An American government program to get to the Moon is simply not necessary; If we let them Americans will do it on their own
As a historian I often bring to any discussion of modern politics and our American space effort a perspective that is very alien to modern Americans. I see things as they once were in the United States back before we had a big overbearing federal government that everyone looked to for leadership. Instead, I see the possibilities inherent in a free nation led by the people themselves, not the government, as America was for its first two centuries.
This sadly is not how America functions today, and it is for that reason that as a nation we can no longer get great things accomplished routinely, as we once did.
Norwegian Amundsen, first to reach the south pole.
To understand how different the American mindset once was, consider just one example, the 19th century effort by numerous nations and individuals to plant their flag at both the north and south poles. While a handful of private American citizens mounted their own expeditions to reach the north pole, none attempted to do so in Antarctica. At both poles the bulk of the effort was done by other nations, sometimes on expeditions privately funded, and sometimes by expeditions with extensive government aid.
In the U.S. however there was no government program to compete in this race. Nor was their the slightest desire by Americans to create one. The attitude of Americans then was very straightforward. They found the race to get to the poles exciting and fascinating, and thoroughly supported the efforts of the explorers both intellectually and emotionally. They however had no interest in their government committing one dime of their tax dollars on its own campaign.
You see, they did not feel a need to establish American prestige in this manner. So what other nations got to the poles first? What mattered to Americans then was what each American wanted to do, and what Americans wanted to do in the 19th century was to settle the west and build their nation into a prosperous place to raise their children.
And so, the south pole was first reached by a Norwegian, followed mere weeks later by an Englishman. Americans played no major role in that early exploration. Nor did it harm America’s prestige in the slightest that it did not compete there. The nation was growing in wealth and prosperity, its citizens were completely free in all ways to follow their dreams, and everyone worldwide knew it.
America might not be the leader in far-flung exploration, but the world knew it was the leader in something as important if not more so, the idea that a nation and a government could be built on the premise that the citizen is sovereign, and that all law should be based on making that citizen’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness primary in all things.
And in the end, it did not really matter that the U.S. did not compete in that race to the poles. In the end, the nation became so prosperous and wealthy because of its freedom and moral commitment to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that by the 20th century it was able to dominate the world positively in all things. It helped liberate Europe twice, not by the power of its government but because its government had a remarkably diverse and capable free citizenry to draw upon.
Similarly NASA was able to land a man on the Moon in the 1960s not because it had the skills, but because the American nation had the capabilities that NASA needed. Private companies built the rockets, capsules, and lunar landers. NASA merely hired them.
Sadly however those government-led efforts taught Americans the wrong lesson, a lesson that still dominates their minds. We now believe that in order to establish our position of leadership on the world stage we must have a government space program. We must beat other nations to the Moon. And we must have the government lead the way.
This thinking however remains misguided, because in every case, the government doesn’t do it. It has not the skills in these matters. It has and will always rely on the American citizenry to provide it the talent and technology needed to accomplish great things. And if those citizens are given the full freedom to follow their own dreams wherever they lead, a space program is essentially unnecessary, because I can guarantee that many will devise their own, and do it more efficiently and with greater skill than any federal-run program.
We can see this pattern of freedom already developing today. SpaceX and Elon Musk is targeting Mars, independent of the government. Jared Isaacman fashioned his own multi-mission manned space program, on his own dime. Peter Beck at Rocket Lab is proposing his own privately funded Venus probe. And that’s only a very small sampling.
This is exactly why I since December have been advocating that Trump drop his demand that we race China to the Moon. It is why I say let China have its one-off lunar landing stunt. It isn’t important who gets there first for a onetime flag planting, and trying to compete in this way only distracts us from what is really important.
What I am urging is for our federal government to do whatever it can to encourage as many of these private efforts as it can. Let there be a hundred missions into orbit, a dozen private space stations, a plethora of private interplanetary probes, and a sampling of competing private manned missions. There doesn’t need to be any one government goal. Let the goals be set by Americans themselves. The wealth and abilities that will blossom by that wide-ranging effort following different dreams will make it possible for us to quickly bulldoze past the Chinese and their top-down government program.
As we saw it done in the American west in the 19th century, we shall see the solar system settled by individual pioneers, establishing their own new worlds as they envision it, on the Moon, on Mars, on the asteroids, and wherever they decide to plant their boot.
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Yet ANOTHER reason not to race China to the Moon:
The race has already been run, AND WE WON.
The United States has (obviously) already been to the Moon, and it managed to do so before the Soviet Union and every other nation, including China, whether or not they themselves were working to go there.
In other words, Been There – Done That.
The NEW target, Mars, provides its own challenges, and potential rewards, and I would say it is at this point a smarter choice, one that will benefit from the input and efforts of private companies/individuals.
Bravo!
The Chinese fleets of a half dozen centuries ago were halted and dismantled. Those fleets were unequaled in the world at that time. The lesson that most miss is that it wasn’t the government halt to it’s own explorations that led to the decline of China, but rather the prevention of the private sector from exploiting the gains made and knowledge acquired. It was illegal for the private Chinese to build on the success, and a few centuries later, the insular Chinese were at the mercy of foreign powers from halfway around the globe.
It could happen here to some degree.
I had written a comment, clicked the post button, but now see nothing. Oh, well . . .
Not wanting to write out all I had written before, here’s a summary (not that anyone was waiting for ME to chime in):
We already won the race to the Moon, back in 1969, beating every other nation there, including China, whether or not they were trying to get there themselves.
Mars represents a new choice in a new race, with its own challenges and potential benefits. The input and involvement of private individuals and entities will likely prove helpful, maybe even critical, to a successful result.
Another reason NOT to race China to the Moon: We already won that race in 1969, whether or not China was working to get there at that time.
Mars is a sensible choice, with its own challenges and potential rewards. Private industry will likely be critical in winning this new race.
Mars is a private mans dream and I give him all the verbal support he could use. My private donations would amount to a lunch sandwich for him.
Now as for our race to the Moon. Its not a race to the Moon so much as a race to a moon base that could send back materials. Its the highest mountain close to the Earth and he who rules it rules the world.
Do you trust anyone but America to have that power?
I do not.
Letting the UN control the moon gives the power to the non democratic nations of the world. Which outnumber the real democratic nations.
Robert Zimmerman wrote: “Let the goals be set by Americans themselves. The wealth and abilities that will blossom by that wide-ranging effort following different dreams will make it possible for us to quickly bulldoze past the Chinese and their top-down government program.”
If there are advantages to a lunar base or settlement, then American entrepreneurs will rise to the occasion and flock to the Moon. It is, after all, the American Way. When we let government run things, all we get is what government wants, but when We the People run things, we get what We want.
Robert has called this a stunt, and without Congress, the administration, or NASA having any plan to create a lunar base, he is right, and we are only doing similar missions as we did from 1969 to 1972.
A continuously occupied moonbase was the government goal before it became the goal of putting the “First Woman and First Person of Color”® on the Moon, and now it has become a mere “Beating the Chinese”™ project. NASA was going to use SLS to create a sustainable lunar base, but SLS-Orion cannot fly often enough to achieve that goal, so the government goal has changed, but the original goal was the better one, giving us more return on our money than a mere stunt would give.
We need to get back to the goal of a sustainable lunar base so that we move ahead rather than repeat the past missions. Obama said of those missions, “been there, done that,” as F noted. Now it is time for us to do more and to advance our use of the Moon from mere investigation to actual use. American entrepreneurs are probably the best resource for doing that in a timely, effective, and cost efficient way, giving us return on our investment, rather than another “neener-neener, we beat you” moment.
‘There is far more capital available outside of NASA [for use by commercial space marketplace] than there is inside of NASA.‘ — paraphrased from an interview with NASA Administrator Bridenstine on the Ben Shapiro radio show on Monday 3 August 2020.
Our investors are willing to fund space missions that have a promise of profit. If they see that on the Moon, then they will fund our private commercial space companies to pursue that profit, which only happens if it benefits us here on Earth, benefits us enough that we are willing to pay for it.
“We are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams.” — Willy Wonka Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
ad astra lucrum
There is no profit on the Moon unless it can be sold in lots and parcels.
Why build a Moon hotel if the UN can just come by and take it?
A military outpost can enforce OUR rules and laws for a lunar base and or colony.
And what exactly could be sent back from the moon that is not better used on the Moon? Or made cheaper in LEO or on this Earth?.
LEO has less gravity than the Moon. So why go to the Moon?
There is no profit in the Moon until safety and security are met.
The US Army Corps of Engineers built a series of forts across the frontier to support settlement.
Bob,
I don’t think bringing up our twin salvations of Europe helps your case here. Those were both very much government-run operations and even involved a lot of involuntary servitude – i.e. the draft – especially in WW1, though WW2 was also far from an all-volunteer affair.
That said, we are very probably not far from having what you advocate here. Lunar lander development is already more private than public and the end of any public involvement, beyond buying services, is already on the horizon. The main public expenditures anent the Moon remain SLS, Orion and Gateway. The first two seem likely to be sunsetted after two more missions and the third looks at least as likely to be cancelled entirely.
Replacing SLS and Orion’s basic functionality – getting people from Earth to the lunar vicinity – loosely defined – is the main thing needing privatization. It is my hope that Jared Isaacman, once he assumes office as NASA Administrator, will make efforts to get both SpaceX and Blue Origin to provide superior replacements for the SLS-Orion stack.
From the standpoints of both good public policy and political reality, I would like to see this occur in the form of unfunded Space Act Agreements. SpaceX is already working on more than 90% of what would be needed for an Earth-to-lunar-vicinity-and-back-again variant of Starship, so the additional effort and expense for SpaceX to provide an entirely private solution seem quite modest. Blue, for its part, would likely go along if only to avoid invidious comparisons to SpaceX were it to ask for money, and to assure itself that it would not be utterly left behind. Blue, admittedly, has more ground to plow to get it to the point where it can handle the entire Earth-Moon logistics flow than does SpaceX, but that should simply incentivize Bezos and Limp to get cracking.
Mars, of course, can – and should – be left to SpaceX and any other private entities that care to trail along or follow.
Once all of these become NASA policy, Isaacman can downsize the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate headcount and name. “Systems Development” should be excised from the latter as it will no longer have any “systems” to “develop,” just exploration missions to plan and conduct using privately provided transport and other equipment.
That leaves space stations. Again, the trend line is a transition from near-100% government funding of the whole shooting match to just GSA-style purchase of access and services. Five more years to accomplish this transition in LEO seems reasonable.
As for the Moon, I am long on record as positing the need for at least one 1-G spinning space station in lunar orbit as an R&R venue for human workers on long-term lunar surface assignments – private and governmental. Vast looks likeliest, at this point, to pursue such a project, but it might not find itself alone.
Dick Eagleson: The American efforts in both World Wars might have been government run, but as I noted in the essay, both efforts succeeded because the government “had a remarkably diverse and capable free citizenry to draw upon.”
That’s the key. The U.S. military was miniscule and largely ineffective prior to both wars. When expansion was required the government immediately accessed (and completely relied on) the expertise of the private sector. After WWI we immediately down-sized our military back to its small size. (Why waste taxpayer money on an military-industrial complex when we weren’t fighting any wars?) After WWII we tried to do so, but as Eisenhower noted when he left office in 1961, that military-industrial complex was too much for him. We are still paying for that complex today, and getting very little for it.
As for the rest of your comment, I agree entirely on relying on unfunded Space Act Agreements. All paying contracts must also continue to be fixed-price.
And as for the specifics of who does what where, I leave that to the people involved. Your idea of a station in lunar orbit might be a good one, but it will require the ability to make it pay. For certain Lunar Gateway will not achieve that goal.
I must be pedantic… :)
This is *mostly* true. While Americans were not nearly as active in polar exploration or research in the 19th century as Great Britain was, it wasn’t quite absent, and on at least three occasions, the U.S. government actually did dispatch official, federally funded expeditions (by the US Navy and US Army) to explore the polar regions:
* The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, under Capt. Charles Wilkes. This was a 6-ship squadron ordered to conduct surveying of the Pacific Ocean, and particularly the Antarctic parts of it, and it ended up charting parts of the Antarctic coast that had never been visited before. (Interesting note about Capt. Wilkes: He would later become most famous for seizing Confederate diplomats off a British warship in 1861, nearly bringing on war with Britain in the so-called Trent Affair.)
* The North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition, also known as the Rodgers-Ringgold Expedition from 1853 to 1856. This explored the Bering Strait and conducted other scientific research in the Arctic, among other regions.
* The Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881–1884 (a.k.a. the Greely Expedition), which was dispatched as part of the First International Polar Year to Ellesmere Island to do surveying and collect astronomical and magnetic data. It actually made what you might call a light stab at the North Pole, setting a new Farthest North record (which did not last long). The Greely Expedition became very controversial, as most of the men died from starvation and malnutrition, and allegations of cannibalism dogged its reputation.
Still, I think these exceptions more or less prove your rule, Bob. These were not (Lt. Greely’s wanton zeal aside) projects of national glory, but scientific and surveying expeditions: Very practical, as befitted the national character (and in those days, a very tight-pursed Congress). Of course, it is arguably also the case that the United States did so little in this vein because so much of its outward national energies were directed toward the exploration and settlement of the American West, which was not “closed” until 1890. In this respect it may not be a surprise that we really don’t see a Robert Peary or a Frederick Cook emerge until after that point.
As with so much else, this all dramatically changed with the advent of World War II and the Cold War.
I note that the Chinese “treasure fleets” bore a lot of resemblance to the NASA plans.
– expeditions planned and run by the state
– designed to overawe the natives of the countries they visited. I.e. they were a national prestige thing.
– not designed to make a profit. At most there were “gifts” and “tributes” exchanged at each stop.
– stopped because of internal politics – there was a faction that wanted them continued and another faction that thought other things were more important. When the second faction gained the upper hand, the fleets stopped and the ships were broken up. I think the leader of the previous expeditions may even have been imprisoned at one point.
Sound familiar? Add in “pure science” as a goal and you have NASA’s program described.
It seems to me that we already have everything we need for human exploration of the solar system at a basic level, except a reliable way to get from orbit to the surface of other planets.
Sam Houston‘s march from Texas with the rag tag volunteer army on Mexico with the motto “remember the Alamo” is a good example of private citizens taking matters into their own hands and the result was the conquering of Mexico and the Independence of Texas, doubling of the territory of the United States. (occurred in 1848, then re-conquered by the union army in the 1860s Civil War, but solidified in 1898 with the Spanish American war and the freedom of Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba… at least for a little while)
Offshore bases (like Guantánamo) we’re necessary to load coal and food supplies for the New modern steam powered ”White Fleet” made from iron and showcased to the world as a new dominant power in this hemisphere. Obsolete again before the beginning of World War I.
According to this article, a lunar base prototype are already under construction by SpaceX. (ridiculous concept Picture with tables and chairs outside on the surface)
https://econotimes.com/SpaceXs-29-Billion-Moon-Ship-Reveals-Spacious-Design-for-Future-Lunar-Missions-1692638
Space X website doesn’t have any details just plans.
https://www.spacex.com/humanspaceflight/moon/
The super Draco motors used for emergency escape are under testing to be re-purposed as Landing motors for the lunar surface? This will prevent blow back damage until a proper landing pad can be constructed.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/video-spacex-crew-dragon-escape-system
(Old picture)
No, they’ll be hot gas thrusters making use of the oxygen and methane propellant used for the Raptors — to simplify things.
At least, that was the plan last I checked.
To Mark—the problem of the treasure fleets is they were set alight before they could get to the New World.
Gavin Menzies 1421 shows what could have easily happened. The torching of that fleet is what is to be condemned.
Jeff:
Yes I read that book, back when it came out. It was…not particularly accurate.
The problem with the treasure fleets was that they were intended to show off the Middle Kingdom’s power and prestige, to take the submissions of other kings.
Then a different faction got influence and said “Why are we going out there? They should journey here instead!”
China had the perpetual problem that they didn’t think that they needed any goods that came from elsewhere.
Eventually the foreigners did journey there. But with somewhat different outcomes than what the courtiers had in mind, as the Chinese *still* didn’t think they needed anything other than silver.
I have heard it said that their lack of good optics held them back.
If all you can see is what is right in front of you—you don’t reach far.
Robert Zimmerman,
The problem with having a tiny military between wars is needing to suddenly ramp it up when some sporting type decides he can take you on – because you have a tiny military.
After the Revolution, for example, the US disbanded its Navy. Then it found that it needed one when the Barbary Corsairs decided US citizens were easy marks. So we ginned one up pretty much from scratch, sailed thence, kicked some Muslim butt and came home.
But we kept the ships. And a good thing too as they stood us in good stead when the Brits started making free with our commerce and merchant marine crews. Absent those big frigates, we might have been forced to go back to drinking the King’s health after 1812.
So we maintained a decent Navy to protect our foreign trade as that expanded and the Navy’s next big expansion came when we faced armed conflict not with a foreign power but with a rebellious province. That was also the occasion for vastly expanding the Army – including instituting a draft – and making significant conversion of civilian industry to military production. The rebellious province discovered, to its ultimate cost, that it was unable to follow suit as it lacked a large enough industrial base and couldn’t repair this deficiency while under blockade.
In the wake of the Civil War, the Navy maintained strength enough to protect our still expanding trade but the Army was radically downsized – to the point that neolithic aborigines could continue to roam and rampage in our unincorporated territories for another couple of decades.
This condition persisted until WW1. We got into that one when interception of the so-called “Zimmerman Telegram” – no relation I’m sure – revealed that the Kaiser thought little enough of our military prowess to suppose he could cozen the Mexicans into trying to grab back the US Southwest by force. The French had already tried recolonizing Mexico while we were distracted with our Civil War and had failed in fairly short order, but I’m sure the Kaiser thought himself smarter than the French – whom he was beating at the time.
Weakness, in short, is provocative. We tried to limit military expenditure between the world wars via a series of naval treaties. That had its usual outcome – the good guys observed them, plus or minus, while the bad guys cheated. That left us facing another mad scramble when the balloon went up again.
After WW2 we had a quick falling out with former “ally” the Soviets and resigned ourselves to maintaining a large “peacetime” military out of necessity. No question that that has introduced problems of its own, but what is one to do when aggressive tyrannies that see us – correctly – as being in their way keep scrupling to take us on?
As to the actual process of ramping up capability once war is upon us, we have, indeed, tended to do pretty well. In WW2, for instance, the War Production Board – a committee of what we once called “captains of industry” – took care of the “how” once the military decided on the “what.”
Interestingly, in my view, we have ginned up something very analogous to the War Production Board in the last 90 days in the form of DOGE. Instead of fighting a foreign enemy, we are employing DOGE to fight an internal enemy in the form of a vast criminal syndicate ginned up over decades by a political party that has become a cancer on the Republic. Ironically, DOGE is also likely to put paid to the worst features of the military-industrial complex that has been built up over the same interval.
William Knudsen reports in Washington DC
“The progress of our National Defense Program”
https://youtu.be/7znY55_94mM
0:51
Dick Eagleson: You are absolutely right of course. In the modern world the U.S. can no longer afford to shut down its military after each war, as it could prior to the 20th century because the oceans largely protected us.
At the same time, this standing army of military bureaucrats has not served us very well in recent decades, largely for the same reasons most of the rest of the federal government has done so badly. It is corrupt, and filled with dry rot, and needs the kind of aggressive house-cleaning it appears Trump is finally attempting in his second term.
Part of the cause of that dry rot however has been the very mindset I am railing against in my essay. We have grown to blindly love our big military, and have not questioned what it does with any seriousness for decades. Worse, for decades any time someone suggested a house-cleaning the screams of “We’re all gonna die!” became ear-shattering. No rational discussion was allowed. Like NASA, the Pentagon was god and was going to lead us to safety, when it is completely incapable of doing so.
This inability needs to be recognized harshly at all times, something that our boomer generation has utterly failed to do.
Richard M: “Pendantic,” eh? Actually, thanks for adding these details of history. I am well aware of them, but to add them to my essay would have been distracting. My main point remains the same. The U.S. was simply not interested in joining the race to the poles.
This fact struck me hard when I first began researching that polar history about twenty years ago. At that time I had the modern mindset, and was shocked how little American participation there was in the race to get to the poles. I puzzled, “Why are Americans allowing others to win this race? Doesn’t it embarrass them?”
Of course I soon learned they didn’t care at all, because they understood the triviality of planting a flag at these spots. More important to build a nation of free people to demonstrate that freedom and a sovereign citizenry can accomplish more far better than nations ruled by governments.
It is this lesson I wish to teach now to modern Americans.
Dick Eagleson wrote: “The problem with having a tiny military between wars is needing to suddenly ramp it up when some sporting type decides he can take you on – because you have a tiny military.
Weakness, in short, is provocative. We tried to limit military expenditure between the world wars via a series of naval treaties. That had its usual outcome – the good guys observed them, plus or minus, while the bad guys cheated. That left us facing another mad scramble when the balloon went up again.”
Having small military forces between wars has been standard operating procedure for millennia. The cost of an idle military is enormous, as the Soviets discovered. Not only is it a direct expense, but it ties up people who would have been productive, advancing the prosperity of the nation.
The reason that the U.S. successfully affords to keep an unreasonably large military is that its people have the freedom to succeed in whatever endeavor they choose, and they often choose endeavors that are very productive — as Robert Zimmerman just commented: “accomplish[ing] more far better than nations ruled by governments..” Many people rail against the wealthy, but in the U.S. it is the wealthy have have made the most productive companies, often employing large numbers of workers, making them far better off than had they remained farmers. Even the farmers are better off, because the productivity of the other entrepreneurs created equipment and machinery that makes their endeavors much more productive, too.
____________________
Robert Zimmerman wrote: “[T]his standing army of military bureaucrats has not served us very well in recent decades …”
But it has served much of the rest of the world well. Now that wars can go on forever, thanks to the modern ability to manufacture armaments at a tremendous rate, a rate that the world never saw until after WWI. For some reason, the U.S. does not seem eager to win wars, anymore.
“… largely for the same reasons most of the rest of the federal government has done so badly. It is corrupt, and filled with dry rot, and needs the kind of aggressive house-cleaning it appears Trump is finally attempting in his second term.”
Ah! That must be the reason for the lack of interest in victories.
“Part of the cause of that dry rot however has been the very mindset I am railing against in my essay. We have grown to blindly love our big military, and have not questioned what it does with any seriousness for decades. Worse, for decades any time someone suggested a house-cleaning the screams of ‘We’re all gonna die!’ became ear-shattering. No rational discussion was allowed. Like NASA, the Pentagon was god and was going to lead us to safety, when it is completely incapable of doing so.”
I hadn’t really looked at it this way before. A prosperous people can afford to be a generous people, and can also afford to be somewhat wasteful, such as overspending on an ineffectual military or paying people to not work.
“… I had the modern mindset, and was shocked how little American participation there was in the race to get to the poles. I puzzled, ‘Why are Americans allowing others to win this race? Doesn’t it embarrass them?’
“Of course I soon learned they didn’t care at all, because they understood the triviality of planting a flag at these spots. More important to build a nation of free people to demonstrate that freedom and a sovereign citizenry can accomplish more far better than nations ruled by governments.”
So, why did America become obsessed with planting a flag on the Moon? Because it was a government goal. Why didn’t we civilians take over the Moon when the government’s goal was achieved? Because we thought that NASA would do that. Seriously, we thought that what we saw in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey was a NASA goal that they would be funded to do it. What were we thinking? Or maybe the question should be (appropriate for many Americans at the time): what were we smoking? Meanwhile, Congress took control of U.S. access to space, which let them determine how much, or rather how little, We the People could do in space.
Now that We the People are gaining our own control of access to space, we are finally free to accomplish more far better than our government has done.
Robert Zimmerman,
You’re quite correct about the rot at DoD and the legacy contractors. It would be a relatively easy fix if it was just ossified bureaucracy and enfeebled contractors that were the problem, but the uniformed services themselves, unfortunately, have a lot to do with our current absurd condition.
One example was USAF’s initial hostility to GPS – based mostly on it being a Navy project.
In the present day, USAF is slow-rolling the utterly necessary transition to unmanned combat aircraft. The F-47 may be “Next Generation,” but it’s not going to be “Air Dominance” in any meaningful way so long as it hosts a human pilot aboard. Future air dominance will require aircraft that can dodge missiles long enough to run them out of propellant. That means an ability to juke and jive in the double-digit-G regime that would incapacitate, then kill, a human pilot. But both USAF and the Navy have influential fighter pilot guilds. The fact that their military specialty – which has had a good and valorous century-plus run – is now as obsolete as armored knights after the advent of muskets will not be internalized easily or quickly and so must be imposed from without.
The USAF and the legacy contractors together are responsible for the absurd situation we currently find ourselves in, namely that almost none of the aircraft we would depend upon to fight a war are still in production. And the few that are cannot be produced quickly enough to overcome even quite modest levels of wartime loss. F-22s are out of production. F-16s, F-15EXs and F-18E/Fs are produced at a rate of two or three per month. Even the F-35 is only produced at a rate of 8 per month. And roughly 30% of U.S. fighter production appears to be for foreign client militaries.
Bombers and large transports are worse. The B-52, B-1, B-2, C-5 and C-17 are all out of production. The B-21 is not yet in service but at least it’s “in the pipeline.” There is nothing in the pipeline anent large air transports. The youngest C-17s are a decade old and their former production facility now houses Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, Vast and other companies of the Long Beach NewSpace cluster. The recent interest of the USAF in Starship-based suborbital cargo development certainly seems much less “woo-woo” when seen in this light.
As with space launch and many other space-related things, the solution to aged and infirm legacy defense contractors is new and vigorous start-up defense contractors. We have a few, now, like Anduril, but we need more. One hopes the Hegseth DoD will do what it can to encourage this trend. There needs to be a “NewDef” just as there is a NewSpace.
Hi Bob,
Well, to be sure, there were *individual* Americans who got the bug for polar glory — men like Elisha Kane, Isaac Israel Hayes, Frederick Cook, Richard E. Byrd, and (most obnoxiously) Robert Peary. But those were *individuals*, individuals who had to raise their own private funds to pay for their glory-seeking; as we both agree, the U.S. *government* confined itself to a small handful of scientific and surveying expeditions in these icy regions, looking for just data, not glory. And as for the individuals, it was obviously a smaller pool of glory seekers than we find in Britain, or Norway, etc.
But maybe we are being a bit hard on the British government here. British polar expeditions staged by the British government in the two centuries before WW2 were primarily the fruits of three men with what we might call a polar obsession, who managed to hold senior positions at the British Admiralty and the Royal Society for extended stretches: Joseph Banks, Sir John Barrow, and Clement Markham. But for many other senior Royal Navy men, to say nothing of cabinet ministers, there were great doubts about the value of the whole enterprise. The doubters moved to the ascendancy whenever there was a major war, or a major disaster, like the Franklin Expedition (which was aimed at the Northwest Passage, not the North Pole, to be fair). The British state of those days was, in fact, quite small, certainly in comparison to the unholy monster it is today.
I can understand why it was felt that the United States had to do the Antarctic Program as a major, permanent government program* during the Cold War; but I deprecate that this became one more model for doing space exploration as a big government program. Now, we have the chance to finally do it in a different way.
___
* In the Antarctic Program’s defense, even they never dreamed that they should be designing and building their own icebreakers or their own cargo planes or their own container ships; they have always paid other organizations to do all that transporting of stuff to Antarctica, or in special cases, lease and operate a handful of aircraft from commercial outfits. NASA could at least learn from that, for a start!
Dick Eagleson: The problem with having a tiny military between wars is needing to suddenly ramp it up when some sporting type decides he can take you on – because you have a tiny military.
Robert Zimmerman: You are absolutely right of course. In the modern world the U.S. can no longer afford to shut down its military after each war, as it could prior to the 20th century because the oceans largely protected us.
Not just the oceans, but the Royal Navy! And as such, we *mostly* got away with such a feeble military force. It did come at a cost when we did find ourselves thrust into a major war, as you discover when you read closely histories of the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War (a special case, obviously) and the Spanish-American War. We won or got draws because we faced feeble opponents, or heavily distracted opponents. But too many Americans died needlessly thanks to our lack of preparedness.
These conditions no longer obtain, alas: the oceans are no longer a protection, and the Royal Navy, along with the rest of the British military, is the only part of the British state that has shrunk to a nubbin. So now we have to maintain something on a much bigger scale to ensure our security. But it does come at a price: not just the usual corruption and waste, but the eternal temptation to use such a powerful instrument, so often at what ends up being a bitter cost.
I suppose I am thankful that the Pentagon at least provides a lot of seed money to space startups, if nothing else. It is a major advantage our space industry has had over European rivals.
Richard M,
The “protection” afforded by oceans is mostly against land invasion. Even now, the only nation with a demonstrated – repeatedly demonstrated – capability to essay large amphibious land invasions across thousands of miles of intervening ocean is the US.
200 years and more ago it was a different story, of course. The Atlantic, by itself, wasn’t enough to protect us from land invasion in 1812. And protecting both commerce and our own Navy proved difficult enough even in both WW1 and WW2 – especially early in the latter. The Pearl Harbor Raid by the Japanese in the Pacific was quickly followed by the Germans’ Operation Drumbeat off our Atlantic coast. Getting the Atlantic under even modest control took more than two years.
Since then, of course, we’ve maintained a large Navy. But things are stirring in Asia once more so the Pacific may well be where the next real test of the USN comes. The PRC is in a surly mood and has a lot of new bottoms and aircraft – though not the experience to go with them.
Fortunately, the pathetic state of today’s Royal Navy will be a matter of no consequence in any such face-off. The place once held by the Royal Navy, post-WW2, will be held, instead, by our former foe the Japanese – who could now likely go toe-to-toe with the PRC even in our absence. And then there’s always the possibility of the Indian Navy coming in as well. These days, the former colony is, in most respects, a more formidable naval power than its former colonizer.