The Long Space Age

by Alexander MacDonald

  Many historical treatments of space history have touched only incidentally on cost, but this book makes use of a quantitative estimate of space exploration expenditures over time. One constraining factor has been the limitations of the data. To conduct my analysis, I have created a new time-series of expenditures for early American astronomical observatories and for the total funds raised by Robert Goddard. Conversion of these data into 2015 gross domestic product (GDP)–ratio equivalent values and 2015 production worker compensation (PWC)–ratio equivalent values allows for comparison with modern-day space exploration efforts, in terms of their share of total American economic activities and the relative cost of their principal input—skilled labor. The results demonstrate that space exploration has mobilized major societal resource commitments in America not for decades but for centuries; that private funding has been a principal driver for the sector; and that funding for space exploration projects equivalent in cost to that of small unmanned spacecraft has been relatively common throughout the Long Space Age.

  If data driven, many of this book’s arguments also have conceptual roots, aimed specifically at evaluating the underlying motivations that have driven the pursuit of and allocation of resources for space exploration over the period of the Long Space Age. Particularly, I focus on two concepts: “signaling” and “intrinsic motivation.” In economic terms, these can be seen as representing, respectively, elements of the demand and the supply sides of space exploration.

  The signaling value of exploration, including space exploration, has deep roots in human evolution, biology, psychology, and culture. Signaling theory also developed independently in the field of evolutionary biology. In the natural world, spectacular plumage, antlers, and other energy-expensive displays have been evolutionarily selected as “signals” of health and good genetics.3 Less healthy individuals do not have the extra resources to devote to these nonessentials. Similarly, since genuine exploration is often a risky endeavor, the willingness to engage in it, and the capability to survive it, may serve a role in credibly conveying information about an individual or group’s health and resourcefulness.

  Thorstein Veblen extended signaling theory to the social phenomenon of “conspicuous consumption.” The consumption of leisure, and later the consumption of costly goods, become common measures of worth and proxy signals for social capability more generally.4 As individuals compete in ever-larger social spheres, “the means of communication and the mobility of the population now expose the individual to the observations of many persons who have no other means of judging his reputability than the display of goods.”5 Conspicuous, as in highly visible, consumption therefore becomes the way in which individuals announce their wealth and their social status to the world. As a highly visible, expensive luxury activity, space exploration can be understood as a form of conspicuous consumption—for nation states as well as for individuals—not simply because it lends a nebulous sense of prestige or pride, but because it fulfills a communication function with regard to status and capability. This notion of the credible transmission of information from one party to another through costly action is the essence of signaling.

  The modern economic conception of signaling dates to the development of the economics of information in the 1970s, and it emphasized the role of signals to overcome problems of asymmetric information—a characteristic of signaling theory that is particularly important when considering the Cold War context of the Apollo program. Signals are defined in this literature as actions in which agents can choose to invest—with time, money, or other resources—in order to differentiate themselves from others. As expensive investments that result in strong reputational differentiation, space exploration activities are classic signals.

  The concept of signaling is a useful tool for analyzing historical resource-allocation decisions related to space exploration. Space exploration projects are certainly costly enough to send a powerful signal. Indeed, they are good matches for Avner Offer’s definition of a good signal—they are “difficult to make and difficult to fake.” 6 The signaling value of space exploration projects has been a major determinant of funding decisions by national governments, institutions, and individual sponsors of space-related activity—from individual astronomical observatories to multinational space station platforms. Moreover, the signaling value of space endeavors is not merely supplemental but can often outweigh all other considerations, including those related to the advancement of science or military potential. Signaling motivations can be seen across a wide spectrum and a long time frame of space history, and they reached their peak in the Cold War space race when the signal was at its most costly, the stakes involved were at their highest, and when information asymmetries meant that space-related signals had particularly high political value.

  Thus, in addition to articulating a specific, robust source of value for space exploration, the application of a signaling framework also helps to highlight the uniqueness of the Cold War circumstances that led to the space race; as spaceflight’s signaling value has decreased with its relative cost and with the rise of the information age, its political relevance has diminished as well. Within this framework, the Apollo program stands out as something of an anomaly—a product of a short-term confluence of events that made it extraordinarily valuable at a geopolitical level—and thus a poor model for considering how further explorations can be conducted on a more regular and sustainable basis. The strength of its signal, however, has resulted in the story of the Apollo program continuing to shape and misshape public perceptions and American space policy for decades—long after the underlying conditions that produced that signal have changed. Signaling theory thus presents a useful tool not only for analyzing the history of space exploration expenditures and its motivational drivers but also for understanding the source of—and problems with—some of the dominant cognitive biases of the post-Apollo American space policy community.

  Although an important factor, understanding the driving role of the signaling value of space exploration is thus not sufficient for understanding space exploration’s long-run historical evolution, nor for considering its potential future paths. We also need to marry the influence and importance of the signaling motivations for space exploration that often drive expenditures, with the intrinsic motivations for space exploration that often drive individuals to conceptualize and pursue space exploration projects in the first place.

  In its simplest formulation, “intrinsic motivation” has been defined as what people will do without external inducement.7 It refers to behavior driven by internal interest and enjoyment that is sustainable without regard to external incentive or reward. Abraham Maslow’s 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” and his 1954 book Motivation and Personality discussed human motivations in a framework that ran from satisfying the basic needs that people had—such as for food, safety, or love—through to the self-actualization of the individual, which he described as an impulse to be true to one’s own nature.8 It is at this level that intrinsic motivation comes into play as a driver based on an underlying need for fulfillment independent of other needs. Maslow studied virtuosos and exemplary individuals in history and concluded that some individuals were driven by a metamotivation that spurred them onward in a quest of constant improvement defined in relation to their specific underlying interests.

  While seeking to avoid the “personality” trap that has swallowed up some historians of American space exploration, this book places the concept of intrinsic motivation at the core of an economic analysis. The journey into space has been a journey of self-actualization for the individuals involved—some would argue for humankind as a whole—and one in which motivations have often been divorced from immediate pecuniary returns. This journey has been driven by individuals following their intrinsic motivations and interests, devoting immense effort without regard to personal reward, and reveling in the sense of adventure and challenge. The Nobel Prize–winning chemist Harold Urey provided a charming descriptio
n in 1963:

  Some 5 or 6 years ago I was interviewed by a reporter for one of the newspapers in Chicago in regard to the proposals that were being made at the time to explore space and especially to land a man on the moon. My interview was an exceedingly discouraging one because I was not at all enthusiastic about the plans. I felt that the expense of the program would be all out of proportion to the scientific knowledge to be gained. The next morning I called up the reporter and asked that the interview not be published—in fact, that it be destroyed. The reason for the change in point of view was that overnight it had occurred to me that when men are able to do a striking bit of discovery, such as going above the atmosphere of the Earth and on to the Moon, men somewhere would do this regardless of whether I thought that it was a sensible idea or not. All of history shows that men have this characteristic.9

  Urey is invoking a fundamental element of the socioeconomic processes underlying space exploration. There is an intrinsic human interest in exploration, and, if it is possible to explore space, then some individuals will choose to do so. Related intrinsic interests—such as the pursuit of scientific and engineering challenges, the pursuit of a multiplanetary future for humanity, or the simple pursuit of personal adventure in space—factor into the development of space exploration in a similar manner. Those individuals—and most specifically the exemplary virtuosos—that choose to dedicate their efforts to the exploration of space, regardless of remuneration, are thus a leading input of the production function of spaceflight.

  Urey’s pithy anecdote leaves out an important factor, however—that there must be two sides to the economic equation if the expensive instruments of space exploration are to be produced. The intrinsic interests of individuals must be matched by a perception that the activity is worthy of resource allocation. Parties entering into an economic exchange around space exploration can share the same intrinsic motivations, or they can differ substantially, but there must be commitment on both the supply and demand side. As indicated earlier, often it is the demand for monuments and signaling that has provided the resources to those intrinsically motivated by space exploration to fulfill their ambitions. Sometimes, however, resources are allocated to a space exploration project by an intrinsically motivated patron. At other times, an individual self-supplies the funding for his or her own space exploration projects—making it particularly difficult to differentiate the extent to which this decision was intrinsically motivated and the extent to which it was driven by a desire to signal. This complex decision-making interplay of intrinsic motivations and signaling is at the core of what we are setting out to examine in a wide-ranging set of astronomical observatories and spaceflight technology development programs.

  As we examine the motivations for and the circumstances of decision-making on American space exploration projects, there is one element of those circumstances that will be repeatedly noted and discussed at length: the source of funding. This investigation categorizes projects and programs into one of two principal sources of funding: public sources, allocated according to the public good (as determined, in this case, by the American political system) and provided by taxation; and private sources, allocated according to the interests and desires of the individuals providing the resources.

  Why is the determination of whether a project was publicly funded or privately funded so important? Why categorize in terms of public or private, rather than in terms of governmental or commercial funding, or another set of characteristics? Although we have not seen a shift in the motivations for space exploration over the past two hundred years, we have seen such a shift in the dominant source of funding for American space exploration over that period. Measuring, analyzing, and articulating that shift are primary objectives of this book. Investigating the funding of past space exploration raises important social, ethical, and political questions, not all of which we can investigate here. Instead, my hope is that this analysis will give readers a better understanding of how the current “privatization of spaceflight” fits into a much longer history. Perhaps more importantly it will also allow readers to consider how the long-run forces described might drive the next great explorations of the heavens.

  1

  PIETY, PIONEERS, AND PATRIOTS: THE FIRST AMERICAN OBSERVATORIES

  Each expedition into remoter space has made new discoveries and brought back permanent additions to our knowledge of the heavens. The latest explorers have worked beyond the boundaries of the Milky Way in the realm of spiral “island universes,” the first of which lies a million light-years from the earth while the farthest is immeasurably remote.

  —George Ellery Hale, “The Possibilities of Large Telescopes,” 1928

  Long before rockets allowed us to explore the solar system, humans explored space through another expensive technology—large telescopes. The American astronomical observatories of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were projects of considerable complexity. From these institutions, astronomers would embark on their “exploration of the heavens,” as their activities were regularly referred to, and convey their findings to a public eager for new discoveries. Early American observatories employed new technologies—requiring expensive imports and engineering contracts—and mobilized significant capital expenditures. Observatories also often grew to possess a political and cultural importance that outweighed their scientific significance, becoming objects of community pride and signals of national development. And yet despite all this—and the striking similarities of these projects to modern missions of space exploration—the economic history of American astronomical observatories has not been integrated into the broader narrative of American space history.

  Telescopes and robotic probes launched by rockets are very different technologies. In one respect, however, they are very similar: the experience of the human observer, whether using a telescope or spacecraft to explore space, is fundamentally the same—that of using technology to extend vision into space. By using a consistent metric to compare the cost of that technology, whether spacecraft or telescope, we can examine the funding in America for the exploration of the heavens as a continuum from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day and identify long-run trends.

  There are a number of metrics that could be used to compare historical costs and convert them into present-day equivalent values.1 The most commonly used method is adjustment for inflation using a consumer price index. This method calculates current equivalent values of historical costs in terms of the change in the price of an index of basic consumer goods, like bread and clothing, over the intervening time. Although this is a useful metric for evaluating the equivalent buying power of historical values in terms of basic consumer goods, it is not a very useful metric for evaluating the economic significance of large capital expenditures within the context of the overall economy. This metric has been the dominant method of conversion in the history of astronomy literature, with the result that the modern equivalent costs that have been suggested in the historiography have often been significantly understated.2

  There are ways of converting historical observatory expenditures into modern contexts that are more meaningful—a conversion in terms of the cost of production worker compensation (PWC) for a given project, and in terms of the ratio of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the American economy that a project represented. The appropriateness of the metric is determined by the question that is being asked. If we are interested in how much it would cost to build the same observatory today, then we should adjust the expenditure in terms of the principal cost of production—the labor costs of the manufacturing production workers who built the observatory. An expenditure amount adjusted by the change in production worker compensation over the intervening time—the PWC metric—is a useful measure for comparing the overall complexity of the project in modern terms, as the principal cost of a modern project of space exploration is also the labor cost of its manufacturing production workers. Alternately, if we are interested in the share of total economic
resources that a given project represents, we need to examine the project expenditure relative to the size of the U.S. economy as a whole. To do this, we take the expenditure of a given project and divide it by the estimated GDP of the U.S. economy for the year the funds were committed. To convert this ratio into an equivalent present-day value for that project, the percentage is multiplied by the current GDP. The result is the equivalent GDP-ratio value of the project expenditures. If we are interested in how the American economy has allocated its resources toward the exploration of the heavens over time, this is the appropriate metric to examine. It tells us, for any historical value, how much one would need today to undertake a project that would be equivalent in its share of the resources of the American economy to what the historical project represented in its day.

  The observatories examined in this chapter are listed in table 1.1, along with their costs and calculated equivalent PWC- and GDP-ratio values.3 The sources for the GDP data are from Johnston and Williamson, and the sources for the production-worker-compensation data are from Officer.4 The list only includes those observatories for which relatively robust estimates of total expenditure can be determined, which leaves out a handful of the observatories discussed below—most notably, the observatories of the University of Alabama, the University of Mississippi, the Lowe Observatory, and the observatories of Rutherford, Draper, and Lowell. Plots of the equivalent PWC- and GDP-ratio adjusted equivalent values for the different observatories over time can be seen in figures 1.1 and 1.2, while histograms of decadal expenditures using the same metrics can be seen in figures 1.3 and 1.4. Summary statistics are in table 1.2.

  Examining the 2015 GDP-ratio equivalent values of early American observatories makes it clear that projects aimed at the exploration of the heavens have involved economically significant levels of American resources for over 150 years. Projects equivalent to $100 million to $1 billion were relatively common (see figure 1.1). Many of the observatories are of an equivalent relative magnitude to major modern ground-based observatories, such as the Gemini Observatories, the Grand Canary Telescope, and the two Keck Telescopes, or to early NASA Discovery–class robotic interplanetary missions (all approximately $200 million–$250 million).5 The sum total of the expenditures made on American astronomical observatories in the data set is nearly $10 billion in 2015 GDP-ratio equivalent terms. For ease of reading, henceforth 2015 GDP- and PWC-ratio equivalent terms will be shortened to GDP-ratio terms and PWC-ratio terms accordingly.