Abstract
The focus of this chapter is to explore space policy from the perspective of political philosophy. Apart from surveying the benefits of the Cold War to space science, whereby great progress was made in a relatively short time period, a particular emphasis is placed on the competitive environment in which the two space hegemons, USA and USSR, sought to surpass each other in national excellence. This competitive environment , I argue, is reminiscent of the ancient Greek spirit of agonistic competition as articulated by Hesiod. A secondary focus of this chapter is to survey the contemporary financial woes of NASA, and the emergence of U.S. private-sector space firms. While accepting the premise that space science and space exploration are of intrinsic value to humanity and higher levels of funding are needed, I question both the viability and desirably of such a partnership.
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Notes
- 1.
DK 22B53 (Diels and Walther 1985).
- 2.
- 3.
For a balanced view of von Braun see Neufeld (2007). Unlike Piszkiewicz (1998) who portrays Von Braun as a Nazi villain who escaped the wheels of justice, Neufeld suggests that Von Braun was driven by his passion for space flight which, in turn, led him to a “Faustian bargain” with the Third Reich in order to get access to needed resources. If true this would put Von Braun in the same category as natural philosophers such as, Thales of Miletus (624 BC–546 BC) and Archimedes (287 BC–212 BC) who were motivated by their intellectual curiosities. For example, Archimedes was said to be so taken with a geometrical problem that he was oblivious to the fall of his town, Syracuse. When a soldier was sent to fetch him on the orders of the Roman General Marcus Claudius Marcellus he dismissed him with his famous line “Noli turbare circulos meos!” (Do not disturb my circles!).
- 4.
- 5.
Consider Wernher Von Braun’s half-joking claim that [at] “Peenemünde [German municipality where the V-2 rocket was developed] we’d been coddled. Here [US] they were counting pennies” (Brzezinski 2007: 87).
- 6.
The entire quote reads: “He won the Cold War without firing a shot, but it was because he pointed like a thousand missiles at Soviet cities” and was made in reference to the American President Ronald Reagan in 1991 at a Heritage Foundation dinner (D’Souza 1997:23).
- 7.
With thanks to Janice Freamo and Stefan Dolgert for their feedback on this point.
- 8.
For a discussion of four other close encounters see Forden (2001).
- 9.
As an interesting side note it should be noted that a newly discovered dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt was named ‘Eris’ (after the goddess of strife and war). Fittingly, Eris’ moon was named ‘Dysnomia’ (lawlessness) by the astronomer who discovered both of them (Tytell 2006).
- 10.
Mostly over cost sharing but other areas of contention included “access to classified information, encryption of data originally intended for civilian use, and delays to military satellite launches caused by the Challenger disaster” (The National Security Archive 2015).
- 11.
Mick (2014) data derived from the Augustine Report, NASA History, http://history.nasa.gov/augustine/racfup5.htm Accessed June 5, 2015. Also useful the Budgetary Implications of NASA’s Current Plans for Space Exploration (Congressional Budget Office 2009) http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/04-15-nasa.pdf. According to John Hickman the fact that “NASA’s budget clearly collapsed with the end of the First Cold War under JFK and LBJ is indisputable…and can be explained as Nixon’s revenge on JFK and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty’s elimination of the most important payoff for states that engage in exploration: new sovereign territory. That NASA’s budget did not recover with the Second Cold War under Reagan doesn’t mean we weren’t spending on space but instead that a lot of the funding was directed through the DoD rather than NASA” (electronic communication, January 5, 2016).
- 12.
Steinberg (2011) points out in an insightful article that public opinion is united on the topic of space exploration (desirable) but divided on its funding (too high). The government’s response? Each year give NASA more money but at the same time a smaller percentage of the federal budget.
- 13.
For a somewhat similar critique see Etzioni (2012).
- 14.
The above was part of a speech titled The Chance for Peace that was delivered to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington on April 16th 1953 (Bury 2013: 47–48).
- 15.
U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, “A. 1297—U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act.” https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1297.
- 16.
- 17.
For those not familiar with this popular science fiction work, the “harverster” was a large, mobile machine that was used to harvest a rare and valuable resource by the name “Spice Melange” from the surface of a desert planet. This substance enabled the Guild Navigators (mutated humans) to safely navigate through interstellar space the “heighliners”—immense starships used for the transportation of people and equipment (Herbert 1965).
- 18.
The term ‘philosophia’ (as opposed to individual ‘philosophos’) did not appear until after Thales’ time, and ‘philosophy’ per se was not unique to Greece—think of the Upanisads in India. With thanks to Gary Shapiro on the evolution of the term and Patrick Lee Miller on its non-exclusiveness (electronic communication, December 22, 2014). For an in-depth analysis of both points see Geoffrey Lloyd, “Philosophy: What Did the Greeks Invent and is it Relevant to China?” Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 27 (2005): 149–159 and Patricia Curd, “Presocratic Philosophy,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012), ed. Edward N. Zalta http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/presocratics.
- 19.
While a number of fables are attributed to Aesop this does not imply that these fables belong to the historical figure of Aesop (if indeed he existed). Aesop has as much to do with “fables ascribed to him as King David with the Psalms, King Solomon with the proverbs, and Joe Miller with the jests” (Leofranc Holford-Strevens, electronic communication).
- 20.
According to Zafiropoulos (2001) Plato did not perceive Aesopic fables as being inferior as seen by his willingness to utilized them in order to elucidate his arguments.
- 21.
In all fairness to Heidegger his claim “Philosophy, then, is that thinking with which one can start nothing and about which housemaids necessarily laugh. Such a definition of philosophy is not a mere joke but is something to think over. We shall do well to remember occasionally that by our strolling we can fall into a well whereby we may not reach ground for quite some time” (Taminiaux 1997, 2).
- 22.
With thanks to Janice Freamo on this point.
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Panagiotarakou, E. (2016). Agonal Conflict and Space Exploration. In: Schwartz, J., Milligan, T. (eds) The Ethics of Space Exploration. Space and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39827-3_4
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