Talk and Action

On the Space Generation Talk mailing list, there's an interview with an SGAC member, Iole-Michela De Angelis, and the concluding Q&A echoes a persistent problem in space activism:

What question would you like to ask other SGAC people?

Why do we spend so much time talking instead of doing things?

This message came hot on the heels of calls for more information about internships ("Give us something to do!"), and a forwarded plea for work leads from Robert Goehlich, who would seem to be as employable as any young person in alt.space. Before that, there was a debate over space property rights and global equity for lunar resources that included Michael Mealing, who started RocketForge with the idea that open source processes might be applied to the problem of cheap access to space. An early conclusion of the discussion of the raison d'etre for that site was that doing open source for hardware was harder, because hardware is harder. (And rocket science involves some pretty hard hardware.) I note that RocketForge seems increasingly concerned with a futuristic horizon that many erstwhile space activists have drifted into discussion about: the Singularity, the coming of super-intelligent AI. Which at this point, like cheap access to space, is mainly just talk.

Why is there so little to do except talk? I'm reminded of a gritty reality: nothing happens until you make a sale. Before that, the best you can do is build something you hope you can sell.

SGAC is about youth input to UN space policy. Which is to say, all it has for sale to its "client" is talk -- and talk that's about what to talk about at the UN. The only forms of payment are (1) the satisfaction of being listened to, and (2) the satisfaction of seeing the UN adopt SGAC recommendations. The SGAC "sells" to members the promise of becoming influential. But if its influence only on how others talk, its ultimately not fruitful influence.

Within its limits (and while trying to push those limits), I think the SGAC should focus as much as possible on what benefits of space could be sold directly to the citizens of the UN member states. That's the UN's ultimate constituency, and thus SGAC's as well. Those benefits should be as visible and tangible as possible.

It's not an easy problem to address, I'll admit. As one wag had it, "If God had intended us to go into space, he would have given us more money." And a great many of the UN member states are poor, so the question of what to sell into a market with little purchasing power only makes the question more difficult. But there is hope.

We want space to be important. We want to be important in developing it. We want the benefits to be felt widely -- globally, in fact. The challenge is to make more of the people of this world feel like they can be an important part of developing space. Anything else will mean either losing people's attention, or never getting it in the first place.

It's nice to be listened to, but actions speak louder than words, and effective action commands more respect. Let me rephrase the problem in more concrete terms: what would you take into a developing-world town that would (1) make the benefits of space tangible and visible for the residents, and (2) offer them the opportunity to contribute actively themselves to bringing the benefits of space closer?