James Cameron On Obama's Space Decision

Renown filmmaker James Cameron, responsible for such blockbuster visual extravaganza hits as Titanic and Avatar, has come out strongly in support of President Obama's plan to flat-out scrap the ambitious Constellation/Ares/Orion program started by President George W. Bush five years and $9 billion earlier. According to Cameron's article that appeared February 5 in the Washington Post and subsequently in the Gainesville Sun, it would be far better for private industry to be the party responsible for designing and constructing the hardware for our space program. NASA should instead focus on hard science and the development of propulsion and robotics technology.

Although I respect Mr. Cameron in his field of expertise, which is cinema, I have to disagree with his conclusion on a number of counts. And starting off, I have to underscore the vast difference between private industry that is tied in to government contracts (like Halliburton and Lockheed) and that which is subject to consumer market pressures (like Microsoft or Apple). But don't take it from some amateur like me: follow conscientious anti-waste senators from either party (like John McCain, Tom Coburn, or Russell Feingold) as they decry how private contractors rip off the government, and through it the American taxpayers.

Moreover, Cameron himself should know better how important it is for our space program to have a "flagship" project with a name and vision. After all, it has been in the production of visions that has given him his fame (and great fortune). Instead, his (and Obama's) "vision" has NASA in some kind of shadowy background funneling its allotted funds through to various projects. Well, there are already well over fifty of these projects going on as it is. But none of them would have come about, at least to the degree that they have, if we hadn't enjoyed the success of the highly visionary manned Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program of the sixties. Which makes me wonder a little about our president, whom I generally support (and voted for).

The way this issue has been framed is that the President wanted a fair, objective, and informed assessment of our space program, so he had this independent commission study the issue and give its conclusions. To which he then completely signed off in complete agreement with little comment. In other words, space exploration, like bowling, doesn't pique Barack Obama's interest. So instead of delegating some real authority to another in his government who does care about our space efforts, he instead puts the whole issue on the back burner to twist in the wind (sorry about my horribly mixed metaphors). This is no way to run a country! At least with his sorry efforts at bowling, we could have a good laugh at his continual gutter balls.

Cameron did nothing to address the frustration and futility of American scientists and engineers who, after decades of stagnation with our manned deep space efforts, had finally mobilized to work on a tangible attainable project: returning to the moon, establishing a base there, and using that as a springboard to plan a Mars mission. What does trashing their efforts say to young scientists and engineers who are interested in space exploration? It tells me that they should stay away from the U.S. and seek employment elsewhere (like Europe or China)! And I doubt that this is something that our president, who is constantly talking about how important it is for us to revitalize our science and engineering in this country, wants as an unintended consequence of his actions.

The idea of private companies developing the rockets for profit only works in the context of low-Earth-orbit ventures of the kind that we have been engaging in since 1973 and Skylab. In order to create an infrastructure of travel and opportunity for places like the moon and beyond, the government needs to set the agenda, frame it, and present it to the public with great fanfare. Look at our Interstate Highway System and the Internet. These great highways of transportation and communications were directly brought about by centralized government that used its funding wisely to implement tangible visions. Likewise, our government needs to be directly involved in the design and implementation of the infrastructure of deep space. And its promotion to the public. Incredibly, it took a conservative president in George W. Bush to appreciate this and put it into motion. Only to be shot down before it could get off the ground by the present leader.

Which brings me to another point. It takes years to develop a new technology. The more ambitious and far-reaching that technology is, the more expensive and complex that transition will be. It is almost a foregone conclusion that there will be setbacks and cost overruns as development takes place and the scientists and engineers discover what works and what doesn't. This was case with the Constellation/Ares program as well. All the commission did was to overemphasize the naturally-occurring negative results which arise from ambitious projects like this one. That by itself is not a good reason to cancel the project. And due to the long time span needed by those putting projects like this together, it shouldn't be a political football subject to the whims of each new administration.

There is one other point that I'd like to make and involves an innate feature of the relationship between scientific research and innovation and its full implementation in the form of completed projects based on that research: with technology, production always lags behind understanding. When a new product comes out, the researchers have almost always already come up with something better in the works for the future. This is simply the way it is with anything involving science and engineering. To say that we shouldn't go ahead with our plans to go to the moon because we are working on better ways to do it is nonsense. Had we been operating on that premise in the 1960s, we never would have ever set foot on the moon in the first place!

So James Cameron is welcome to be all bubbly about Obama's decision. But the director should know above all others how instrumental it is to have a vision to promote that captures the public's imagination. We had one and our president just took it away. Now we're just scrambling to get off the ground!