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Why Space shouldn’t be a Hobby
By Charles Polk
In April 2011, NASA reported that if it had undertaken the development of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket the cost to U.S. taxpayers would have been $4 billion. In the same report, NASA confirmed that SpaceX had developed Falcon 9 for $390 million.
Falcon 9 is neither a technological marvel nor the product of revolutionary production and management processes. Rather, it is a modernization of decades-old technologies produced by a company that has an altogether normal interest in controlling its costs.
When a person has a hobby – let’s say carpentry – the person’s goal isn’t to acquire wooden items; rather, the person’s goal is to experience making items out of wood. A chair made by this hobbyist has value to him that is independent of a similar chair he could buy for less than his hobby costs. The hobbyist carpenter is both the demander and the supplier of the chair, which is the point after all, as he wishes to experience a craft not participate in the furniture business.
When a nation has a space exploration program, the nation’s goal is more involved than just the acquisition of knowledge about matters beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The nation assumes the roles of both demander and supplier. In the supplier role, the politics of what research centers and which companies receive funding becomes a driving force in how supply is organized and, consequently, in the costs and capabilities of what can be purchased.
Using the mental construct of national space program as national hobby may be a bit riling to some, but consider the following classic observations about hobbies:
· When a parent funds a child’s hobby, the parent’s interests in tools, workspaces, and hobby stores impact how the child pursues his or her hobby.
· The stores that supply hobby inputs understand that their customer is strongly interested in the experience, not just the output, of the hobby.
· The hobby stores also understand that when the hobbyist has a funder it is just as important to cater to the funder as to the hobbyist.
A national space program has hundreds of parents who decide how much is spent and how it is spent. The companies involved in supplying inputs understand that the national space bureaucracy is as interested in experiencing the process as it is in the exploration conducted. Rather than being pure suppliers to a pure demander, these companies enable the parents and the bureaucracy to direct both demand and supply.
Whether labeled as a hobby or not, when demand and supply are directed by the same entity, the entity’s primary goal is simply to maintain its direction over demand and supply (i.e., to experience both). Cost efficiency relative to global supply capabilities – a primary goal of any pure demander – is not a primary goal of such an entity.
However, when there is competition between hobbyists, where their outputs will be the measure of victory and the efforts required seriously press on their funding capabilities, then cost control becomes important enough to impact how the hobby is conducted. From 1957 to 1969, such competition existed between national space exploration programs. After forty-two years without such competition, the first paragraph of this blog post shouldn’t come as a surprise.
So, if one wants to see the manned exploration of Mars, for whatever reason, which of the following options would have the lowest price tag?
A. Collaboration among national space bureaucracies
B. High-profile competition among national space bureaucracies
C. A clean separation between demand and supply
Option A would compound the cost inefficiencies involved in attaining any particular exploration goal. Option B is a recasting of the Moon Race with Mars as the target – it might cost less (globally) than Option A, but would be very expensive all the same. Option C would decouple the roles of demander and supplier, resulting in suppliers having to care about the price sensitivities of the demander.
For Option C, imagine a large endowment dedicated to Mars exploration – let’s call it The Martian Trust. If the governance of The Martian Trust were independent of any political entity or corporation, it would be a pure demander of Mars exploration, not caring who supplies the exploration but caring intently about the price of supply.
Assuming a large enough endowment, The Martian Trust of Option C looks good. There is, of course, the matter of raising the endowment. If national governments contributed the endowment, it would be proper for them to exercise control over how the endowment is spent, which would turn this into Option A.
For now, I’ll leave the raising of the endowment to The Martian Trust website (www.martiantrust.org) and future blog posts.
In closing, I’d like to point out that Option C is not inimical to national space agencies. These agencies are natural participants among the suppliers in Option C. Such an agency would be in competition with other agencies, companies, and consortia of agencies and companies. Rather than being a bad thing for national space agencies, this competition would root out inefficient practices and structures that have grown from demander/supplier coupling.
