NASA, Spinning
Was the space shuttle useful? Not really.
By David Owen
Posted Tuesday, February 4, 2003, at 9:47 AM PT
In the days since the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia, NASA
officials have repeatedly reminded us that space travel is inherently
dangerous. They clearly are right. If passenger aircraft blew up as often
as space shuttles have (twice in 113 missions), there would be 20
catastrophic accidents every day at La Guardia alone.
The crashes of Challenger and Columbia killed 14 crew members and destroyed
half of America's original shuttle fleet. President Bush, the Wall Street
Journal, and others have assured us that enduring such extraordinary losses
is both necessary and worthwhile. In truth, though, the shuttle program has
never been either of those things. NASA's original plan was to create a
vehicle that would make quick round trips between the Earth and an orbiting
space station�but then Congress, in 1969, refused to pay for both programs,
and space officials, forced to choose, elected to build the bus without the
destination. They rationalized their toy by claiming that it would make
ordinary rockets obsolete. But the shuttle has proved instead to be so
expensive and undependable that virtually all satellites nowadays are
propelled into orbit on old-fashioned disposable launchers. On the rare
occasions when the shuttle is still used to launch a satellite, the payload
is typically one that originated with NASA itself�such as Starshine, an
inert, hollow, mirror-covered sphere 19 inches in diameter that the crew of
the shuttle Discovery carried into low orbit in the spring of 1999 and
essentially threw overboard so that high-school astronomers (who had
pitched in to polish the mirrors) could track it with telescopes and
predict when it would plummet back to Earth, as it did a few months later.
NASA officials and their supporters have often claimed that the shuttle
program has produced a "six-fold return" on our staggering investment in
it. For that number to be accurate, though, each shuttle mission would have
to have generated something like $4 billion in economic benefits�an
impossibility. In fact, it's tough to identify any significant benefits at
all. NASA annually produces a publication called Spinoff, which claims to
document "successfully commercialized NASA technology" from the preceding
year, but almost all the shuttle-related claims are strained in the
extreme: A sports bra made from a material also used in shuttle spacesuits
helps to reduce "mammary bounce"; a type of synthetic netting used in
shuttles has also been used in the decks of racing catamarans; a composite
material developed by Babcock & Wilcox for use in certain kinds of tubing
on the space shuttle was later also used for "improving golf clubs" by
providing "maximum distance."
It is almost impossible to find a shuttle spinoff that is the product of an
actual shuttle-based experiment or project rather than a result of the
design, construction, operation, or maintenance of the shuttle itself. For
example, NASA boasts that leftover fuel from shuttle missions is used "to
save lives�by destroying land mines." But any incendiary substance could be
used to blow up land mines; employing excess shuttle fuel for that purpose
does not make land-mine destruction a "benefit" of the space program.
Almost all alleged shuttle spinoffs are of this type.
When a commercial product or application truly is developed on a shuttle
mission, the shuttle's real contribution usually has to do only with
marketing. For example, in 1998, International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.
sponsored a shuttle experiment in which buds of a certain variety of rose
were allowed, under the supervision of John Glenn, to blossom during a
shuttle flight. According to IFF, exposure to microgravity during blooming
led to an unspecified "shift in the scent" of the blossoms. "Essential
oils" supposedly similar to those produced by the shuttle roses were later
included, among roughly two dozen other ingredients, in a perfume (called
Zen) made by Japan's largest cosmetics company. The IFF press release
announcing the breakthrough said: "This heavenly scent has come down to
Earth in a product designed to enhance mood as well as to delight those who
smell it. It also serves to remind us that reaching for the stars can
result in down-to-Earth delights." Last year, Unilever became the second
company to use the fragrance in a product by adding it to a deodorant
called Impulse, which "caters to the energetic and vibrant girls who
believe in living life to the fullest!" but isn't sold in the United States.
On that same shuttle mission in 1998, Glenn took part in a series of
experiments that NASA said had been inspired by apparent similarities
between space travel and old age�both of which cause "bone and muscle loss,
balance disorders and sleep disturbances." The investigation consisted of
monitoring Glenn's temperature at night, collecting samples of his blood
and urine, and asking him questions about the quality of his sleep, among
other things. NASA hoped that these data might lead to the creation of "a
model system to help scientists interested in understanding aging"�although
no such model resulted from the mission, and no earthbound scientist not
connected with the program ever asked NASA to produce one. (Besides, if the
apparent similarities between aging and space travel really are meaningful,
wouldn't it have made more sense to conduct the experiment in reverse, by
observing Earth's plentiful supply of old people and then applying any
lessons learned to the comparatively small population of shuttle
passengers? After all, we earthlings have been generating data about the
effects of aging for several million years, and we know exactly how the
experiment ends.)
The scientific investigations undertaken during Columbia's final voyage
were similar to those conducted during Glenn's mission five years earlier;
indeed, they were similar to the experiments conducted on nearly every
manned American space voyage that has ever taken place. For example, eight
Australian spiders aboard Columbia added to our understanding of weightless
web-weaving, a subject NASA first studied aboard Skylab in 1973. (According
to an Australian wire-service report filed three days before the accident,
the spider experiment "could result in scientists mimicking the structure
of spider silk for use in aerospace structures and space stations"�proving
that NASA isn't the only hyperbolic self-promoter in the world.) And
International Flavors & Fragrances was back on board, in partnership with
the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics, to grow a few more
fragrant plants in one of the shuttle's standard glove-compartment-sized
experiment drawers.
There were more serious experiments on Columbia as well, of course. But all
of those experiments could have been performed more easily, economically,
and safely aboard an unmanned spacecraft (as in the case of the dust-storm
observation experiment); or addressed questions that NASA had already
answered years, if not decades, before (as in the case of all the
experiments designed to measure the effects of microgravity on living
things); or had no chance whatsoever�assuming that NASA's long history in
this area provides an accurate guide�of leading to any truly useful
discovery or breakthrough (as in the case of all the experiments aimed at
creating new drugs, growing proteins, curing cancer, and the like). In the
end, Columbia's main contribution to human knowledge will likely be yet
another candidate for Spinoff magazine, though it will be a big one: By the
end of this year, we will know more than we ever did before about how to
collect, catalog, and analyze the debris of a space-flight disaster.
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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