While attending a symposium on space exploration and the future, Jeff and I had the pleasure of meeting and enjoying a talk by Robert Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman is a respected author, space historian, cave explorer and ham radio enthusiast. He has written three historical non-fiction books on space, and a hundred articles for magazine and newspaper. He made it clear to us that humans will eventually spread out into the solar system, and while there are considerable challenges toward that goal we are up to the task. Some space challenges we have already overcome. What if you had a hole in your space suit, would you use duct tape to patch it? It happened. That adventure was just one of the dramatic and entertaining stories told to us by Mr. Zimmerman.
Please, visit his website where you can buy autographed copies of his fantastic books (and you can see what Arthur C. Clarke and Ben Bova had to say about them). Also posted on his website are some of his wonderful articles, including one about being trapped in a cave for ten hours during a flood!! Check out his upcoming appearances.
Mr. Zimmerman very kindly agreed to small e-interview for Starship Dimensions. I’m pleased to post his thoughtful answers. Enjoy! He is a true visionary who’s solidly grounded in reality. A very big Thank You to Mr. Zimmerman!
BR: What do you think of NASA’s plan to return to the multi-staged rocket with the Orion space craft, rather than trying to create a new and improved shuttle design?
RZ: The decision by NASA managers to go with an upgraded Apollo-like capsule design was driven by two main factors: cost and fear. It was much less costly to go back to an older capsule design that was not reusable. Such a design involved less innovation and engineering changes and would therefore be simpler and cheaper to build. The capsule design was also less risky. It placed the habitable parts of the spaceship entirely above the rocket, thereby putting it out of reach of any debris that might fall and hit the capsule, as happened with Columbia. This position on top of the rocket also facilitated the use of an abort system that was comparable to systems already in use, thereby avoiding the development of a complex new design.
If space fans want to see some innovation and a willingness to take real engineering gambles, they shouldn’t look to a government organization like NASA. New spaceship designs will almost certainly come instead from the private sector, as we saw with Bert Rutan’s SpaceShipOne.
BR: Fans of our web site are often surprised with the size of fictional space ships compared to other fictional space ships and real objects. They are either much much larger than expected or they are disappointed with their small size. Ignoring creative license, do you think that sci-fi writers are generally being reasonable with regard to the size of their ships? (Is a Death Star realistic? How about multi-generation colony ships?)
RZ: I am not an engineer, so it is hard for me to say whether these invented spaceships are realistic or not. More important, I would never presume to place a limit on human ingenuity. When humans begin routinely building space vessels to travel to other worlds, the possible shapes and sizes of their spaceships will be as variable as the shape of snowflakes.
Having said that, however, I must add that I sometimes find modern science fiction writers to be a little blasé about the engineering challenges of space travel. Shows like DEEP SPACE 9, BABYLON 5, and STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION often think that any technical problem can be solved with a quick engineering solution, improvised in five minutes by Miles O’Brien with a quick flip of his wrist.
Instead, it is going to take many more decades of careful, dedicated, and determined work by many people to figure out how to build and fly spaceships that can get humans to other worlds safely and routinely. We should not take this challenge lightly.
BR: Finally, what do you think is currently the biggest hindrance to our expanding out into the solar system and is there anything we can do about it?
RZ: I have written about this issue extensively, both in my last book, LEAVING EARTH, and in numerous essays in books, magazines, and newspapers. (See for example my September 9, 2003 op-ed for USA Today and my article for Ad Astra, May/June and July/August 2000 issues.)
We (in the United States at least) have chosen to make our space program a nationalized and Soviet-style centralized government bureaucracy. We have decided, in conjunction with United Nations treaties, to forbid private land ownership in space. And we have imposed heavy regulations on private enterprise here on Earth, making it difficult, complex, and expensive for any new small private companies to get started. (See for example my UPI columns on regulation and commercial space at http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3cxxp/upifavs.htm.)
As a consequence, there has been remarkably little innovation or aggressive competition in the American aerospace industry in the last four decades. The big companies, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have consolidated and teamed up, satisfied to live off contracts from the government. As a result, they have lost market share to to the Russians and Europeans, who have taken over the business of launching almost all private satellites.
In order to revitalize our space industry, the American government should, at a minimum, remove as many regulations and restrictions as it can to private innovation. On a bolder front, the United States should withdraw from the United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty. By doing so, we will free ourselves from the Treaty’s restrictions on private property rights, and allow ourselves to set the rules for our own space-faring citizens and companies. We will then be able to establish land grant policies that will allow explorers to own land on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, similar to the homesteading acts of the 1800s that made the quick settlement of the American West possible. Imagine how quickly the exploration of space would move forward if people knew that by mining an asteroid for iron they could also claim it as their very own.
More significantly, once the United States publicly announces that it intends to claim territory in space, other nations will feel compelled to step forward and compete, if only to avoid being left in the dust. In fact, we see hints of exactly this kind of competition today. After the United States decided in 2004 to return to the Moon, countries like India, China, Russia, and Europe all stepped up the pace of their space programs in an effort to keep up. It is my hope that this competition will only accelerate in the future.