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| 1 |
ID:
135166
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| Summary/Abstract |
The impact of finding life beyond Earth, whether microbial, complex, or intelligent, is an important and timely problem given recent discoveries in the field of astrobiology. Analogy is one of the tools that may be used cautiously to explore potential impacts of discovering extraterrestrial life under different scenarios. After a brief examination of the problems and promise of analogy, this article suggests four analogs useful for providing guidelines in the event of such a discovery: the microbe analogy, the culture contact analogy, the transmission/translation analogy, and the worldview analogy. We offer what we term the “Goldilocks Principle of Analogy”: analogy must not be so general as to be meaningless, nor so specific as to be misleading. As in other fields, the middle “Goldilocks” ground is where analogies may serve as useful guideposts for astrobiology and its impact. And although the discovery of life beyond Earth will be a unique event, these guidelines may be useful for policy decisions both before and after the discovery of life.
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| 2 |
ID:
134922
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| Summary/Abstract |
We seem to live in a simple but strange universe. Our basic cosmological model fits a host of astronomical observations with only five basic parameters: the age of the universe, the density of atoms, the density of matter, the initial “lumpiness” of the universe, and a parameter that describes whether this lumpiness is more pronounced on smaller physical scales. Our observations of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations determine these parameters with uncertainties of only 1 to 2 percent. The same model also provides an excellent fit to the large-scale clustering of galaxies and gas, the properties of galaxy clusters, observations of gravitational lensing, and supernova-based measurements of the Hubble relation. This model implies that we live in a strange universe: atoms make up only 4 percent of the visible universe, dark matter makes up 24 percent, and dark energy – energy associated with empty space – makes up 72 percent.
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| 3 |
ID:
135165
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| Summary/Abstract |
At the beginning of the twentieth century, geology was a terrestrial science, one that had no place making pronouncements on astronomical objects. Yet, by mid-century, this science was de rigueur in lunar studies. This article examines the heated debate, leading up to the Apollo missions, amongst geologists as to whether their discipline could tell scientists anything about the surface or composition of other celestial bodies. Precisely because the United States Geological Survey opened an Astrogeology Branch and geology education became a part of astronaut training, geologists gradually accepted the extraterrestrial application of their field and the prestige that came with it. In addition to recounting this disciplinary shift, this article considers how Earth itself became an analog for understanding the Moon. Before Neil Armstrong took his “one giant leap,” astronauts traveled with trained geologists to sites that they thought would resemble the geologic composition of the Moon. There, astronauts were trained to identify different rock types and perform “analog fieldwork” that would prepare them for the science objectives of their lunar voyage. Upon landing on the Moon, several astronauts remarked at how much the Moon looked like the American Southwest, the landscape in which they were trained. Analogy is not just a cognitive heuristics used by scientists, but it is also a technique that can be embodied and enacted, as illustrated by this case of taking geology to the Moon.
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| 4 |
ID:
136887
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| Summary/Abstract |
It has only been since 2007 that the European Union has had a common space policy. Dependent as any other developed region on space-based assets, Europe has sought a space policy that will ensure that the EU retain a leading role in the strategic policy areas, such as business applications, communications, and weather forecasting. Moreover, in addition to long-standing competition from Russia and the United States, the emerging space actors of China and India, as well as growing economic powers like Brazil, require that the EU reassess its strengths and understands the challenges to implementing a successful pan-European space policy. To address these challenges, for the past seven years the European Space Policy Institute has hosted its Autumn Conference, which brings together space policy scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore those space policy aspects that most affect the European Union. Held on 11e12 September 2013 at ESPI's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, the conference's theme was “Space in a
Changing World.” Hosted by Peter Hulsroj, Director of ESPI, and Herbert Allgeier, Chair of ESPI's Advisory Council, the presentations covered a variety of perspectives, ranging from security, superpower cooperation, international law in space weaponization, and the emergence and impact of new space actors, especially in emerging economic powers.
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| 5 |
ID:
136886
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| Summary/Abstract |
Although existing international instruments such as the Outer Space Treaty and Moon Agreement generally express sentiments for minimizing missions' extraterrestrial environmental impacts, they tend to be limited in scope, vague and generally unenforceable. There is no formal structure for assessing how and to what extent we affect those environments, no opportunity for public participation, no uniform protocol for documenting and registering the effects of our actions and no requirement to mitigate adverse impacts or take them into consideration in the decision-making process. Except for precautions limiting forward biological contamination and issues related to Earth satellites, environmental impact analysis, when done at all, remains focused on how missions affect the Earth and near-Earth environments, not how our actions affect the Moon, Mars, Europa, comets and other potential destinations. Extraterrestrial environmental impacts are potentially counterproductive to future space exploration, exploitation and scientific investigations. Clear, consistent and effective international protocols guiding a process for assessing such impacts are warranted. While instruments such as the US National Environmental Policy Act provide legally tested and efficient regulatory models that can guide impact assessment here on Earth, statutory legal frameworks may not work as well in the international environment of outer space. A proposal for industry-driven standards and an environmental code of conduct based, in part, on best management practices are offered for consideration.
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| 6 |
ID:
134921
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| Summary/Abstract |
Weighing in at 1042 kilograms and measuring 1021 meters across, galaxies are perhaps the most awe-inspiring objects known to mankind. They are also the only places in an otherwise dark and unforgiving universe where stars and planets are able to form. In the past five to ten years we have made enormous progress in understanding when galaxies came into being and how they changed and evolved over the course of cosmic time. For the first time, we have a rudimentary idea of what our own Milky Way looked like in the distant past, and we can now simulate Milky Way–like galaxies inside powerful computers. As we are starting to understand what happened in our galaxy's past, we are now turning to the question of why it happened. Untangling the complex physical processes that shape galaxies is extremely difficult, and will require continued advances in computers and information from powerful new telescopes coming online in the next decade.
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| 7 |
ID:
135356
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Global Exploration Roadmap reflects the collaborative effort of twelve space agencies to define a long-term human space exploration strategy which provides substantial benefits for improving the quality of life on Earth and is implementable and sustainable. Such a strategy is a necessary precondition to the government investments required to enable the challenging and rewarding missions that extend human presence into the solar system. The article introduces the international strategy and elaborates on NASA's leadership role in shaping that strategy. The publication of the roadmap, a reflection of the space landscape and multilateral agency-level dialog over the last four years, allows NASA to demonstrate its commitment to leading a long-term space exploration endeavor that delivers benefits, maintains strategic human spaceflight capabilities and expands human presence in space, with human missions to the surface of Mars as a driving goal. The road mapping process has clearly demonstrated the complementary interests of the participants and the potential benefits that can be gained through cooperation among nations to achieve a common goal. The present US human spaceflight policy is examined and it is shown that the establishment of a sustainable global space exploration strategy is fully consistent with that policy.
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| 8 |
ID:
136885
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper examines the age old question of the basis of moral value in the new context of astrobiology, which offers a fresh perspective. The goal is to offer the broad outline of a general theory of moral value that can accommodate the diversity of living entities we are likely to encounter beyond the confines of Earth. It begins with ratiocentrism, the view that the possession of reason is the primary means by which we differentiate entities having moral value in and of themselves from those having moral value merely by virtue of the uses to which they can be put. I broaden this basis to include sociality and culture, arguing that these three attributes tend evolve as a “package deal.” Because of this, it's really the sociality-reason-culture triad (SRCT) which should be the criterion for intrinsic moral value. If the SRCT linkage is sufficiently strong, it follows that this sort of moral valuation would be shared by any non-human entities capable of reflection on the nature of such things, granting it a curious kind of objectivity. I then suggest that the unfolding of complexity produced by SRCT species may be the best means to realize the manifest destiny (manifest complexity) of all life, which could provide an ultimate, metaphysical foundation for ethical value. Finally, I outline how this new theory can be applied to different types of entities that we may encounter beyond Earth.
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| 9 |
ID:
134919
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| Summary/Abstract |
Astronomers can map the sky in many ways: observing in different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, obtaining spectra of stars and galaxies to determine their physical properties and distances, and repeatedly observing to measure the variability, explosions, and motions of celestial objects. In this review I describe recent surveys of the sky astronomers have carried out, focusing on those in the visible part of the spectrum. I describe in detail the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, an ongoing imaging and spectroscopic survey of over one quarter of the celestial sphere. I also discuss some of the major surveys planned for the next decade, using telescopes both on the ground and in space.
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| 10 |
ID:
134920
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| Summary/Abstract |
Quasars emit more energy than any other object in the universe, yet are not much bigger than our solar system. Quasars are powered by giant black holes of up to ten billion (1010) times the mass of the sun. Their enormous luminosities are the result of frictional forces acting upon matter as it spirals toward the black hole, heating the gas until it glows. We also believe that black holes of one million to ten billion solar masses – dead quasars – are present at the centers of most galaxies, including our own. The mass of the central black hole appears to be closely related to other properties of its host galaxy, such as the total mass in stars, but the origin of this relation and the role that black holes play in the formation of galaxies are still mysteries.
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| 11 |
ID:
136527
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| Summary/Abstract |
Six years ago, during testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science, Space and Technology, I announced the establishment of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Center for Science Diplomacy, guided by “the over-arching goal of using science and scientific cooperation to promote international understanding and prosperity.” One of its primary objectives is to bring attention to the central role of science in the conduct of foreign policy; this journal, Science & Diplomacy, is one such example. But while the term “science diplomacy” has become more and more en vogue in recent years, its long-term sustainability as a movement will require greater recognition of the value and benefits to the science community in engaging more energetically with the foreign policy community.
My own experiences from almost four decades in science policy have been marked by both the changing nature of the international science enterprise and the importance of science to addressing the major societal challenges of the global community—both the increased internationalization of science and the critical importance of science and scientists in the global policy arena. Virtually every international policy issue has a science, health, technology, or environmental component. As a result, over the past decades we have witnessed an increasing role of scientists within the global policy making community. One need only look towards the recent policy discussions around Ebola and climate change to see how important science and scientists are to discussions and solutions. At the same time, more and more policy makers around the world are looking to science and technology INVESTMENTS and cooperation as ways to jump start their underperforming economies, solve other local problems, and improve the health and welfare of their people. New products come from new discoveries, and more and more of these discoveries are being built on a platform of global science cooperation.
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| 12 |
ID:
135160
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| Summary/Abstract |
It is a truism that every person in every organization ever created uses history to make decisions on a daily basis. This is essentially accomplished through the use of analogy, suggesting that some issue under current scrutiny is like, may be compared to, or otherwise is related to some historical example. Understanding what happened in those past, analogous instances therefore serves a valuable purpose in considering what to do in the present. The difficulties of analogs, however, are that they are routinely poorly applied to considerations of policies, priorities, and decision making which might effectively be informed by careful analog studies. Unfortunately, most uses of historical understanding are implicit, relying on personal anecdotes and employing faulty logic in the comparison. We have certainly seen this in the context of issues concerning the exploration of the space frontier since virtually the beginning of the space age. These range from analogs comparing modern cruise ship vacations and future space tourism to using the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union of the 1960s as an analog to predict a similar space race between the United States and China.
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| 13 |
ID:
136884
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| Summary/Abstract |
I argue that the moral justification for space science is more compelling than the moral justification for space development. Thus, we ought to reemphasize the status of science as a major stakeholder in space, especially when entertaining policies which might encourage the kinds of space development activities (e.g. resource exploitation) that are liable to conflict with the scientific uses of space.
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| 14 |
ID:
135161
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article describes the manner in which advocates of mountain climbing in the Himalayas used commercialization to expand the number of persons engaged in the activity, to cut cost, and to reduce risk. To the extent that climbing into the “death zone” of mountains, like Mount Everest, constitutes an analogy to space exploration, the article suggests that advocates of spaceflight travel may be poised at the end of an expeditionary period similar to the one that afflicted mountain climbers before they made the transition to the commercial era.
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| 15 |
ID:
135628
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| Summary/Abstract |
In a triumph for India’s scientific community last month, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Mars Orbiter spacecraft was successfully put into orbit around the Red planet. India’s success in getting a spacecraft to successfully orbit Mars in its maiden effort, makes it the first country in the world to achieve this distinction. ISRO has become the first space organisation in Asia and only the fourth in the world to have successfully inserted a spacecraft into Mars orbit.
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| 16 |
ID:
135351
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| Summary/Abstract |
South Africa has made significant advances in attempting to organise and formalise its space sector with the prime focus of leveraging the benefits of space science and technology for socio-economic growth and sustainable development. A particular instrument in this regard is the National Space Policy, which provides for a set of strategic objectives and guiding principles in terms of how stakeholders, both state and non-state actors, should organise and conduct themselves within the framework of a national space programme. The National Space Policy aims to improve the level of co-ordination and co-operative governance in the space sector that in the past has been fragmented and disorganised, and to further develop a domestic space industrial base. The foundation for a sustainable national space programme hinges critically on the participation of the domestic industry in the national space agenda and thereto the creation of a supportive regulatory environment is necessary. This paper provides insight into the main tenets of South Africa’s National Space Policy with the aim of highlighting the key policy directives.
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| 17 |
ID:
135159
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| Summary/Abstract |
This report surveys the principal space events of 2013 and analyzes the central trends that can be discerned in government space activities in nations around the world. The article refers to cooperation between countries, to trends in space security, and reviews the space policies and activities of the leading nations as well as emerging ones. The proportion of government funds has declined in recent years; at the same time, space is one of the fields in which commercial endeavors are closely tied with government activities, and is strongly affected by the dynamics and politics between nations. The international community is struggling over the nature of activities in space, world leadership, and what should be permitted and what should be prohibited. Alongside this struggle for control and influence, many nations have come to understand that challenges and threats exist which require cooperation to address adequately. The concern is that, in the absence of appropriate action, use of space will be denied to all. The principal challenge facing the international community is to find a way to surmount obstacles to cooperation. Accordingly, follow-up and analysis of the interests, goals, and conflicts between the nations that are formulating the priorities and making the decisions about space are essential for understanding the direction in which developments in space are headed. They are also indispensable in creating a sustainable space industry.
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| 18 |
ID:
136881
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| Summary/Abstract |
The external and internal environments of NASA have been shifting, necessitating new approaches to problem solving and innovation. Based on a strategic alignment analysis, and an understanding of NASA's internal and external contexts, we have two modest proposals: First, give NASA flexibility to manage its human resources and infrastructure based on market-based, competitive, performance-oriented principles. Second, it is time for NASA to become a real network organization. One that is properly integrated both internally (across NASA centers) as well as externally with whatever organizations have superior space-related knowledge and technology, wherever they are.
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| 19 |
ID:
135162
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| Summary/Abstract |
The popularization of the science of space exploration in America after World War II has its roots in the nineteenth century. Mid-twentieth-century calls to “conquer” space were reanimations of nineteenth-century exhortations to “conquer” the American West in the name of God and to fulfill America’s manifest destiny. Magazine articles, television specials, and films such as Destination Moon (1950) explicitly connected the ephemeral space frontier to the historical Western frontier. In each medium, “space proselytizers,” like artist Chesley Bonestell, engineer Wernher von Braun, and writer Willy Ley, made clear connections between the American frontiersman of the previous century and the twentieth century’s space pioneer. This link is especially apparent in a series of articles on the emerging science of space exploration that ran in Collier’s magazine from 1952 until 1954. Space is viewed as “our new frontier,” and is championed through Bonestell’s paintings and von Braun’s invocation of the material frontier. Von Braun even closes his article by explaining that Americans are ready for a journey to “man’s oldest and last frontier: the heavens themselves.” Thus, the science of space exploration—in the Collier’s articles and elsewhere—was carefully framed as an endeavor analogous to the conquering of the American West. By situating space as humankind’s “last frontier,” the effort required to build a space program could become a moral endeavor and the fulfillment of America’s new manifest destiny.
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