billion, a little over twice NASA’s budget and about half again greater than what the United States Department of Defense spends on space activities annually. (While the Department of Defense is not included in the table, its space activities are an integral part of the overall picture, given the fact that many of NASA’s payloads ride into space on rockets developed under Department of Defense funding.)

Put into context, this amount is dwarfed by the amount spent on recreation, health care, or routine household expenditures. The 2001 Gross World Product was ~ $45.9 trillion dollars, making the ratio of gross world product to space program expenditures of the same order as that of US gross domestic product to NASA’s budget.

There seems little question whether the industrialized nations can afford such spending on space exploration- the critical question is whether we will choose to or not. Yes, there are other things that we could spend that money on, but there are also a lot of other things that we don’t have to spend money on (or could reorganize to spend less money on with no loss in the end products or services), as well. Energy is a good example of this- maintaining our supplies of fossil fuels relies on continual mining and drilling (and, thus, continual resource usage on top of the associated environmental damage). Solar power is a very strong member of the renewable energy portfolio and a contender in many energy usage scenarios, even though it does have the drawback of, with the exception of solar thermal power systems, being heavily dependent on weather conditions. Thus, replacement of fossil fuels with renewable sources in a given application eliminates that ongoing energy overhead that mining and drilling require, though raw materials are still required to construct devices. Turning the space debate into a matter of either-or is misleading, since it’s actually a matter of relative priorities.

As for what the space exploration budget buys, a thumbnail sketch can be seen by a glance at the following graph, which shows a breakdown of NASA’s budget by category for the fiscal years 2004 through 2020.

At a glance, it is clear that manned space exploration, represented by the Space Shuttle program and International Space Station, consumes approximately half of the budget, while another third is appropriated for “aeronautics research and other science activities”. NASA’s robotic exploration missions make up the majority of the remainder. Few other countries have manned space programs, and most lack the level of funding or long-term commitment required to support them; thus, they make up a relatively small portion of overall spending. That collective spending includes activities such as earth observation, planetary exploration, communications & navigation, and astronomy. Without a doubt, many space agencies have duplicated each others’ efforts, partially due to the dual-use nature of a number of space-related technologies; the majority of rocket development has been for military purposes first and foremost with the fortunate side effect of enabling space exploration.

Some would argue, and with good reason, that the ratio of volume of scientific data to cost is much higher for robotic missions than their manned counterparts, and that they have the added attraction of not endangering human lives. However, manned missions produce critical data on human biology, performance, and effectiveness in a microgravity environment, data that is invaluable if we are to one day work and live in space. Further, direct control of robotic missions imposes line-of-sight restrictions and communications lag limitations, factors that can give a manned mission an edge in rapidly changing or unforeseen circumstances.

Perhaps one of the most convincing arguments for maintaining space programs, both manned and unmanned, is the “capacity-building” argument. Whether manned or unmanned space exploration is the preferred method of pushing our boundaries of knowledge outward, it is certain that humans will be designing and building the systems and running the organizations that will be doing that exploration. If we want to have that expertise twenty years in the future, we need to be nurturing and developing it right now.