death in space nasa ponders eternal

Death in Space: NASA Ponders Eternal Questions

Sometimes the Freedom of Information Act helps you turn up stuff that

you'd almost rather not know. Mike Schneider of the Associated Press

recently wrote a story about a NASA memo he obtained that way. As one

of the most open agencies of our government, NASA is presumably used

to operating in a fishbowl, but I would imagine that even the most

open-minded of NASA's bureaucrats cringed a little when this document

was made public.

The subject was how to deal with certain undesirable eventualities

that might take place on a long mission such as the three-year flight

to Mars that NASA plans some day. In a crew of five to ten people,

somebody's likely to become ill over a three-year period, maybe even

fatally ill. And on an interplanetary flight (at least one not powered

by Star Trek warp drives), you can't just turn around any old time and

go back. The memo goes no farther than to say that NASA needs a policy

about what to do if a crew member becomes so ill that death is likely

or certain, and for that matter, what to do with the body.

Another ethical conundrum the memo raises is whether a sick astronaut

whose need for medical care is endangering the lives of the other

astronauts should be guaranteed all the help he or she needs, or

whether early "termination of benefits," so to speak, would be in the

best interests of the mission.

I will give NASA credit: the memo doesn't try to answer all these

questions, it just brings them up. Schneider found that NASA is

working on these questions with the help of outside bioethicists, but

I'm not sure that's the right approach. Here's why.

NASA is the quintessential engineering bureaucracy. Engineers and the

engineering attitude pervade the institution. Engineers are used to

working with inanimate objects that obey physical laws without

exception. When the objects do fail in the purpose for which they are

designed, it is always in accordance with those same physical laws,

which is why scientific and engineering knowledge is so sought after

among engineers. If you can just know enough about the physics,

chemistry, dynamics, and so on, you should in principle be able to

predict every possible outcome, or else design a system so that only a

certain number of outcomes are possible in the first place, and deal

with them in turn. Once you find that answer, it will work every time

the same conditions arise. You've solved the problem.

But engineering know-how can take you only so far. The issues that the

Mars-mission document addresses are not technical ones. They plumb the

depths of what it means to be human and why anyone would volunteer for

a dangerous three-year hike in a cold merciless vacuum in the first

place.

In my view, NASA may be spending too much time and money on outside

experts and perhaps not paying enough attention to the astronauts

themselves. Much has been made about "The Right Stuff" and what it

took in the 1960s, and what it takes now, to be an astronaut. Most of

the early U. S. astronauts were former military test pilots. That is

no longer a necessary qualification, although it doesn't hurt. What it

takes to be an astronaut now, it seems, is a Ph. D. in something

technical, a sterling resum�, and the patience of Job to wade through

an arduous application procedure, and to train endlessly while waiting

in line for your turn in space, which you hope will come before you

hit retirement age. Is this the type of person best suited for what

many people regard as mankind's greatest remaining adventure? Maybe we

should look a little farther than we've looked up to now, and in a

different way.

To the kind of person I'm thinking of, the advice of some bioethicist

with a Ph. D. would be superfluous. True courage always knows what to

do, whether it is to take a calculated risk for a great cause (which

every astronaut who gets aboard a Space Shuttle already does) or to

sacrifice one's life for a mission, which might well come about during

a trip to Mars. Back before exploration became the business of

bureaucracies, people had to be this way in order to attract support.

Take the example of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, whose pioneering

explorations of the Antarctic by land and air in the 1920s and '30s

were financed virtually entirely by private contributions. Byrd is

largely forgotten now, and recent historical discoveries concerning

his claims to have flown over the North Pole in 1926 have cast doubt

on their validity. But the style of the man (admittedly, reinforced by

autobiographical books he published to finance his projects) was that

of the courageous, risk-taking adventurer who gave technical

preparation its place, true, but who then simply accepted whatever

remaining risks there were as part of the job. Byrd was the closest

thing the 1930s had to an astronaut: a man who went where no one had

gone before, taking with him other brave souls who were willing to

take chances with him.

No, Byrd took no women along, at least during his early expeditions.

And yes, he nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning during one stay

in the Antarctic and had to be rescued. But those kinds of risks

didn't stop him from going through with several more expeditions, the

last one only a couple of years before he died in 1957.

In past blogs, I have said some negative things about NASA and the

Space Shuttle program, mainly that the antique shuttles ought to be

retired rather than trying to squeeze a few more increasingly

hazardous flights out of them. But this is not to say that we ought to

simply give up on space exploration because it's dangerous. If

anything, that is an excellent reason to keep trying. Only, we need to

pay more attention to the character of those who we send into space,

giving them much greater authority and responsibility than they

currently hold in the bureaucratized system that is NASA. Columbus,

Magellan, Byrd--they not only went on the voyages, they ran the whole

show. Maybe the answer will come from the private sector once again,

as entrepreneurs find safe and effective ways to make end runs around

NASA's bureaucracy and do more with less. Of course, the government

could always stop them. But the U. S. isn't the only country in the

space game any more. I'd like the first man (or woman) on Mars to be a

U. S. citizen, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can get there,

but only if we try. And while machines can do wonderful things,

running robot cars around Mars is no substitute for being there.

Sources: The article by Mike Schneider on NASA's plans for the Mars

mission appeared in numerous venues, among them the Austin

American-Statesman on May 6, 2007, at

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/nation/05/06/6dea